"It's only six more years."

I swear, if I hear this one more time, I'm going to scream. Why is it that Thak's 14 years of Active Duty are simply not enough? When people get out after just a few years, it's seen as simply a choice, but when they get out after 10 or more, people don't hesitate to tell them how stupid a decision they think that is. Why? The more you serve, the less it's worth? They take for granted that people like Thak always serve until they're either pushed out for age or injuries, or die? Forget that. Let's look at what "only six more years" would give us, good and bad.

First of all, the unit Thak is in will deploy before this year is up. That would be his 4th combat tour. FOUR TOURS. Do you know anybody who's done four tours who isn't completely batshit crazy? Because I don't. I know people who have done four tours, yes. They are all completely screwed up. We know what three did. We are more than satisfied with using our imagination as to just what four may hold. Secondly, that would probably not be his last deployment. He may do as many as two more after that before becoming retirement-eligible. SIX TOURS??? Do you want your husband to do six combat tours? Didn't think so. Therefore, it is not a reasonable thing to ask of us. We actually LIKE the fact that only one out of our three children will ever have any recollection of what it's like to send daddy off to war.

Another thing is that Thak has pretty much topped out what he's going to be able to do in his MOS, and he doesn't really want to reclass. He's attained a nearly unheard of rank for soldiers of his MOS. He's earned medals that are incredibly rare for enlisted soldiers who are still living and have all their limbs. He's priced himself right out of the market, really. There aren't any slots for his rank in his MOS. He's working as a reenlistment NCO, which has absolutely nothing to do with anything he's done in the 12 years before coming here. To stay would be more of the same. Six more years of jerking around in jobs that don't suit him? Why? What would that ever do to advance him? We're moving on because, professionally speaking, it's time.

Now, to play a little devil's advocate, a lot of people talk about the money. We'll miss out on a lot of money since Thak will be making less on the outside, and he'll have to wait until age 60 to draw his pension from the Reserves (which, funny enough, is almost as high as his Active Duty pension would have been, thanks to all the years Active he put in!) Money. It always comes down to money, doesn't it? Let me tell you something about money. It doesn't mean jack shit compared to nearly anything else in life.

As we already went over, "only six more years" would include "only a few more deployments". Wow! Deployments are even more money! Here's the thing about that money, though. It means even less. I'll tell you, during Thak's 3rd tour, when I watched the casualty notification officer drive past my house, look at his address sheet, and look at my building number (which was really chipped) and spend what seemed like an hour, but was really less than a minute, trying to figure out if it was the address he was looking for, only to determine that it wasn't, and go next door to notify the neighbor that HER husband had been killed in the bombing we all had heard about earlier that day, I really didn't give a shit about the extra $1000 a month Thak was making. When the mortars came in and hit his position while we were on the phone, and I did not know for what seemed like an eternity whether he had survived the attack or not, pretty much the last thing on my mind was "well, at least we have a lot of money compared to what we usually have". Never having to do any of that again is worth about a hundred times as much as we'll lose in combat pay, pension years, and salary. No amount of new cars, designer purses, or jewelry will actually compensate for being forced to gamble at such high stakes. All anyone had at Ft. Stewart was money. We all drove brand new cars, and wore expensive makeup, and drank $100 bottles of vodka, but we were all miserable because money doesn't mean jack if you're getting it for gambling with your husband's life. Anyone who thinks it's worth it has never lived the life of seeing something bad on the news, and having it fall in your lap five minutes later, 100% of the time, for about five years.

Only six more years? If it's that simple, then you do it.