Posted on Mar 3, 2019
Are there any USAF Intel officers willing to discuss the field? I'm an AS 300 cadet getting ready to put down my dreamsheet. Any help?
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Intelligence is one of my top two career choices (the other being Space Operations). Hearing more details from current officers would be helpful.
14NX: Intelligence
(Pre-Commission)
Posted 6 y ago
Responses: 3
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Sure. I'll discuss it with you. Granted my experience is in Cyber Intel rather than traditional
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Lt Col (Join to see) and Maj (Join to see), thank you for responding gentlemen,
I have compiled a (long) list of my questions below. I've broken my 18 questions down into four categories; Your role(s)/experiences, initial training, initial positions/duties, deployments, and career development.
Your Role(s) and Experiences
1. What is your current role (in a level that you can tell me if some level of your tasking is classified)?
2. I've heard that Intel officers tend to give a lot of briefings. What are some of the things you tend to do frequently besides briefings?
3. Do you tend to work mostly with other officers or are you mostly in charge of enlisted personnel?
4. Do you usually have consistent work hours, or do they rotate frequently for 24/7 coverage?
Initial Training and Positions
1. What does the training pipeline look like for newly commissioned second lieutenants?
2. How long can we expect after commissioning before we get our EAD date? I know pilots can have up to a year wait.
3. Is there much hands-on training, or is it mostly academic?
4. What kind of base options can we expect to start with? How do those options evolve over time?
5. What kinds of skills, characteristics, and academic background are most helpful for success?
6. What do you wish you knew when you started that you know now?
Deployments
1. What kind of deployment opportunities are there?
2. How frequently and how long are typical deployments?
3. Are deployments typically voluntarily, mandatory, or something in between?
Career Development
1. Besides normal USAF trainings like Squadron Officer School that everyone should attend in person or remotely, what are continuing education opportunities for Intel officers?
2. When we get ready to pursue a Masters, does it matter what it's in, or just that we have one?
3. Are there opportunities to develop, acquire, and/or maintain foreign language proficiency?
4. What are general duties for Intel officers?
5. Is there any other general advice you would want to pass on?
I greatly appreciate you taking the time to respond to my laundry list of questions. It will give me valuable insight into how I order my dream-sheet. Thank you again gentlemen!
I have compiled a (long) list of my questions below. I've broken my 18 questions down into four categories; Your role(s)/experiences, initial training, initial positions/duties, deployments, and career development.
Your Role(s) and Experiences
1. What is your current role (in a level that you can tell me if some level of your tasking is classified)?
2. I've heard that Intel officers tend to give a lot of briefings. What are some of the things you tend to do frequently besides briefings?
3. Do you tend to work mostly with other officers or are you mostly in charge of enlisted personnel?
4. Do you usually have consistent work hours, or do they rotate frequently for 24/7 coverage?
Initial Training and Positions
1. What does the training pipeline look like for newly commissioned second lieutenants?
2. How long can we expect after commissioning before we get our EAD date? I know pilots can have up to a year wait.
3. Is there much hands-on training, or is it mostly academic?
4. What kind of base options can we expect to start with? How do those options evolve over time?
5. What kinds of skills, characteristics, and academic background are most helpful for success?
6. What do you wish you knew when you started that you know now?
Deployments
1. What kind of deployment opportunities are there?
2. How frequently and how long are typical deployments?
3. Are deployments typically voluntarily, mandatory, or something in between?
Career Development
1. Besides normal USAF trainings like Squadron Officer School that everyone should attend in person or remotely, what are continuing education opportunities for Intel officers?
2. When we get ready to pursue a Masters, does it matter what it's in, or just that we have one?
3. Are there opportunities to develop, acquire, and/or maintain foreign language proficiency?
4. What are general duties for Intel officers?
5. Is there any other general advice you would want to pass on?
I greatly appreciate you taking the time to respond to my laundry list of questions. It will give me valuable insight into how I order my dream-sheet. Thank you again gentlemen!
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Capt Bob Abbott
I have been out for 12 years, but you'll end up at Goodfellow for Intel School. I heartily recommend you contact the 315 TRS there and ask for a mentor to answer some questions about your second category.
I can answer #2 though, when you're not giving briefings, you're building slide decks for briefings. :-D
I can answer #2 though, when you're not giving briefings, you're building slide decks for briefings. :-D
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Maj (Join to see)
1. I'm an Operations Officer. I'm responsible for making sure operations are happening according to plan, reports are being published on time, and we're answering the priority intelligence requirements (PRI) given to us by the joint warfighter. Essentially Someone, somewhere in the government says "we want to know more about X." That requirement goes through a process to determine who can best answer it and then is given to that shop as a PRI. Some shops are responsible for collecting information, some are responsible for analyzing that information, and others are responsible for disseminating the information to leadership and decision makers.
2. Yes. Intel Officers are trained to be Command Briefers. It's what our Tech School focuses on. I like to think of it more as a universal translator. We know a little bit about a lot of things so that we can help bridge intelligence gaps between vastly different career fields. An Intel Officer might be the one who figure out how to utilize Cyber to allow a Drone Strike in Iran. By being a universal translator we can help plan and pair operations with the right capabilities. Most of my time is not briefing, although I do it. I'm mostly in the day to day operations. The majority of briefings I give are more situational awareness updates to the Commander about how well we're operating and how effectively we're answering requirements.
3. Enlisted. I've worked with Officers in the past, and my current Squadron (7IS) has a lot of them, (about 100), but I mainly work with enlisted.
4. Depends on the work center. For the most part my jobs have been 7-3 M-F, but when I worked in NSA Texas I was on a 24/7 ops floor where we worked 4 12 hr shifts.
Training
1. The training pipeline at Goodfellow is a 6 month fire hose of information. Most people are there for 9 months because they have to wait for a class start date. You'll learn a little bit about many different forms on Intelligence but the big focuses are going to be on Air Power and learning how to deliver an effective briefing. Learn to say "I don't know but I'll get back to you." You're credibility is everything in this business, and people can tell when you're making things up.
2. I waited for 9 months before I EADd. I would highly recommend saving as much money as you can during this time. You're first PCS is going to be out of pocket until the Government can reimburse you, which may be a month or longer. I spent almost $7k moving to Goodfellow and didn't get paid for over a month. If I didn't have an good savings I would have been hurting bad.
3. Academic. There are so many different types of Intel that it wouldn't be practical to do hands on training at Tech School. You'll get hands on training are part of On The Job Training (OJT) at your first real assignment.
4. Pretty much anywhere. Intel is all over the world and you can travel anywhere.
5. Learn that it's ok to not know everything. Being able to admit that you don't know something is more important than seeming like the smartest person in the room. If you give the wrong information because you're too stubborn to admit you don't know you could literally get someone killed. You could tell a pilot the wrong countermeasures against a surface to air missile, or misinform the operators on the ground about the location and armament of a terrorist cell. That's the biggest advice I can give to anyone in our field. It's hard to prepare for Intel Tech School because you can't study for it. Just learn to admit when you don't know.
6. See 5
Deployments:
1. Mostly Air Operations Center (AOC) stuff. Managing Intelligence Assets in theater and supporting boots on the ground.
2. Intel Officers are a YR (Year Round) AEF band meaning you can be pulled at any point for a deployment; however, they are mostly volunteer. They come in 6 month, 9 month, and 1 year varieties.
3. Volunteer, but I have seen them pull people when they need a very certain skill set. There are some changes coming though. For Instance I'm at NSA right now and the Air Force has gotten tired of asking for volunteers then NSA refusing to let a member go deploy so big AF has started marking people who work at 3 letter agencies as XX AEF band. Basically saying they won't deploy.
Career Development.
1. SOS is 100% in residence now unless there are very special circumstances. There's ISR 200 and ISR 300 which are required for you to get your 7 level and 9 level. Both those are back at Goodfellow. Other than that there are a lot of great opportunities for Intel Officers. You could go become a Weapons Instructor where you become an expert of US weapons systems. You could go to Cyber 200 and Cyber 300 to help specialize in those. You could take some advanced courses with NSA to become an expert on the SIGINT system. There's a lot to do and learn.
2. Doesn't matter, but I encourage everyone to get something that will help them in the Air Force and out of it. American Military University will count your tech school for half of a master in Intelligence Studies so you should look into that. But to directly answer your question the Air Force only cares that you have one.
3. Yes. One of the big ones is Regional Affairs Specialist (RAS) where you can actually work at an embassy in country.
4. You have 3 main duties. Be a good airmen, do the right thing the right way, and lead lead lead. The rest changes with the job, but handle those three and any additional duties will be simple.
5. I think I've really hit on most of the advice I had:
Save money,
Lead
Learn to admit when you don't know
and of course take care of your people.
If you have any other questions let me know.
2. Yes. Intel Officers are trained to be Command Briefers. It's what our Tech School focuses on. I like to think of it more as a universal translator. We know a little bit about a lot of things so that we can help bridge intelligence gaps between vastly different career fields. An Intel Officer might be the one who figure out how to utilize Cyber to allow a Drone Strike in Iran. By being a universal translator we can help plan and pair operations with the right capabilities. Most of my time is not briefing, although I do it. I'm mostly in the day to day operations. The majority of briefings I give are more situational awareness updates to the Commander about how well we're operating and how effectively we're answering requirements.
3. Enlisted. I've worked with Officers in the past, and my current Squadron (7IS) has a lot of them, (about 100), but I mainly work with enlisted.
4. Depends on the work center. For the most part my jobs have been 7-3 M-F, but when I worked in NSA Texas I was on a 24/7 ops floor where we worked 4 12 hr shifts.
Training
1. The training pipeline at Goodfellow is a 6 month fire hose of information. Most people are there for 9 months because they have to wait for a class start date. You'll learn a little bit about many different forms on Intelligence but the big focuses are going to be on Air Power and learning how to deliver an effective briefing. Learn to say "I don't know but I'll get back to you." You're credibility is everything in this business, and people can tell when you're making things up.
2. I waited for 9 months before I EADd. I would highly recommend saving as much money as you can during this time. You're first PCS is going to be out of pocket until the Government can reimburse you, which may be a month or longer. I spent almost $7k moving to Goodfellow and didn't get paid for over a month. If I didn't have an good savings I would have been hurting bad.
3. Academic. There are so many different types of Intel that it wouldn't be practical to do hands on training at Tech School. You'll get hands on training are part of On The Job Training (OJT) at your first real assignment.
4. Pretty much anywhere. Intel is all over the world and you can travel anywhere.
5. Learn that it's ok to not know everything. Being able to admit that you don't know something is more important than seeming like the smartest person in the room. If you give the wrong information because you're too stubborn to admit you don't know you could literally get someone killed. You could tell a pilot the wrong countermeasures against a surface to air missile, or misinform the operators on the ground about the location and armament of a terrorist cell. That's the biggest advice I can give to anyone in our field. It's hard to prepare for Intel Tech School because you can't study for it. Just learn to admit when you don't know.
6. See 5
Deployments:
1. Mostly Air Operations Center (AOC) stuff. Managing Intelligence Assets in theater and supporting boots on the ground.
2. Intel Officers are a YR (Year Round) AEF band meaning you can be pulled at any point for a deployment; however, they are mostly volunteer. They come in 6 month, 9 month, and 1 year varieties.
3. Volunteer, but I have seen them pull people when they need a very certain skill set. There are some changes coming though. For Instance I'm at NSA right now and the Air Force has gotten tired of asking for volunteers then NSA refusing to let a member go deploy so big AF has started marking people who work at 3 letter agencies as XX AEF band. Basically saying they won't deploy.
Career Development.
1. SOS is 100% in residence now unless there are very special circumstances. There's ISR 200 and ISR 300 which are required for you to get your 7 level and 9 level. Both those are back at Goodfellow. Other than that there are a lot of great opportunities for Intel Officers. You could go become a Weapons Instructor where you become an expert of US weapons systems. You could go to Cyber 200 and Cyber 300 to help specialize in those. You could take some advanced courses with NSA to become an expert on the SIGINT system. There's a lot to do and learn.
2. Doesn't matter, but I encourage everyone to get something that will help them in the Air Force and out of it. American Military University will count your tech school for half of a master in Intelligence Studies so you should look into that. But to directly answer your question the Air Force only cares that you have one.
3. Yes. One of the big ones is Regional Affairs Specialist (RAS) where you can actually work at an embassy in country.
4. You have 3 main duties. Be a good airmen, do the right thing the right way, and lead lead lead. The rest changes with the job, but handle those three and any additional duties will be simple.
5. I think I've really hit on most of the advice I had:
Save money,
Lead
Learn to admit when you don't know
and of course take care of your people.
If you have any other questions let me know.
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2d Lt (Join to see)
Thank you Maj (Join to see)! That was very helpful. It sounds even more exciting now!
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