[Basenshukai]

I'm going to try and articulate this as diplomatically as possible because I have already had an experience with a thin-skinned senior NCO on this forum and I don't want to slight anyone that I share space with in this community. Plus, that is not my intention anyway.

Others have arrived at this same juncture on this very same thread already, so what I'm writing here is not earth shattering.

In the last three years I have received serious offers on the "outside" (civilian) world not having anything to do with security companies that deploy folks overseas. I have been offered yearly pay on the high side of $80K/year on two of them, and the last one was at six figures per year. I did not even spend ten seconds considering them. I enjoy my job too much.

HOWEVER, I do have a family.

Three years ago, as fate would have it, I missed death by merely 34 linear feet but lost four comrades in the same attack. I, along with three other QPs, and an FBI HRT agent along for the ride, picked up what was left of them while being in the middle of a 7 1/2 hour ordeal where we were denied MEDEVAC because the LZ was too hot (I don't blame them; it was). The next day, it was Valentine's Day back in CONUS; my wife did not hear from me for four days. But, other wives would never see their husbands alive again. By the way, when those men died, six children were made fatherless.

Chances are that I, like many others have done before me, will miss many one-time events in my children's lives because of my commitment to the teams. I have already sacrificed one marriage as a direct result of my personal lack of balance - at the time - between my desire to be the "first guy to volunteer" and to actually be present at home, even when I'm in CONUS (I've since fixed that deficiency).

In the time I was deployed, I saw four of our men die before me, and received the broken remains of an additional three in subsequent three months (I identified their bodies at the morgue each time and did all the paperwork so no one else in the unit had to experience that unnecessarily). Two other men died when I left country to see my dying father, who died shortly after I returned to CONUS - from cancer. To this day, there are feelings in the family that I "just was not there when he needed me". As, I was later told, he constantly asked for me. When I received the Red Cross message at the FOB, I refused to leave because we were about to execute the largest operation in-country in years with other SOF from the coalition and I did not want to leave when the unit needed me the most. I almost had to beg the Battalion Commander to let me stay a bit longer. I did stay. At the time, because of what I had experienced there, I felt that I could not improve my father's condition by seeing him, but that maybe I could help the operation go well and, perhaps, help save lives. To this day, I am split on the appropriateness of my decision in light of so many other variables.

HERE IS THE IMPORTANT THING: I represent little, in terms of sacrifice, when compared to the rest of the QPs in the force that have completed two or three more rotations than I have. Men that left the gate just 48 hours after watching their brothers blown-up and/or shot and bleed out. I wish I was a multi-billionaire so that I could give them all some "incentive" pay.

I might have the ability to exit the inherently dangerous and unpredictable world of SOF because of my educational background and/or people I know outside. But, so many QPs have spent their younger years earning "masters" and "doctorates" in Special Operations and are locked into this world of ours. They may not even want an option out because they desire to remain loyal to the brotherhood - it defines who they are.

Call me crazy, but I think that deserves something other than a pat on the back. How about giving these guys an opportunity to get the best education for their children? Or, the ability to buy into better neighborhoods to live in. If pilots flying at 30,000 feet seem to deserve "incentive" for their tremendous feats of flying expertise, I would imagine that the men "in the arena" deserve it too.

I don't think I would ever have the temerity to question a QPs loyalty to the brotherhood because they seek a better quality of life for their family in light of their sacrifices. My opinion is that such an assumption is completely inappropriate in light of what WE KNOW they sacrifice EVERY DAY.