160k is actually on the high end for PSD work now, with the contractor total staff numbers in Iraq/Afghanistan down to maybe 5-10% of what they were during the peak around 2007-2009. There are A LOT of guys out there who have 1, 2 or 3 years of experience doing something PSD related during the peak contractor-staff periods of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, who are back in the US doing very normal things right now.

The salaries they're paying for US Citizen guards at the US Embassy in Kabul are around $90k at present. There's a sufficient number of people who really need the money that they can recruit and fill positions at that figure.

Back when I got out in 07 that was about the going rate, give or take 40k and this is HN, I try not to use acronym bingo on audiences that might not know it. (and not all mercs are on PSD, a subset of the many different functions of a PMC)

> No one calls them mercenaries

The PMCs don't call themselves mercenaries. Everyone else does, though. And it's accurate:

’from Latin mercēnārius (“hired for money")’

> No one calls them mercenaries

They are, though.