I recently graduated law school and have decided I have no real interest in being a lawyer. I have no kids, no spouse, no mortgage, no serious ties of any kind, and I’m not opposed to devoting the next few years to a new career. I’ve been casually perusing the Army’s literature about career opportunities. I’m most interested in the intelligence field as it appears to be the area of the military where analytical skills are valued. I’m not sure I’m much of a marksman, and I doubt I could operate a tank, but I do think I have leadership abilities and might be pretty good at writing intel reports.
Anyone here ever work in mil intel? Any idea of what I could expect?
Well, you would have to join the military for one, so be sure that’s something you’re into. I have a few friends and acquintances that did that route. But they also started in ROTC programs or military acadamies and enlisted as officers. One later became a lawyer and does a lot of research and teaching on counter terrorism stuff. I suspect he’s more Jack Ryan than Jack Bauer though.
I was in military intell and worked with several people who went in as enlisted soldiers despite having advanced degrees in various fields, including one guy with a law degree.
The fact that you’re interested indicates to me that you would would probably end up liking it.
I’m extremely proud of the time I spent in the army. I definitely recommend it.
Jack Bauer I’m not. Jack Ryan… with some training, who knows.
I was under the assumption that anyone with an advanced degree was automatically elligible for officer candidate school if they do basic training beforehand. That was what I was hoping to do.
You would find out if you are eligible for officer candidate school as part of the recruitement process. You wouldn’t just just sign up as a private and hope for the best later. My little brother is finishing up his 2nd half of Coast Guard Officer Training right now as a career change and he will either make it in as an officer or nothing. They probably need to fill the slots now more than at most times. You could do some research on branches you might be interested in.
Does the army still have that language school in California? If so, they would probably be happy to teach you Arabic if you signed up to be a linguist. At this point, they might not even give you a say in the matter; you choose the linguist MOS, but from what I’ve heard, the army chooses the actual language. I knew a few linguists in Korea, and they seemed to have interesting jobs.
I don’t know the procedures, but try to get something like this stipulated in the contract. I don’t think I have to remind a law school grad that everything you want should be in writing. I somehow get the feeling that if you’re going to be a military linguist, getting Arabic into the contract is going to be relatively easy. There’s no guarantee that you will end your career happy and in one piece, but it certainly wouldn’t be boring!
You’ll also need either a secret or top secret security clearance. Tell the truth!! Unless you really messed up in life, your biggest risk is in not being honest and up front during the interview process.
Speaking from a Naval standpoint, becoming a linguist does not put you in the intel field. It puts you in a different field which focuses on exploiting the language at the tactical or other level. The intel folks then take that and analyze it, with some initial field analysis done at the scene, so to speak.
Becoming a linguist also means that you’re probably enlisted. Certainly in the Navy, and I’m guessing it applies as a general rule across the other services. Before deciding on the linguist route, decide a) what service suits you, and then b) whether you want to enlist or be an officer. If it’s officer, then speak only to an officer recruiter–don’t start anything with an enlisted recruiter.
To decide these things, you need to look around at the different services with an eye to job descriptions, quality of life as an O and as an E, initial obligation of service, bonuses, etc. It’s hard, but there are places to go to help you.
When I went in in '94, only doctors, nurses, veterinarians, and lawyers automatically became officers. I knew enlisted people with advanced degrees in music, Hebrew studies, and a few other things.
I had a BA in Spanish. My recruiter told me I could apply to OCS after basic training. That was not quite the literal truth. Anyway, by the time I could have gone to OCS, I realized that I could do the job I wanted as an enlisted person, but not as an officer.
I know the popular media would have you believe that only officers are smart and all enlisted folks are dummies, but that isn’t the case. You might find that you want to be an NCO.
If you are interested in learning a language, DLI is a real nice way to do it. See a recruiter, take the tests. The DLAB will blow your mind.
While this is generally a pretty good bit of advice, “military intelligence” is a pretty broad trade - broad enough that facility in a particular language won’t be needed for the great, great majority of jobs within it. Most intelligence personnel are not out spaying on the enemy and stealing his papers. You’d be much better off pre-learning NATO map symbology; Lord knows you use it enough.
And it’s a fool’s game to try to guess at what language you’ll need to speak in six years, say. Arabic’s not going to do you a lot of good in North Korea or Colombia.