Good to know before the Swiss became entirely neutral to all conflict, they were still entirely neutral - just donated their armies to whoever paid the most.
Isshh. They started, if I remember right, to REALLY cut down on the number of peoples that they sent to war, mostly because after a series of bloody battle they almost found themselves with a decimated male population. It kinda changes following the flow of history, but as a rule the Swiss take their neutrality VERY seriously. If you go as a merch, you're going yourself, and you can lose your citizenship for that ( It happened when during the WWII if I remember right. Some Swiss had a dual citizenship, so they decided to go and serve in the Wermacht. That was considered illegal ). As of now, only the Swiss Guard in service to the Papacy is "active" as a unit. Anyone else has always being considered strictly private individuals going on their own, and as of a ruling of the 1874 you cannot be recruited by a foreing state.
I think they made being a mercenary illegal, because there were battles between foreign countries where swiss people fought against swiss people. And so to stay neutral and avoid that brothers fight on opposite sides of wars, they just banned it.
@@Jonathan-sc8fq They'll side with anyone - just who pays the most. Seems pretty neutral to me. Esp if they end up getting into a financial race buying each other out
@@Jonathan-sc8fq that‘s the definition of neutral. You don‘t prefer anybody, and treat all parties equally. Its not pacifist, but it most definitely is neutral.
Instructions very clear; started a PMC after being betrayed by my country, bought an oil rig in the Seychelles, developed the most advanced weapons system in the world, lost it all because of a crybaby with robot legs, got cloned without my permission, started a new PMC, got that destroyed by one of my clones, and now two of my clone sons are fighting over my shriveled corpse which is actually my third clone but one of the clones is just an arm and they're old men and *A HIDEO KOJIMA GAME*
Important to note that the overwhelming majority of contractors are support personnel like flight instructors, mechanics, etc. The military runs on contractors.
Its pretty efficient too. Contract work in the US, even for the private sector, is getting MASSIVE. My dads in software, and doesnt even have a permanent normal job. Hes a contractor and earns like $75 an hour through it. I assume the same goes for the military. PMC's aint bad though. I remember when they rescued a few village members from islamic radicals, even though they werent paid to do it. They were originally hired to guard a french oil refinery somewhere in Africa, and basically helped airlift villagers to safety purely out of samiratan work. Only reason PMCs are villanized, is because of morons in journalism who know nothing about the modern corporate world imo.
@Honk Honk well thats part of the convenience of them, the nation cares very little of they die and you can cast them as villains or throw them under the bus as necessary because they serve your colors, but don't wear them.
@@honkhonk8009 It’s kinda sad. They all put the blame that PMC’s are villains. But, that’s the job that PMC has to go through since they aren’t legally protected from moral liability due to the questionable protection given from Geneva Conventions. Just like everyone else, it all depends on whether their good or not. But that depends on what the media wants us to see. Perhaps, disguising myself in contract jobs especially in war will be necessary… if I don’t want to get stoned at. (But, yeah. I really need money not because I want it. But if I can save human lives then I don’t mind doing that either since we’re all humans).
@@honkhonk8009Ther are two sides of merceneries. They can be pretty can save vilage, but they can also be the one rsiding that vilage, it all depends by the group.
It’s really easy to get recruited, just pray the boss isn’t trying to recruit you during a sandstorm… it’s a coin flip if they’re able to find your Fulton in the chaos.
Honestly a soul is not worth that much since people find it so easy to take them and for $250,000 hell I would annihilate a city for that if it meant making my life a little easier.
@@christophermarkee5445 I don’t believe you would, otherwise you would already be working some big job or company that gets you that much every year through hard work. Or you’re the lazy type.
Part of the problem is that dignity doesn't have a calorie count and bills need paid, and precious few jobs have civilian equivalent training of any kind that'd be accepted. You can be high and mighty where you are, but a depressingly large number of people are having to choose between being a merc and being homeless because Uncle Sam don't give a fuck after EAS.
@@popopop984 nope not lazy just don't mind doing what it takes for personal interest since no one else will look out for mine $250,000 personal comfort and enrichment is worth my soul for what time I have on Earth.
as someone who was active duty, i heard about merc work and saw the pay. then I remember that you aren't protected at all by what the US armed forced does for you.
@@leichtgesalzener-kabeljaurogge Healthcare, job security, a secure way of making sure your money is sent to your next-of-kin if you die, education for you and your family, etc. Being a mercenary means you're on your own when it comes to protecting yourself.
@@devonmolina5200 You're compensated for that tho. I'd imagine the private sector would be willing to cover health and life insurance. As for education...A fat pay-cheque helps with that as well. And let's not act like working for the military makes you a saint either.
@@leichtgesalzener-kabeljaurogge mercenaries work (depending on company) can just throw you into the worst scenarios and let you die. The military has more resources like para-rescue. As not sure how protected you are in the case of war crimes.
@@devonmolina5200 Not to mention the backing and support of the US armed forces. You ain't getting shit like Air, Artillery, Naval, or Armored Support from the US unless your bosses worked it out before hand.
My father used to work as a contractor. He described it in his own words: “Most of the time it was the most boring shit ever. Climb to 20,000 meters, and watch a tiny village. 1:24AM: terrorist walks out of building to piss. 1:25AM: terrorist walks back inside building. Imagine that, but every night for 2 months straight.” Edit: To clear it up. He was a contracted pilot, not a contracted soldier. 20,000 (or 20.000) meters is accurate. He flew during operation inherent resolve with the US Air Force as a contracted pilot
Most other jobs I can land will probably be even more boring but with the added bonus of not getting paid as much and doing it every night until I'm 75.
@@HailAzathoth Or it's 20.000 metres, depends on how you measure 20m. (in my countries we use a "," to seperate decimals, and "." to separate ×1000 factors)
I haven't watched it yet but if this is about what I think then I have a related story. I overheard someone share how his buddy was in... I think it was something along the royal guard or some insanely wleite force. Anyways his buddy had been in a warzone and was out on a mission with some mercenaries for some reason. He asked them about pay and they got like 5-10 times as much despite having no experience what so ever
It's always been more lucrative, no one is going to pay you to fight for your country, they will only keep you alive outside of combat. Mercenaries are a needed boost to what you don't already have in human resources. Human resources are always one of the most expensive premiums to gain outside of standard influx, especially on demand. It's kinda uniquely self-fulfilling in terms of it's worth as a job. At least while we still think the best way to draw lines on maps is with bullets.
@@themanwithallthewrongopini3551 Travel across the world to go fight for France? France??? And they torture me too? No thanks. There is not a single benefit in that option for me personally.
A fun fact for the history segment: Hungarian king Hunyadi Mátyás (AKA Matthias Corvinus) actually had an army made up of mostly mercenaries instead of state troops
You do realize that its not only the military that does contract work right? Government agencies and private sector in general litterally run on contract work. My dads a contractor as a consultant for software engineering. Makes $75 an hour. idk much about the medicine industry, but I feel like theres alot of contracting work out there too. Even then though, since your college educated, you can prolly easily go into the military and skip alot of shit. I know alot of people with physics degrees and stuff instantly get into flight school to be a pilot for the air force, or to be some radar technician.
One major thing is pmc's being flexible due to the detachment from the birocracy of the chain of command. If something is needed to be done immideatly then instead of going trough the chain of command you can thell the pmc to do it.
Something to include when you state hos much US soldiers are payed. They are not paying for things the average person pays for. The military provides housing for them and their family, pays medical and dental bills, pays for food. And those are just the most important things. So if you calculate what the average American spends on those and then add that to the soldiers salary. That's their true pay.
@@williamchamberlain2263 Yep, some do, and there's the possibility you and your family gets other benefits depending on circumstances of your retirement or if you die during service. VA will cover education expenses for vets and if you get out with a 100% disability rating than dependents can also recieve a monthly stipend during any education after high-school. Some states even waive tuition and necessary fees for public colleges and universities. Only issue is that the actual VA circuits for assisting vets after service aren't great in many places and covid placed heavy strain on available resources for vets in regards to mental and physical treatment. Things the government can easily just pay for they'll do, but anything else is pretty lackluster unless you live in the right place.
Average discretionairy income in the US is $20,783 a year. Basically the same yeah. Surprisingly double that for officers and such. Deadass could pay off your mortgage in 12 years.
The thing is my friend, these are benefits that come with the job, eventually all these soldiers will retire, or leave. When they leave, they lose all those benefits and are only left with the time they spent solely honing their skills as soldiers and having to live with less money than if they worked a simpler job for the time they spent. Essentially, being a soldier lacks financial liquidity, and quitting is literally the opposite of "cashing in".
"I hate the anti-christ" "I hate the anti-christ" "I hate the anti-christ" ....one year later..... 250,000 a year? Sign me up for the anti-christs task Force!
Contracted for years. Never any “big name” PMC’s but I finally retired from Gladius International (formerly Leviathan Group) in January of 2021. Good money, better stories and never a dull moment. What a life. I genuinely enjoyed this video. Well, set aside that robot explaining everything.
Honestly, the only real difference is that you probably need past military experience to get into the private sector. Or be willing to pass their fitness test, and then learn how to operate systems. A vast majority of mercenary work isn't combat, it's patrols, and downtime. If you can make something out of nothing, then you'd be a great fit. Hell, there are also non-combat roles for mercenarys too if you don't want to shoot at people. Keep in mind you'll be working with people you don't know, and probably can't trust. It's why I don't want to become a merc despite all the benefits. If I can't trust my co-workers not to quit on me in a warzone, then I'm not doing it. The pay is great, but considering a majority of the time you won't be fighting. It won't exactly be what you signed up for. I've looked into that line of work, and honestly thinking about it I have no real issues with killing people for money as long as they aren't small children. Issue is, I can't fully trust my teammates.
@@tonyjones1560 Could always try and get into non-combat related roles. Granted, if you're experience in the military was strictly combat related such as infantry, you might be out of luck. However, going to school for logistics is never too late. They pay mad stacks of cash for logistics people..
Glad to see a channel taking as much interest in the mercenary profession as I do. There’s just something so interesting about mercenaries, individuals who are so badass in combat that people pay top dollar for their combat prowess.
9:38 it's actually amazing how much pain the Army can put you through while still leaving you out of shape. The advice mercenary's given me is to enlist as a combat medic. PMC's usually want SOF vets, but medical training will get you a job easy.
If from a less action oriented branch of the military, another option to make this amount is to join the UN and do security work. Lot less dangerous from military action perspective, but can be dangerously boring and likely engages you in tons of pointless paperwork…. As always, good content, cudos to the Swag team. I however would have really liked to have a mention of EO and Sandline included, as these were significant actors at their times Especially EO set an impressive point of what a well trained and organised unit could do for a government with a small number of personnel and essentially one impressive piece of hardware. Just saying…. That brings in the aspect that not only the Cold War (and the end of it) had significant influence on PMCs rising, but also the end of apartheid in SA.
My friend is PMC he was 11b in the army. He got a general discharge. He speaks Serbian, Russian, and English. He worked mostly in Ukraine training people since 2014. There are lots of PMC jobs for people who speak multiple languages fluently. Most of his coworkers are x special forces, but they only speak English. He was not special forces, but was chosen over other people because of his language skills. Also another acquaintance was a PMC but he was a construction worker in Iraq and never even touched a gun. They say green berets learn a language, but most of my buddies coworkers were green berets or navy seals but none of them know any other language but English.
Nothing you said about army pay was technically wrong but a little clarification from a former soldier. A private fresh from basic gets promoted 3 times in less than 2 years and makes quite a bit more than 20k with those automatic promotions to PV2 pfc and specialist. A decent soldier can become a sergeant in 4 years, some sooner, some later. Also by the time you are a sergeant you will be moving out of the barracks soon and getting a monthly living stipend called BAH that is calculated based on rank, registered dependents and location of your duty station. This money is tax free and can be quite substantial. Obviously contractors will make more, and no soldier is getting rich, but it’s still a good living and requires no prior experience. Not a recruiter, just doing my best to let young people see the benefits of military service since it gets a bad rap.
I'm a high schooler. I've thought about joining a couple times, but I probably won't. But I'd like to ask is it fun in the military? Also is it worth the time? What type of skills do you learn there?
@@merma9042 I joined the reserves when I was 18. It was perfect for me because I was ready to leave home but not quite mature enough to be an adult on my own yet. The reserves/national guard allow you to serve part time and go to school or otherwise live your life (look this up on your own to learn the details), but I did find that it got in the way of things I wanted to do sometimes. I deployed once in 2018 for 9 months and made a good amount of money that allowed me to graduate college debt free and with about 40k in the bank although I was 2-3 years later than my peers to do this. As for skills, it depends what job you do but basic army skills are: organization, fitness, the best firearms training in America, driving (sometimes big trucks a civilian would need a CDL for), work ethic and plenty more. I’d recommend it for someone who knows what they want to do in life but doesn’t have a detailed plan to get there. The army won’t fix a lazy fuckup but it will give confidence and direction to someone who grew up without lots of motivation or purpose. Oh and it certainly was fun, even when it sucks worse than anything you’d ever see on the civilian side, you have buddies who are right there with you dealing with the same thing. That builds lifetime bonds in very short time because of the intensity of the experience. Hope that answers your questions.
"Not a recruiter, just shilling away for my government to trap young men in a job where they get rewarded with a wooden box and a flag over it on their flight home!"
@@ourtube4266 Only way to make it worth the bs is to go airborne. After your first half-decade active or so everything besides jumping out of aircraft gets boring as hell.
just to give a reason why the pay difference is so high is because the military covers nearly everything else for you health care housing and other stuff but it’s still too high
To be absolutely fair, that $20k and $40k salary is actually really good. You get housing, food, recreation, and basically everything accounted for. You end up with $20k in discretionairy income every year. Thats only $700 below the national average in the US. $250k only sounds good because your basically going into the military, but with zero rights since your a mercenary, zero support infrastructure, and you gotta pay for alot of shit yourself
I have a first class honours in chemistry and I’m looking at this more realistically as a job opportunity I’d want to explore because of the pay check lol… i guess that’s saying… something… I guess
Anyone interested needs to understand that doing light PMC jobs like convoy security or fixed position work is ideal, but if things go south, you can be classified as a spy and executed in some area's
0:28 I'm dying of laughter when I easily realized that the videos in the background are the mission briefings from Modern Warfare Remastered (Crew Expendable, The Bog, The Coup)
Ive done PMC work after leaving the military. It's an extremely competitive job market. It took me several years after leaving the military advocating for myself, networking, contacting recruiters, building resumes, searching for contracts and getting turned down before I was offered a contract by Triple Canopy. Did 8 months in Afghanistan before I was injured 3 years later I'm still getting treatment. I'm a part of a group of contractors and from what I hear it's getting tougher to score contracts. On top of being former Special Operations and having combat deployments under your belt. You have to know the right people, maintain a security clearance from your time in service and compete with other special ops combat vets for the same position. If you have never served in combat arms and have no combat deployments you might as well play the lottery because you'll have a higher chance of winning that than getting a job contracting as a "mercenary"
how much u think ukrainian mercenaries, the "volunteers" are getting paid, considering it is literally ww2 over there, theyr not dealing with shepherds, i have heard estimates of 30k a month.
You were in regular job market between military and contract work? Did you get some insurance payout to help your rehabilitation or is the pay from 8 months covering it?
@@MindBlowerWTF I was, I worked shitty physical labor jobs on construction site, metal fabrication and factories before I got my first contract job. I filed a claim under the DBA (Defense Base Act) which is a category under federal workers compensation. It was a nightmare. I still haven't gotten my injury treated, but they decided to just give me $100k and tell me to deal with it myself. I'm currently getting ready for another contract job in Iraq.
I have my whole life's plan my friends dad who is a Black Water mercenary told me after I said I want to become Recon Marine he actually gave good advice he didn't say like "just train" he said get an engineering degree in College and he said before I even join the military I have to prepare for the regiment he said "Wake up at around 5:00 and take a run 1 mile at least" and he also said just be confident in yourself and believe you can make it. Life's Plan Join the Marines Get all the training for Recon Marine Become Recon Marine Leave at age 30 because it's been a wild ride Get a contract for Black Water Hopefully by then I will have kids and teach them how to fight and in case if my ass gets in trouble leave them some stuff (Few hundred dollars, Pistol, supplement backpack, Passports) Get out of Black Water and be with my family.
I went to college with a US army veteran who told me he wanted to work as a Private Military Contractor, but could not because he had a criminal record. I still feel bad listening to these things as serving in the marines is my failed childhood dream.
Yeah, just remember if you get caught in a different country as a merc you're treated as a war criminal or an outright criminal and the likeliness of you being thrown in jail for life or executed is near enough 100% guaranteed.
Instructions unclear, fought for a patch of gravel in the badlands for a dude in blue against a dude in red, now fighting robots made by a dude in gray
After getting out of the United States Army and serving as a military police officer, I highly consider doing this, and had many chances and opportunities. But I figured it was best to try to branch out and do something else, so that’s what I did found a new career path probably for the best to.
@@swindle6644 I met some nice and friendly Americans there a couple of years ago. One of them, Jack, became a good friend of mine. We used to do Nerf Battles at that place! Haven't seen him in a long time, since he had to move away 😢
Step one: Enlist in the military for 4 years. So imagine doing 4 years as a successful mercenary after. That means its definitely not 250k a year, thats 8 years, plus what you made in the military (90k-125k)+(250k X 4) = $1,000,000 + $120,000 = *************** $1,120,000 - taxes, equipment, misc... Not worth destroying your body (maybe into a pink mist) IMO, thats essentially just breaking into 6 figures when you look at 8 years. Plus I have never heard of a $250,000 contract at this level.
what a great video, I always wanted to become a mercenary, and got accepted to join one for example the Ukraine SSO Spetsnaz with an offer of $10,000cad before the recruiter got injured in the first war, and was accepted for work in Australia for a 1-year work permit in the army, I am Canadian with only air cadets background, but I demonstrated too much knowledge and spoken a lot of different language's. and explained I run a Militia of my own in case of a war, but now most of us have charges. but I'm still accepted in my CAF as a combat engineer officer. with a plan set for CBRN. :)
A significant portion of PMCs that contracted for the US govt were actually aussies and Brits. $250k a year or $1 mill for a three year contract in some cases is a sh!t load of money to someone who’s done the same job for years working for peanuts.
Such elegance, using Genshin Impact characters as an example for PMC, Subscribed! After watching this, I realized that Pest Control services are also PMC in Humanity's war against pest species.
