What are mercenaries hired for?

The reason why mercenaries are hired is to fight. A Mercenary is a hired professional who has been trained to fight for a state or nation without any political interest except for money. Mercenaries usually work for private military contractors (PMC); these companies recruit people who have military training and also those who have experience with weapons.

The bush administration ramped up the use of private military contractors during the Iraq invasion in 2003. In recent times, it is also heard that mercenary operative is also involved in Syria, Libya, Yemen, and Ukraine conflict.

There is a lot of risks involved when one is a mercenary, but people still go for it because of the large compensation attached to it when they are victorious. Lastly, mercenaries are not recognized as legal combatants, and they are not protected by any law as captured service personnel of the regular army.

Mercenaries have been illegal since 1989, but they have been embedded in history for years. The purpose of mercenaries was to have people come together and become soldiers to fight for a specific purpose. This could be to overthrow a ruler or a group or to just change laws. One of the most popular mercenary groups was the Ten Thousand. This group was comprised of mainly Greeks, and they came together to overthrow King Artaxerxes II. Another popular mercenary group is the White Company. They were comprised of mainly Italians, and they had thousands of members who engaged in many battles.

A mercenary is known to be a civilian that has been hired to do a specific task. Usually, it is to fight against another group even if they do not have a rift with that group. Their main goal is to earn a lot of money and mercenaries were paid a lot during that time. For instance, there are some mercenary groups that were formed in order to remove some people from their thrones. If they succeed, they would be paid handsomely for their efforts. There were a lot of risks involved but a lot of people still tried to become mercenaries because of the compensation that they will get if they are victorious.