You'd think that clearance acquisition and renewal process would have seen some more wholesale changes in the last ten or so years. I went about all the Navy paperwork that is involved with requesting to marry a foreign national (varies by fleet by the way), and had a pro-active conversation with my security manager well in advance about what needed to get done in order to remain compliant. Months later, I finally got a call from one of the investigators who wanted me to travel to the other side of the country to come speak with him for an interview, because he was apparently too busy to come to me. Even knowing they were contractors from varied backgrounds, I was always struck by how little any of them seemed to know about government jobs or the military, and how much they reminded me of phys ed teachers I had in middle school.
There are frequently some operational down sides to PEP tours, but not all of them. Usually, the lifestyle experience more than compensates for the people who seek these tours out to begin with. There was one guy I met at DLI who had an even better deal than I did - albeit by only a smidge. He was a VFA pilot flying hornets with the Swiss Air Force for a couple of years. Only problem was, we taught him bratwurst at Monterey, and they should have been apparently teaching him baguette. He showed up to the squadron, gave a big guten morgan, and got a bunch of bonjours in return. Facepalm.