[Angry_Chimp]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('shakespear1', 'J')ason, check out the following guy

Grossman

I was never in the military but after listening to him on "Democracy Now" some years ago, he opened my eyes to what the hell happens on the battle field. The consequences are long term and non reversible on the participants.

Highly recommend his book

"On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society"

I think it is good to have this deeper knowledge rather than the Rambo movie representation.

Good Luck Again

[jasonraymondson]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('shakespear1', 'J')ason, check out the following guy

Grossman

I was never in the military but after listening to him on "Democracy Now" some years ago, he opened my eyes to what the hell happens on the battle field. The consequences are long term and non reversible on the participants.

Highly recommend his book

"On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society"

I think it is good to have this deeper knowledge rather than the Rambo movie representation.

Good Luck Again

[jasonraymondson]

Since I need secret clearance and I know they are going to end up going through this forum when they are investigating me... do you really think after reading some of my posts they will give it to me.?

[jasonraymondson]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Shannymara', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jasonraymondson', 'S')ince I need secret clearance and I know they are going to end up going through this forum when they are investigating me... do you really think after reading some of my posts they will give it to me.?

[Ferretlover]

Just the fact that you can read and write may scare them off.... j/k

[I_Like_Plants]

JayJay you've never filled out clearance papers? Unless you've been an actual member of an existing branch of the KKK, the Nazis, the Revolutionary Communist Party, etc stuff like that, you're pretty safe. And your posts here are fine as far as I can tell, now me, I'd have a problem. Just don't mention any Internet blogs, and unless there's some real reason for them to look, they're not going to dig around. They don't have the manpower. Put up a Motley Crue fan page on YouTube or something and tell 'em that's the extent of your 'net involvement, sometime lame/tame like that, like 99% of the population does on the net. And don't worry about it.

When you're deployed, we hope you'll come here and post, but DON'T give out any location info, times of arrival, any of that strategic shit, ok? That's just common sense. Learn what's sensitive and learn to "sanitize" your comms. Simple as pie.

[jasonraymondson]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('I_Like_Plants', 'J')ayJay you've never filled out clearance papers? Unless you've been an actual member of an existing branch of the KKK, the Nazis, the Revolutionary Communist Party, etc stuff like that, you're pretty safe. And your posts here are fine as far as I can tell, now me, I'd have a problem. Just don't mention any Internet blogs, and unless there's some real reason for them to look, they're not going to dig around. They don't have the manpower. Put up a Motley Crue fan page on YouTube or something and tell 'em that's the extent of your 'net involvement, sometime lame/tame like that, like 99% of the population does on the net. And don't worry about it.

When you're deployed, we hope you'll come here and post, but DON'T give out any location info, times of arrival, any of that strategic shit, ok? That's just common sense. Learn what's sensitive and learn to "sanitize" your comms. Simple as pie.

[RedStateGreen]

The biggest hassle with clearance is they ask for references practically back to kindergarten. My husband keeps a copy for himself just so he can remember all that stuff.

[I_Like_Plants]

Oh yes, they WILL find out you're the kid who egged the Principal's house on Halloween when you were 8. So don't lie about that.

But about the Internet, don't ask don't tell ya know?

[eastbay]

You might consider omitting your hilarious participation here.

Just a thought. A friendly thought.

[wisconsin_cur]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('I_Like_Plants', '
')
When you're deployed, we hope you'll come here and post, but DON'T give out any location info, times of arrival, any of that strategic shit, ok? That's just common sense. Learn what's sensitive and learn to "sanitize" your comms. Simple as pie.

[gg3]

Jason, good going, dude. MI is the most popular specialization in OCS (mistaken notions of 007, compared to the realities such as staring at sheets full of numbers all day:-), don't know if it's the same for enlisted ranks. Have they guaranteed you an MI slot yet?

(I never spotted you as an intel geek but I'm better at spotting people with background in SIGINT than in HUMINT. However in retrospect it makes sense. The way you have of thinking outside the box, and making comments that entail having background knowledge but attempting to get others to say it first. Very interesting. Those are good ingredients for an interrogator, or for an analyst who additionally has some control over collection, for example directing the course of interrogations and analyzing the output.)

Don't worry about hanging out with the dissidents & wackos here. Someone I know has a TS and no doubt a bunch of SCI tabs, and is a ferocious commentator on things political when he's out of uniform, but when he's in uniform he's 100% strict by the book. It's all about learning how to compartmentalize.

If they ask about internet stuff and you omit this place and they find out, say byebye to your clearance. If you check in here from on base, they will certainly find out. If you come across as being worried about hanging out here, that's a negative. If you come across as being confident about it (e.g. "yeah I hang out with some dissidents & wackos, good entertainment..."), that might be less problematic. I would suggest getting some advice from a lawyer who knows the ropes. The rest of us around here can only guess; a lawyer can advise.

One thing you do need to worry about is the quality of translators you'll be dealing with. You already know this but a lot of them are in-country locals hired by contractors and not screened appropriately. I know for a fact that there are spies getting in via that route and doing damage, and that's all I can say about that subject.

Another risk is tribal stuff, both for false positives and false negatives:

If the POW is from tribe X and the translator is from tribe X, there is on one hand a risk of collusion, on the other hand a risk that the POW won't talk for fear of reprisals against self or family. If the POW is from tribe X and the translator is from tribe Y, tribal animosities may get in the way or may lead to the translator discounting pieces of output that you may need.

There is no substitute for Americans serving as linguist/translators. No matter what else happens, you should get language training for the languages in the areas in which you'll be deployed. Saturate yourself with the local languages as far as possible, including keeping tapes playing in the background all the time even while hanging out or doing other tasks. Also get whatever cultural training you can, to be able to detect the tribal stuff and intercede where needed to reduce the risk of getting bad output.

Study the techniques that were used in previous wars, for example WW2 in the Pacific since Japan was at the time a culture with which the US had relatively little experience. Here's one really good place to look:

http://www.mcitta.org/

USMC Interrogator/Translator Teams Association. Excellent website. Yeah, they're Marines and you're Army, but forget about interservice rivalry and read everything on the site, it's all highly useful.

More later; I've got a phone call, gotta' scoot for now...

[Schadenfreude]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jasonraymondson', 'J')ust thought I would let you all my good friends on here know that I have decided to re-enlist. I will be going back in this summer. I am meeting with some recruiters tomorrow.

[davep]

For security clearance, tell the truth. They don't care if you're into bovine porn, but they care if you lie about it. It means you can be blackmailed. That's what could fail you the clearance (note: this is the case in the UK, I assume that the US is similar).

As far as the tests go, I did a similar one in the UK and was the first to get 100%. There was some poor bloke going "the English was OK, but the maths was hard". He failed with 28%. It makes you realise that we share this earth with walking vegetables. It's a bit scary.

[jasonraymondson]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('golem', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Schadenfreude', ' ')
Didn't you tell us that you were horribly maimed, burned and disfigured?

[jasonraymondson]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gg3', 'J')ason, good going, dude. MI is the most popular specialization in OCS (mistaken notions of 007, compared to the realities such as staring at sheets full of numbers all day:-), don't know if it's the same for enlisted ranks. Have they guaranteed you an MI slot yet?

(I never spotted you as an intel geek but I'm better at spotting people with background in SIGINT than in HUMINT. However in retrospect it makes sense. The way you have of thinking outside the box, and making comments that entail having background knowledge but attempting to get others to say it first. Very interesting. Those are good ingredients for an interrogator, or for an analyst who additionally has some control over collection, for example directing the course of interrogations and analyzing the output.)

Don't worry about hanging out with the dissidents & wackos here. Someone I know has a TS and no doubt a bunch of SCI tabs, and is a ferocious commentator on things political when he's out of uniform, but when he's in uniform he's 100% strict by the book. It's all about learning how to compartmentalize.

If they ask about internet stuff and you omit this place and they find out, say byebye to your clearance. If you check in here from on base, they will certainly find out. If you come across as being worried about hanging out here, that's a negative. If you come across as being confident about it (e.g. "yeah I hang out with some dissidents & wackos, good entertainment..."), that might be less problematic. I would suggest getting some advice from a lawyer who knows the ropes. The rest of us around here can only guess; a lawyer can advise.

One thing you do need to worry about is the quality of translators you'll be dealing with. You already know this but a lot of them are in-country locals hired by contractors and not screened appropriately. I know for a fact that there are spies getting in via that route and doing damage, and that's all I can say about that subject.

Another risk is tribal stuff, both for false positives and false negatives:

If the POW is from tribe X and the translator is from tribe X, there is on one hand a risk of collusion, on the other hand a risk that the POW won't talk for fear of reprisals against self or family. If the POW is from tribe X and the translator is from tribe Y, tribal animosities may get in the way or may lead to the translator discounting pieces of output that you may need.

There is no substitute for Americans serving as linguist/translators. No matter what else happens, you should get language training for the languages in the areas in which you'll be deployed. Saturate yourself with the local languages as far as possible, including keeping tapes playing in the background all the time even while hanging out or doing other tasks. Also get whatever cultural training you can, to be able to detect the tribal stuff and intercede where needed to reduce the risk of getting bad output.

Study the techniques that were used in previous wars, for example WW2 in the Pacific since Japan was at the time a culture with which the US had relatively little experience. Here's one really good place to look:

http://www.mcitta.org/

USMC Interrogator/Translator Teams Association. Excellent website. Yeah, they're Marines and you're Army, but forget about interservice rivalry and read everything on the site, it's all highly useful.

More later; I've got a phone call, gotta' scoot for now...

[jasonraymondson]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Schadenfreude', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jasonraymondson', 'J')ust thought I would let you all my good friends on here know that I have decided to re-enlist. I will be going back in this summer. I am meeting with some recruiters tomorrow.

[jasonraymondson]

The sad part is, that on this site with some of the dandys we have, the Army is going to notice that I am the one and only village idiot.


Now that is some funny shit.

[I_Like_Plants]

OCS? What a laugh. OK, here's how it works. The US Army is a mirror of the US class system, and that means there's no going to OCS unless you were basically born to be an officer. That means you're a college puke. If you have a college degree, great, go for it. But if you're enlisted, which means you were born into the working class, you go in as enlisted and you'll stay enlisted for life.

This has NOTHING to do with IQ, ability, etc.

Just like the US class system in the larger society.

We had officers who were dumber than dogshit, didn't matter - they were born into the college-puke class, got their college degree, then served out their military careers with the enlisteds keeping them alive.

Just like US society at large.

[Polemic]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('I_Like_Plants', 'O')CS? What a laugh. OK, here's how it works. The US Army is a mirror of the US class system, and that means there's no going to OCS unless you were basically born to be an officer. That means you're a college puke. If you have a college degree, great, go for it. But if you're enlisted, which means you were born into the working class, you go in as enlisted and you'll stay enlisted for life.

This has NOTHING to do with IQ, ability, etc.

Just like the US class system in the larger society.

We had officers who were dumber than dogshit, didn't matter - they were born into the college-puke class, got their college degree, then served out their military careers with the enlisteds keeping them alive.

Just like US society at large.