You previously mentioned you are intelligent, well, it seems that may not be the case.
You are describing an army from a long time ago. Not the modern day army.
1. You knew a guy who couldn't spell nation, you can't spell piece, as in piece of paper. We will leave that one alone for now.
2. Cannot be classed as an army any more due to the size of it. Too small.
3. The army is far from being the 'dregs of society'. They are generally intelligent and brave people. Dregs of society are child molesters, murderers, theives, unintelligent people who think they know what they are talking about, but really don't, etc etc.
4. Mercenaries do not mind who they fight for, not just the money side of things. Our forces do not fight for the highest bidder. As you are probably well aware, that is not the case.
5. You are correct in your assumption that forces people wouldn't do it if they weren't being paid. But why does it have to be mentioned? It is irrelevant. Surely 99% of workers in this country are the same? I would assume, and feel free to correct me if I am wrong, but there are probably very few volunteers around these days. If they weren't paid to do it, then you may have had to do your stint too. And your (not just you) comments on the pay structure are not too bad a guess. However, you failed to talk about how much the majority of the army get paid. It is actually very competitive compared to civvy street. Probably a lot more than you realise. Feel free to ask me for some examples if you wish.
6. The Armed Forces don't take on anyone. That is far from the truth. Most parts of the forces are difficult to get into, and many fail. Hence the reasons that recruitment has fallen below par in recent years, and in some cases, standards have had to be dropped to meet demand.
Rant over. I don't confess to know everything, but do get annoyed when people like yourself, ill-informed in certain areas, feel they need to preach and tell the rest of us how it is.
There is a very good chance that I wouldn't feel confident enough to argue / discuss certain aspects of your professional expertise, so please do the same in future.