The military’s current framework for compensating troops in combat is broken and needs to be radically overhauled, according to the newly released 11th Quadrennial Review of Military Compensation.

The report, required by law every four years, concluded that “there is little correlation between exposure to danger and compensation benefits.”

The thrust of the report affirms that while deploying to a combat zone can be generally lucrative in terms of compensation, greater danger doesn’t necessarily mean more money — in fact, far from it.

Take the example of a junior enlisted grunt deployed to Helmand province, Afghanistan. He’s living in a tent and getting shot at routinely, for which he gets a flat $225 per month in “hostile fire pay” and a “combat-zone tax exclusion” worth a few hundred dollars a month.

Meanwhile, a Navy O-6 assigned to Bahrain also gets a stipend, “imminent danger pay,” worth that same $225 a month. And his combat-zone tax exclusion will be worth well over $1,250 a month. Bahrain is technically part of a designated combat zone, but the Navy deems the risk to be so low that a sailor can relocate his family there, send his kids to local schools and go out drinking at local bars for happy hour.

Military data show that junior enlisted troops are far more likely to suffer serious or fatal combat injuries than troops at other paygrades. Troops at the E-3 level are roughly twice as likely to be a combat casualty, compared with an E-5 or a first-year commissioned officer, data show.