March 17, 2009: One reason the U.S. Army Special Forces has a hard time holding on to people, is the great civilian demand for these highly trained and combat experienced troops. Not just for VIP protection, and security in general, but for training. Special Forces troops spend a lot of their time training foreign troops, even with the war on terror underway. In peacetime, this sort of training is seen as a useful way to establish relationships with foreign troops, and better understand how they operate.

But given the demands of the war on terror, there is an even greater demand for former, or retired, Special Forces operators to act as trainers for foreign armies. Much of this demand is found in Eastern Europe, where many countries have recently joined NATO, and are still working to retrain their troops to operate according to a new set of standards and techniques. For decades, these nations used Russian tactics and doctrine, and most of that stuff is being replaced. Thus we have recruiters scrambling to find Special Forces vets available for training. A recent example is Slovenia, looking to hire four Special Forces vets to give a six week course to Slovenian Army NCOs on urban combat. The Slovenian NCOs would then become trainers, to pass the knowledge on to Slovenian troops. Anyone out there who is qualified and interested, just email [email protected].