XASA
03-30-2004, 09:09 AM
New York Times
March 30, 2004
Big Pay Luring Military's Elite to Private Jobs
By ERIC SCHMITT and THOM SHANKER
WASHINGTON, March 29 Senior American commanders and Pentagon officials are warning of an exodus of the military's most seasoned members of Special Operations to higher-paying civilian security jobs in places like Baghdad and Kabul, just as they are playing an increasingly pivotal role in combating terror and helping conduct nation-building operations worldwide.
Senior enlisted members of the Army Green Berets or Navy Seals with 20 years or more experience now earn about $50,000 in base pay, and can retire with a $23,000 pension. But private security companies, whose services are in growing demand in Iraq and Afghanistan, are offering salaries of $100,000 to nearly $200,000 a year to the most experienced of them.
The Central Intelligence Agency is also dangling such enticing offers before experienced Special Operations personnel that the Pentagon's top official for special operations policy, Thomas W. O'Connell, told a House panel this month that intergovernmental poaching "is starting to become a significant problem."
Evidence of a drain of seasoned Special Operations members, including elite Delta Force soldiers, is largely anecdotal right now, but the head of the military's Special Operations Command, Gen. Bryan D. Brown of the Army, is so concerned about what he is hearing from troops in the field that he convened an unusual meeting of his top commanders in Washington last week to discuss the matter. "The retention of our special operating forces is a big issue," General Brown said.
Last December, he gathered 20 senior members of the Navy Seals and Army Green Berets and Air Force commandos and their spouses, at his headquarters in Tampa, Fla., for a weeklong session to discuss career-extending sweeteners, like special pay bonuses and educational benefits. A special panel is now reviewing those recommendations.
"The kind of people we're training today, that are culturally aware, able to work overseas, experts with handguns and rifles, physically fit, hand-selected guys that also speak a foreign language," General Brown told the Senate Armed Services Committee last Thursday, "these kind of people are very attractive to those kind of civilian private industries that provide security services both at home and abroad."
General Brown and other senior officials acknowledged that the lucrative offers by outsiders presented a rare opportunity for career soldiers to gain financial security.
"They're not leaving out of disloyalty," said Gen. Wayne Downing, a retired head of the Special Operations Command who recently returned from Iraq. "The money is just so good, if they're going to be away from home that much, they may as well make top dollar."
One of those senior noncommissioned officers who chose to leave the Army for a private security job in Baghdad paused for a few moments on Monday to describe his decision, but requested that his name be withheld. After enlisting just over two decades ago, he received Airborne, Ranger and Special Forces training. At the end of 20 years of service, he received an offer to go to Iraq to guard public officials and help train local Iraqis to do the same.
"It wasn't that I minded the op-tempo or the deployments, that's why I joined," he said about the pace of operations. "But after putting in my time, I had this chance to make three times the money, and some of the guys are making even more than that."
Seasoned enlisted troops and officers have always offered skills that make them attractive to civilian employers, including military contractors, security companies and military consulting firms. Military personnel experts are cautioning that longer and more frequent deployments are threatening the ability of all the armed services to retain many of their best and brightest.
Experienced Special Operations personnel have always been the cream of the crop. The demand for their talents has grown steadily since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
"Any people with Special Operations backgrounds are in very high demand right now," said the manager of the Baghdad office of a British security company.
The possible exodus, which was first reported this month by the newspaper European Stars and Stripes, comes as the size, budget and missions of the Special Operations Command are increasing sharply. At Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's direction, the command will now plan and execute its own missions worldwide, with support from other regional commands, rather than act in a largely supporting role.
Over the next five years, the Defense Department plans to add 3,900 people to the Special Operations Command, which now has 49,000 people, focusing on more pilots, Seals members, civil affairs and psychological operations specialists.
In Iraq, Special Operations forces are hunting for former Baathist paramilitary fighters, training the new Iraqi security forces and helping conduct stability operations throughout the country. And in Afghanistan, Green Beret personnel are living in primitive conditions near the Pakistan border, helping seal the borders and hunt Taliban or Al Qaeda fighters, as well as rebuilding villages to earn the locals' trust.
Senator Susan Collins, a Maine Republican on the Armed Services Committee, said, "At a time when we're more and more reliant on Special Operations forces in Iraq, Afghanistan and for covert action, we can't afford an exodus of the most experience special operators."
Recruiting entry-level troops for these kinds of missions is going very well, General Brown said. In most cases, Special Operations members are recruited after they have served six to eight years in the military.
A typical Green Beret member requires up to 18 months of training, including learning a foreign language, at an average cost of $257,000 per soldier. Only one out of four candidates completes the training.
For the senior noncommissioned officers, the sergeants who specialize in weapons, engineering and explosives, combat medicine and intelligence, years of experience are needed to achieve the maturity required before even applying to the Green Berets. These noncommissioned offices now describe a time of upheaval that is wholly new to a post-Vietnam generation of Special Forces.
With the heightened pace of deployments, the prospect that Special Forces will continue to carry a heavy share of the campaign against terrorism, and the offers from security firms to protect businesses, journalists and even American government officials operating in Baghdad, Green Beret members interviewed expressed fears that even more of their colleagues will depart.
One reservist civil affairs captain now assigned to Baghdad has been away from his municipal job in a midsize West Coast city for more than a year. While he and his family have been happy to bear that burden in support of the mission in Iraq, he said, the frustration of managing a number of local development projects in Baghdad, which he said require him to fight the United States government budget bureaucracy, is prompting him to think about not rejoining the reserves.
And any complaints from these troops about their jobs has top officials worried. "We can never compete dollar-for-dollar with outside firms," said Command Chief Master Sgt. Robert Martens Jr. of the Air Force, the senior enlisted adviser to General Brown. "We compete on job satisfaction."
Eric Schmitt reported from Washington and Thom Shanker from Baghdad.
March 30, 2004
Big Pay Luring Military's Elite to Private Jobs
By ERIC SCHMITT and THOM SHANKER
WASHINGTON, March 29 Senior American commanders and Pentagon officials are warning of an exodus of the military's most seasoned members of Special Operations to higher-paying civilian security jobs in places like Baghdad and Kabul, just as they are playing an increasingly pivotal role in combating terror and helping conduct nation-building operations worldwide.
Senior enlisted members of the Army Green Berets or Navy Seals with 20 years or more experience now earn about $50,000 in base pay, and can retire with a $23,000 pension. But private security companies, whose services are in growing demand in Iraq and Afghanistan, are offering salaries of $100,000 to nearly $200,000 a year to the most experienced of them.
The Central Intelligence Agency is also dangling such enticing offers before experienced Special Operations personnel that the Pentagon's top official for special operations policy, Thomas W. O'Connell, told a House panel this month that intergovernmental poaching "is starting to become a significant problem."
Evidence of a drain of seasoned Special Operations members, including elite Delta Force soldiers, is largely anecdotal right now, but the head of the military's Special Operations Command, Gen. Bryan D. Brown of the Army, is so concerned about what he is hearing from troops in the field that he convened an unusual meeting of his top commanders in Washington last week to discuss the matter. "The retention of our special operating forces is a big issue," General Brown said.
Last December, he gathered 20 senior members of the Navy Seals and Army Green Berets and Air Force commandos and their spouses, at his headquarters in Tampa, Fla., for a weeklong session to discuss career-extending sweeteners, like special pay bonuses and educational benefits. A special panel is now reviewing those recommendations.
"The kind of people we're training today, that are culturally aware, able to work overseas, experts with handguns and rifles, physically fit, hand-selected guys that also speak a foreign language," General Brown told the Senate Armed Services Committee last Thursday, "these kind of people are very attractive to those kind of civilian private industries that provide security services both at home and abroad."
General Brown and other senior officials acknowledged that the lucrative offers by outsiders presented a rare opportunity for career soldiers to gain financial security.
"They're not leaving out of disloyalty," said Gen. Wayne Downing, a retired head of the Special Operations Command who recently returned from Iraq. "The money is just so good, if they're going to be away from home that much, they may as well make top dollar."
One of those senior noncommissioned officers who chose to leave the Army for a private security job in Baghdad paused for a few moments on Monday to describe his decision, but requested that his name be withheld. After enlisting just over two decades ago, he received Airborne, Ranger and Special Forces training. At the end of 20 years of service, he received an offer to go to Iraq to guard public officials and help train local Iraqis to do the same.
"It wasn't that I minded the op-tempo or the deployments, that's why I joined," he said about the pace of operations. "But after putting in my time, I had this chance to make three times the money, and some of the guys are making even more than that."
Seasoned enlisted troops and officers have always offered skills that make them attractive to civilian employers, including military contractors, security companies and military consulting firms. Military personnel experts are cautioning that longer and more frequent deployments are threatening the ability of all the armed services to retain many of their best and brightest.
Experienced Special Operations personnel have always been the cream of the crop. The demand for their talents has grown steadily since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
"Any people with Special Operations backgrounds are in very high demand right now," said the manager of the Baghdad office of a British security company.
The possible exodus, which was first reported this month by the newspaper European Stars and Stripes, comes as the size, budget and missions of the Special Operations Command are increasing sharply. At Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's direction, the command will now plan and execute its own missions worldwide, with support from other regional commands, rather than act in a largely supporting role.
Over the next five years, the Defense Department plans to add 3,900 people to the Special Operations Command, which now has 49,000 people, focusing on more pilots, Seals members, civil affairs and psychological operations specialists.
In Iraq, Special Operations forces are hunting for former Baathist paramilitary fighters, training the new Iraqi security forces and helping conduct stability operations throughout the country. And in Afghanistan, Green Beret personnel are living in primitive conditions near the Pakistan border, helping seal the borders and hunt Taliban or Al Qaeda fighters, as well as rebuilding villages to earn the locals' trust.
Senator Susan Collins, a Maine Republican on the Armed Services Committee, said, "At a time when we're more and more reliant on Special Operations forces in Iraq, Afghanistan and for covert action, we can't afford an exodus of the most experience special operators."
Recruiting entry-level troops for these kinds of missions is going very well, General Brown said. In most cases, Special Operations members are recruited after they have served six to eight years in the military.
A typical Green Beret member requires up to 18 months of training, including learning a foreign language, at an average cost of $257,000 per soldier. Only one out of four candidates completes the training.
For the senior noncommissioned officers, the sergeants who specialize in weapons, engineering and explosives, combat medicine and intelligence, years of experience are needed to achieve the maturity required before even applying to the Green Berets. These noncommissioned offices now describe a time of upheaval that is wholly new to a post-Vietnam generation of Special Forces.
With the heightened pace of deployments, the prospect that Special Forces will continue to carry a heavy share of the campaign against terrorism, and the offers from security firms to protect businesses, journalists and even American government officials operating in Baghdad, Green Beret members interviewed expressed fears that even more of their colleagues will depart.
One reservist civil affairs captain now assigned to Baghdad has been away from his municipal job in a midsize West Coast city for more than a year. While he and his family have been happy to bear that burden in support of the mission in Iraq, he said, the frustration of managing a number of local development projects in Baghdad, which he said require him to fight the United States government budget bureaucracy, is prompting him to think about not rejoining the reserves.
And any complaints from these troops about their jobs has top officials worried. "We can never compete dollar-for-dollar with outside firms," said Command Chief Master Sgt. Robert Martens Jr. of the Air Force, the senior enlisted adviser to General Brown. "We compete on job satisfaction."
Eric Schmitt reported from Washington and Thom Shanker from Baghdad.