Money is a huge incentive especially early in your career. It will absolutely be a once in a life time experience, that said it may be your last experience in this lifetime.<p>You enjoy your job now and are only 4 months in. Do not discount the value of local experience relative to foreign experience. Later in your career taking experience abroad may be an asset depending on your role, but early on local experience and the local contact network you build has a lot of value.<p>I suspect the hour or two a day you spend relaxing can be filled with starting those projects you have "always wanted to get off the ground". It is far more dangerous there than it appears on TV; private contractor casualties are NOT public information. If it was elsewhere in the region like Dubai it'd be an entirely different equation, but it is Iraq.<p>This link will give you an impression of the lifestyle of a tech guy in Iraq <a href="http://www.rezendi.com/travels/bbbb.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.rezendi.com/travels/bbbb.html</a> "blood bullets ad bandwidth" be aware that the situation has changed since this was published and the danger is very real. If it seemed like you've been in that kind of environment before I wouldn't have responded at all as you'd know the score, but it sounds like you've never served in the military, or been in hot zones before, I urge you to consider carefully.