Hi dknoben,
It appears that the field is not being returned because the value of the field is NULL. This is true for all records in the table that match your where clause. You can compare this with a record that has a value of 0 or greater and you will see that the field is in-fact returned.
In order to prevent this, I recommend that you initialize this field for any records that you insert into this table by assigning a value of 0 instead of leaving it blank. You will also need to loop through the table and assign a value of 0 where the value is currently blank to fix your existing data. This should allow you to achieve your desired result. I hope this helps.
--Audisho