Former soldiers work as mercenaries with allied countries and private military groups. They can even be contracted by the United States for off-record work that they don’t want linked back to the US government. They get paid a shitload but don’t get the same support if the mission doesn’t go as planned. American veterans can only legally work for allied forces.

Nowadays multinational companies are the biggest contractor of private military forces. They hire soldiers to protect their business interests (oilfields, factories , etc) in contested areas. Humanitarians have been hiring private military groups also. There’s a group in Africa that uses former special ops guys to protect elephants from poachers.

I have a friend that does private military work in the Middle East and he makes a small fortune. Depends where he’s at but it’s usually in the $750-1500 per day range.