Where'd you get 25K?

I did similar work out there in 2006 (I was at Abu Ghraib) in a similar role, and I didn't make 25K a month.

I made four, with no OT, and I got a pretty nice contract-ending bonus. For the record, I considered $4K a month to be an impressive salary for someone my age... I was 19.

When I was out there, we had to wear our body-armour at all times, except when in the DEFAC (cafeteria), or asleep.

The note that they only have to wear it in transit makes me think that he's at Camp Victory aka "Camp Cupcake". Or, for the uninitiated, where Saddam used to live. It's probably (a lot) nicer than your hometown.

If it's honestly 25K, the dude must be Cheney's nephew, or that figure is in Rupees. Or I want to go back more than I thought I did.

And (from what I understand) most of the mercenaries get paid (relatively) shit money, because they're wackos from shit countries. Sure, there are some Blackwater execs, and ex-SEALs that make nice money, but most of them are there because they need somebody who's willing to be shot at, and whose almost inevitable death won't contribute much to what's already a shitstorm on the home front.

300k sounds a little high to me. I've read reports of mercenaries in Iraq earning around 250k - 300k in a year (and being happy to do so).

You'd have to expect that a guy whose job is to take a bullet for some foreign dignitary would get paid better than some guy who sits in a bunker and taps on a keyboard.

I'm just going by stuff I've read though, nothing really concrete.

EDIT: for the record, I found the 25K a month figure by googling iraq sysadmin salary. (link: http://www.alliraqjobs.com/job-9377.html)

It sounded a little crazy to me, too. But I know very little about this stuff and was taking a wild stab.

Salaries for government jobs: http://www.careers.state.gov/iraq-jobs/compensation.html

Where did you see the 25k / month figure? I'm intrigued...