I was thinking of the entire civilian job positions and this also came to mind; "Does the Federation contract with Civilian Contractors to provide basic and even military jobs such as "Security Personnel guarding VIP's. When you look at the number of Starfleet security personnel, not too many are shown outside of the fleet, so I was wondering if the Red Shirts assigned to a Starship aren't really red shiirted Private Military Contractors, hired to provide the bulk of security officers on a starship? Or act as troops according to Federation Policy. Remember "Blackwater"??? they were hired by the US Government to do the things that the military was supposed to do, but with a smaller military and in this case a smaller Federation Naval Fleet, maybe the idea of the red shirts are well trained Red shirts, who just happen to buy the 'farm' in every episode of TOS...