I stand by my statement!
Was he a private contractor truck driver? NYPD pays far better than US military, and they pay over-time! AND, if you’re smart (and, not really that smart), you make more in retirement than you did on the job! So, I’m skeptical of that account.
Additionally, neither Iraq nor Afghanistan were particularly guaranteed to be dangerous. This is the reason that the US is disingenuously comparing their casualty-count in those conflicts to reported Russian casualty-counts in Ukraine.
Also, you did fail to mention why he was ex-NYPD, and did you fail to mention that any ”other” offers might have been a greater motivation than pay?