Slashdot Mirror
How Do Militaries Treat Their Nerds?
An anonymous reader writes "Cyber Warfare is a hot topic these days. A major reorganization may be looming, but a critical component is a culture where technologists can thrive. Two recent articles address this subject. Lieutenant Colonel Greg Conti and Colonel Buck Surdu recently published an article in the latest DoD IA Newsletter stating that 'The Army, Navy, and Air Force all maintain cyberwarfare components, but these organizations exist as ill-fitting appendages (PDF, pg. 14) that attempt to operate in inhospitable cultures where technical expertise is not recognized, cultivated, or completely understood.' In his TaoSecurity Blog Richard Bejtlich added 'When I left the Air Force in early 2001, I was the 31st of the last 32 eligible company grade officers in the Air Force Information Warfare Center to separate from the Air Force rather than take a new nontechnical assignment.' So, Slashdot, how has the military treated you and your technical friends? What changes are needed?"
Like cannon fodder.
Somebody said "DNS," Vasquez thought they said "INS" and ran away.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
If the military needs nerds, they can always hire civilian contractors.
Alternatively, there are certain nerds who enjoy military culture and do fine there.
I spent 6 years in the Air Force as a programmer. The only way they can fix that horrible mess is to stop trying and contract out everything they need. It's basically what they are doing now. Of maybe 400 enlisted programmers at my base, I'd guess 10% of them actually had work on a regular basis, and 50% do absolutely nothing their entire time there. And people seem to have trouble grasping it, but when I say nothing, I mean NOTHING. Contractors did all the real work.
Whale
I've had no problems in the Navy and been put on some really choice assignments because of my technical expertise. However, I've also seen some technical experts that got nothing from it and driven out of the service. If you flaunt it like sliced bread has nothing on you, yea, you're going to get treated like a prick. If you just do your thing and not care about the rest, you can do pretty darn good. Unfortunately, at some point you get forced to put down the wrench and pick up the pen, and then its just not fun anymore. Its great if you're just in for the college money, sucks later on if you decide to make a career out of it.
I think it would be cool to have another branch of the armed services called the "Cyber-Force" and give individual units the military alphabet designation.
I could be part of Cyber-Force Delta, or Cyber-Force Echo, but the guys in Cyber-Force Foxtrot and Cyber-Force Tango would get a bit of light-hearted ribbing.
If the military wants to keep its nerds, they only have to supply Jolt Cola, Pizza, and cool squad names. Give us guns too... they don't have to be loaded... it'll just be cool to have sidearms...we can do the hardware mods with some souped-up laser pointers to make 'em deadly.
I did work as a contractor for the Defense Support Program and was impressed by the way the Air Force ran the program. The IT group I was with was treated with respect by the AF personnel. Unfortunately, it was the contracting company I worked for that insisted on playing politics rather than getting the job done. If only someone could find a way to remove office politics from the workplace (and, yes, I realize that there is irony in asking that office politics be removed from a government-run program).
If "disco" means "I learn" in Latin, does "discothèque" mean "I learn technology"?
In my experience, I can imagine it like other industries. They know they need services, but don't appreciate them nor do they care to acknowledge what it takes. I told one of my managers in the past regarding training and resources, "It's like asking a beat cop to patrol with out a side arm." It is tiring...
The Military (USAF) always treated me
with great respect. It was the other civilians that would give you a hard time. The military members were all very hard-working and saw that I am too. They repected my expertise and knew about how to be tolerant of my lifestyle even better than civilians (who hated my lifestyle).
And military weren't trying to funnel contracts to their friends. And they didn't seek to ruin my career when I wouldn't go along with boondoggles. It was the Civilians that did this (some of them).
And worse, the ones who treated us the worst, were the people who didn't fund us, politicians who were on vendettas to move our offices (these were out of state politicians).
These were people with no concern other than empire building in their own back yards.
The Military members were always the best to work with, the hardest working, the most diverse, and the ones who understood and appreciated excellence.
Technical people tend to be atheist. Isn't the air force full of Evangelicals? What about all the chaplains?
I'm writing in from the medical side, so I hope that my comments can be useful, too. The military lures medical students and doctors with all sorts of promises such as "You'll be able to practice whatever specialty you want. You can practice medicine where you want. There are lots of research opportunities. You can't be sued for malpractice. You won't have to deal with insurance companies and other civilian paperwork nightmares..." And the list goes on.
In reality, only a few physicians get to practice the type of medicine they want. You want to be a radiologist? Too bad. Become a general practitioner instead. Docs have no say in where they practice. And the paperwork is worse in the military because (1) we do indeed have to fill out insurance forms and cover-your-ass medical notes, and (2) we have loads of performance evals and fits reps due to our status as officers. We can indeed be sued. The research is slim at major hospitals to non-existent at smaller ones. Thanks to the Base Closure and Realignment Commission (BRAC), Walter Reed and the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology are set for closure. And on top of all of that, the pay is much less than the civilian side. I once calculated my long-term difference in income by joining the military and saw that in just five years of active duty, I will rack up a net lifetime loss of over $700,000.
The end result is that the majority of military physicians leave the armed forces as soon as they are eligible to do so and we're left with a bunch of young docs who are certainly competent at their job, but are largely inexperienced.
If you want to spend an afternoon reading horror stories, see the Student Doctor Network.
The geeks get hardly any tanks for their had work.
Well why do we have such redundancy. Cyber warefare is a new kind of warfare just like air was in WWI and need its own division (yes i know the air force at that time was part of the army but eventually was so critical that it became its own division).
In my ten years of military service I cannot recall a single person besides myself that
even knew what a compiler was. The data systems guys did know how to run some reports
and such but had zero knowledge of anything more difficult than that.
Anything requiring some sort of advanced knowledge was contracted out and for good reason, the
military structure is not designed to facilitate such personnel. Anyone with such advanced skills
cannot be retained in the military.
Got Code?
I can imagine that the "Sir, yes sir" variant of military discipline could clash somewhat with the geekish type with mountain boots, beach shorts and half the shirt hanging out :-)
The thing is, there are many kinds of discipline - just because you don't dress sharpish and are servile to officers doesn't mean that you are undisciplined. I would argue that it takes a hell of a lot of discipline to stick with a difficult piece of code all through the night and the next day too.
I was in the Army for about 7 years (including a stint in the Persian Gulf in late 2003). The Army has deep, fundamental problems with how they treat techs.
I could go on for pages, but I'll just give one quick example. Promotions in the Army are based mostly on the amount of time you've been in your job. There are also "schools" that are for the most part mandatory to be promoted to the ranks of Sergeant and above. Attending one of these military schools, requires that you leave your unit for about a month. So within my job (74B) it was typical that 75% or more of the soldiers knew absolutely nothing technical. The problem was that there might only be 1 or 2 really savvy people in a unit and they couldn't afford to lose them for any point of time. So a friend of mine who ran the mail server for a large base, wasn't able to go to a military school so he got promoted much later than his non-tech savvy counterparts despite the fact he was a really good soldier as well.
This is a very common practice for the Army. The good techies (like my friend) leave the military instead of reenlisting because they have make 10x as much. Almost all of the high ranking enlisted people used to be infantry or medics or other non-technical fields who switched because they would get promoted faster in this job classification. For the most part they don't know or care about tech.
put them on the front lines with their toughbooks for testing with Panasonic.
Stupidity only gets you so far, then you've gotta try
A couple of weeks ago we were having some inane conversation and the topic of our respective work places came up. I work in an IS shop with a relatively young crew of developers (I'm 29, I still consider myself young) and most of us show off our inner nerd on a daily basis. You know the stuff; ringtones from old school games, anime, Star Wars, oddball wallpapers, conversations about stuff that leaves non-nerds scratching their heads. A while back I even heard someone playing StarFox a couple cubicles over on a Friday afternoon. All in all it is a pretty great environment :-D My friend's response was "You're so lucky, you work with nerds out in the open. All I have around here are a bunch of closet ninja nerds!" He went on to say that if you're a nerd in the army it's generally better not to show it. Apparently he catches more crap about his nerdy past-times than he does about anything else. Nothing serious really, just the general razzing you might expect. He re-upped a couple of years ago though, so it can't be all bad.
God, schmod. I want my monkey man!
as enemies
The more intellectually advanced are already employed by the NSA.
I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.
Perhaps the submitter or nerds in general need to realize one thing. Your technical experience is recognized, that does not mean you get a pass on showing recognition to those who hold a higher rank. Too many times its a "us versus "the man" attitude that causes the grief. It is a wonderfully working system with little need to change, the real change is required of those entering it and realizing that their technical knowledge does not impart superiority over those who out rank them.
Yeah you will run into arseholes who will dismiss your opinion even if your right but that happens in the real world as well. I think Hollywood has really given geeks a bad idea of what to expect in both extremes.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
As a degreed electrical engineer and Air Force communications *engineering* officer I was expressly confined to assignments within that narrow career field. In a service dominated by flying ("rated") officers that was the kiss of death, career-wise. I was passed over for promotion again and again because I "lacked the breadth of assignments and experience required for advancement". My classmates with history and general studies degrees got the maintenance, operations, and command assignments and promotions I could not.
Now retired from the Air Force and working as an IT contractor, my skills are very much in demand. My salary is probably double that of my peers that got "definitely promote" ratings in uniform.
In my estimation there is absolutely no possibility that the military will ever adopt -- let alone embrace -- the computer nerd culture needed to develop any serious IT capability of its own. Its leadership is too narcissistic and firmly rooted in the past to allow it.
This raises some interesting points. I've been an advocate of a separate branch for cyber war, but ironically this article has me thinking in a new direction. A former IT boss of mine used to say that in the military they take pride in the notion that if it is round you carry it, and if it is square you roll it. The article indicates this cultural problem, but isn't this a cultural pervasive in the very institution of the military? While different branches have different cultures, surely a non-kinetic warfare branch would truly be the odd one out. The military is capable of scientific rigor, certainly -- the US Army Corps of Engineers is a good example. Yet, we have all kinds of intelligence agencies under the department of defense umbrella where science is the modus operandi -- so why would cyber security go under the military, as opposed to the NSA, for example?
The military requires some degree of cyber warfare capability in the field, but I'm not sure it makes sense as the nexus of national defense efforts in the field. It further seems axiomatic that cyber security can't be reasonably split into our existing branches. This seems to be the crux of the issue: the military may not be sufficiently distinguishing operational needs from strategic needs. While each branch requires operational components, strategically the military cannot effectively pursue this goal.
I'm not convinced by the point in the article regarding the NSA. On the contrary, it almost seems like the NSA model is ideal: the military requires operational folks who rotate through the doors of the NSA to get schooled and then go out into the field. Meanwhile, I would think, the NSA is staffed by career civilian professionals who can not only devote the necessary strategic attention to cyber warfare, but can also train the military as necessary. The article seems to address an issue where military staff is used to augment an understaffed NSA. Since apparently military staff is rotated out too frequently, it is not an effective use of resources. From this description, at least, this problem seems minor in comparison to the issues of shoe horning geeks into the military.
Most heartening, however, is that these folks seem to really get it, at long last:
Ill tell you a few things, first the military HATES when you come up with a better solution then the one there using already. Even if the cost is actully lower then normal. On top of this the culture enforces the idea that no matter how good you are at your job, if your not a 300 PFT (top score) then your not valuable to the service.
My advice is to change how rank is given.
Right now rank is given based on the following items
PFT score (physical fitness)
Time in Service
Time in Grade
How good your superiors think you are
How good your superiors think you are over the last several years
Doing military education (programing and other things like this dont count)
(a few others I forgot)
Overall someone who spends his time at the gym is a good marine and will get promoted over a nerd. On top of this a person with a high PFT score will get ranked better by his supervisors then a nerd will. To change this you have to tell the Marines to fight smarter not harder, however this will fall on deaf ears most of the time.
A backdoor to fix this would be to add new jobs to the marines, Military programers etc who would be ranked aginst each other. However... people who hate the job will take it because there already a high PFT military member thus ensuring new blood has no idea what the heck its doing.
Given the curent culture as well as the grab to get rank no matter what, your asking a vary hard question. Truly the best solution is some 3rd outside the service contracter way so you dont have to rank things that dont really matter.
Paul
paul . brinker (at) gmail . com
When I went in, I worked primarily on Banyan Vines servers and Windows 3.1 (then Windows for Work Groups, then Win 95 and migrated from Banyan (what a said day that was) to Windows 3.5.1 servers) as well as routers, hubs/switches in addition to secured communications (sat shots, encrypted comms, etc).
That was from 93 to IIRC, 96, and from 96 onward I did all manner of comms, radios, KGs, etc, etc.
By the time I got out, I was lagging behind a good bit in server/desktop technology, but communications-wise I was doing ok.
The point to all this is that the Marine Corps is treated like the red-headed stepson of the Navy, and tech changes in the military are slow, but moreso in the Marine Corps.
Cue some swabbie saying the Marine Corps is a department of the Navy, blah blah blah. I know. We all know. Now go take your dishbowl and your bellbottoms and leave me alone. ;-P
Sent from your iPad.
Let me start with a personal disclosure: This past summer slashdot ran an article about interviewing the Air Force's cyber defense team. We submitted the answers, they submitted the replies, and most people were frustrated at the lack of transparency. But one thing they did say is that they were actively recruiting (one of the big reasons they accepted the interview request). Well, I decided to try and contact them using their website. I e-mailed them and said I was game and got bounced to a government jobs website which happened to be broken and also had none of the jobs for the program listed. After a few more hours of fruitless searching, I gave up. What does it matter how they treat their nerds if the interested ones can't even land face time with someone who knows how to screen them?
Second, our culture is radically opposed to the military culture. And I'm not talking about dropping bombs and warfare stuff that so-called "liberals" go crazy over. We play violent video games to relax. And there's more people in our community that advocate gun ownership and self-defense than in the general population. In short, while it might not be popular geek culture to be pro-military, it's not a single-digit percentage of us by any means. The flip of this though is that many of us live alternative lifestyles and conventional military thinking is that we're a security risk. If it's not our sexuality, it's our hobbies (LARPing comes to mind as one example), and if not our hobbies, than our eccentric worldviews, morality, religious preferences, etc. The very things that make us valuable -- the ability to think critically, take the initiative, and not be weighed down by conventional thinking is exactly the thing the military (like so many bureauacracies, large corporations, and organizations around the world) seems to weed out.
Really, by the time anyone makes it through all those hoops -- are they really going to be a significant asset? Can the military honestly say it's retaining enough labor assets to combat what less-restrictive organizations (including criminal and terrorist organizations) will accept, and also what they're willing to pay? Seriously. They're organizing out there -- they are seriously organizing how they aquire networking and system resources, they're doing it in bulk, and those resources can be easily militarized. They're being traded amongst themselves already and while right now the targets have been primarily financial, it's only going to take a few geniuses out there to sit down at a table and put their combined skillset together and start attacking real infrastructure targets.
"Cyber defense" as it sits today is a total and complete joke. Even with chain of command decisions under five minutes from aquisition to execution, you people are still orders of magnitude too slow. And your entire strategy has been reactive in nature, because you lack the intelligence assets necessary to get on the other side of the curve and begin anticipating and analyzing potential threats before they materialize. Not only that, but the military has long been associated with the protection of physical assets and real people -- they are woefully inequipped to deal with intangible assets and virtual people. This is the new blitzkrieg and attacks can start and end faster than a single person's physical reaction times (on the order of a half second).
They not only aren't fighting the right war, they don't even have the basic sense to know how to adapt to it, or hire the people and trust them to take them in the direction they need to go. It doesn't matter how they treat their "nerds" -- they've already been hired away by private companies, organized criminals, terrorists, or simply left the field due to lack of legitimate employment. And all the while hundreds of billions in assets sit largely undefended, or defended only as well as a bunch of civilians with a hobby interest in security can do.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
The military supports tech nerds as much as anyone else. You have to learn how to adapt yourself to what the military wants, rather than waiting for the military to adapt to you.
I've been actively practicing computer nerdity for a little over 15 years now, and what I've noticed in my last 7 years with the Army is that I can practice whatever I want during my free time, but applying my technical expertise during work hours was often ignored or even actively fought against until I started applying my skills directly to the job.
For example, I wanted to write code more, and maybe even design my own applications. I wanted to learn how to use microsoft tools with databases and whatnot. This never worked because it required too many changes to the system that was already in place, and it had a negligible gain to anyone besides myself. All I wanted was to learn. Eventually I ditched my idea and instead focused on learning VBA (visual basic for applications) to write macros that would drastically reduce redundancy in our office. For that I got some form of praise. Another example would be in Kuwait, where I used my photoshop skills to do graphics work for our unit. For this I got more recognition.
It's difficult to be selfish in the military. It's also difficult to work in a civilian job that has no overall purpose except to ship a couple more units of Product X.
What Mr. Bejtlich does seem to understand is that the officer corps in the military exists to provide a cadre of managerial generalists. That isn't to imply that managers don't need to learn and understand the work they supervise, but a good officer shouldn't be tied to a specific specialty. A good officer should become reasonably proficient in the skills required for his/her current assignment, while being open to learning an entirely new skill set as required by a subsequent assignment.
The military DOES absolutely need technical experts, but that's what the enlisted and civilian ranks are for. If every officer restricted themselves to learning about a specific specialty, you wouldn't have anyone competent to fills the ranks of generals and admirals.
I am a reservist. My full time job is a sys admin for a fairly large engineering firm. When I deployed to Iraq last year, I spent my time providing security for a small FOB in Anbar. My job in the Marine Corps is Data. The government sent me to six months (of ultimately unnecessary) training in 29 palms. Yet, when I finally got the chance to deploy, I was a glorified MP. Instead, the Active Duty component and contractors supported the network infrastructure. Even when I pointed out areas they could improve the network, I was told to shut up and do the job I was deployed to do. Upon returning, I tried transferring to a reserve component where my skills as a sys admin could actually be used. I was told, "The training I had received and the investment the Corps made in me was too much to allow me to transfer." The Military could do a lot more at finding qualified reservists and leveraging their professional experience and expertise to help in areas where the military generally has problems finding qualified personnel. My $0.02... For what it's worth... I am proud to wear the uniform. I am proud to have served my country. Yet, I am constantly frustrated by the inefficiencies and lack of common sense. I guess they just needed a body with rifle.
Look at history. Alan Turing was an introverted nerd. He was gay in a society that persecuted gay people. Yet his ability to crack the Nazi enigma encryption system gave the allies huge advantages that saved countless lives on both sides and brought on the inevitable conclusion to that tragic war faster than would have been possible if he had been pushed away.
Well for starters I'd really hope they don't call them that to their faces.
Summation 2
For many programmers, sticking with a piece of code through the night isn't discipline, it's an obsession.
Knowing when and how to apply the obsession is discipline. When the programmer is needed the next day but they're completely hooped, that demonstrates a lack of discipline.
OTOH: It may be more effective to allow the undisciplined but obsessed programmer to do their thing, as you can get more out of them that way.
(There was a recent story about this, allowing people to intuitively work at their peak times, anyone got the link?)
I attended West Point and was in the top 10% of my class. I did very well in academics and about average in physical fitness scores. One of my tactical officers (sort of like a faculty advisor for a dorm -- or a babysitter and disciplinarian) once told me that I needed to get my priorities straight. No one wanted someone who was too smart, he said. He'd rather have someone in his unit who could ace the physical fitness test than someone who studied. Not everyone in the Army felt that way, but too many of them did.
So, Slashdot, how has the military treated you and your technical friends? What changes are needed?
I'm not sure where to begin answering this. Let's look at the recent brouhaha about memory cards and DOD networks to understand why.
In November, the DOD instructed everyone to stop using devices like flash cards, memory sticks, etc. They didn't go into why until weeks later, and they didn't publicly release the "why" until last month, if I recall correctly. And the "why" turned out to be agent.btz, a virus released five months earlier that antivirus software should have stopped.
But beyond that, here are the problems the DOD had in allowing the agent.btz problem to get way out of proportion. First, they had people using memory sticks to transfer files from unclassified networks to classified networks, when the proper procedure is to burn a CD -- which is treated as classified the moment the door closes on the secure system's CD-ROM drive.
Second, they obviously had a massive failure to protect their classified systems against a virus that by that point should have been easily detected and removed ... which raises the question, what sort of antivirus software, if any, is installed on the DOD's secure networks?
Finally, let's look at the so-called "solution." Ban all USB storage devices from all government networks? Really? Isn't that a bit like hitting a fly with a sledgehammer? The existing procedures on transferring data to classified systems would have worked fine if it were followed and enforced, but if the DOD can't enforce those procedures, how does it expect to enforce even more draconian measures that seek to ban the use of USB storage devices altogether? No, the DOD's decision smacks of overreaction and panic.
And it's telling that the ban is still in place four months after the fact. What that tells me is that the DOD is not prepared to properly and adequately protect its own networks, much less engage in some lofty concept of "cyber warfare." The DOD is still struggling to define what cyberspace is -- how can they fight in a domain when they don't even know its boundaries?
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
It was the other civilians that would give you a hard time. The military members were all very hard-working and saw that I am too. They repected my expertise and knew about how to be tolerant of my lifestyle even better than civilians (who hated my lifestyle).
For what it's worth, you have my support at least. My brother just got back from Iraq after serving in the Air Force. I don't agree with his choice of profession, but then I don't agree with a lot of people's. Don't mistake disagreement for a lack of support -- he's my brother and I'm the only one allowed to give him any crap for it. ;) I also respect his expertise in his areas of study and experience. As to lifestyle, at least I have never had a problem with a soldier's lifestyle or how they lead their lives after coming home. Most are good for the community, and the ones that are bad -- well, there's always a few, it shouldn't detract from the whole. But if I might add one small point? Attitude. A lot of soldiers are very driven to succeed, and driven by financial interest or family-building, or a hobby, whatever -- they are very driven. And they make people who haven't been given that training feel inadequate. If there's any one source of friction between civilian and military life, this would be the stress-point. People in the military need to relax a little and let civilians find their own way (however stupid their life goals and methods seem) and in the same vein, civilians need to be less judgmental about the men and women who come back with a fire under their asses to be more.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
First, a bit of background. I separated from the Air Force in 2006. When I left I had a CJR (waiting list number to keep my own job) in the 280s. That means just in the quarter I would have re-enlisted, 280 people would have to leave, choose other jobs, or fill spots before I got a spot to keep my own job. I left as a 3c051, Computer communications and operations, with the rank of SrA. I actually had a line number for Staff, which I got on my first try, mostly on the strength of my career knowledge. For those not in the know, advancement up to Senior Airman is automatic, and tied to time in grade, until the NCO (Sergeant) ranks. After that point, it's based on a point system comprised of time in grade, decorations, and your results in a test on general air force knowledge and career knowledge.
My assumption was, with as little relative time in grade as I had, that taking the tests was merely a day doing something different, and why not. But my scores, primarily on the career knowledge, was so high as to overcome my lack of points for time in rank and decorations.
So, ignoring any of my own opinions about how good or knowledgeable I am, by the measures that the Air Force has, I was the top of the class. I was also assigned to an Info Warfare Flight, exactly the unit that would be concerned with the things being discussed as priorities then, and today. None of it figured into Rank, or into my skill level, or if they tried to retain me.
The fact that I could run circles around the Staffs and Techs in my unit, and they knew it and deferred to me on technical matters, was irrelevant to what even my technical skill rating was, let alone pay or rank. By the standard of the air force, they had higher skill levels in technical proficiency than I did. Quite frankly, given that I had computer knowledge coming in, I'm certain I could have passed the 7 level class without any effort. However, it's not even offered till you've had Staff on for long enough to get scheduled for it, so, basically a year, mission requirements allowing. Further, as I was processing out, the unit First Shirt (kind of an HR Sergeant) gave a little speech to the airmen, saying those in overfilled career fields should stay in and retrain to something else, that we were young, therefore it was easy for us to do different things, therefore our experience at what we already were doing was irrelevant. I found it insulting to say the least.
The bottom line is this. The military is not setup to advance and reward those with technical ability. It is setup to have standard sized cogs. One airman's supposed to be exactly equivalent to another, One Staff equivalent to another staff. And if you're thinking from the mindset that one airman could be blown up, and his or her replacement must be ready to step in, it makes a kind of sense. It also doesn't make sense to promote up the ranks based on tech ability. NCO's are the equivalent of lower and middle management, Senior NCO's middle to upper, and officers filling out upper and executive levels. Just because you're an ace with networks certainly doesn't mean you are ready to lead people.
So, the system itself isn't designed to handle individuals that have technical ability, but who aren't ready/don't want to command lower level troops. None of this even TOUCHES on the way the military lifestyle itself clashes with the general hacker mentality. About the only draw the military has at all is that they will accept just about anyone, and if you can prove a certain aptitude, you will be allowed to do computer work, no previous provable experience or training required. For some of us who don't do well with traditional education, and don't want to work up through the hell desk ladder, it's got that as a draw. But that will only keep people in for 4 and out, and they then use that experience to go get a real job. And you can't run a realistic computer defense or offense program if your best people leave every 3 years (4 years minus the training), and all that's left and
Where are we going, and why am I in this handbasket?
I am an Army National Guard officer currently deployed to Iraq, in my civilian career I am a software engineer. I have firsthand experience that neither tech civilian employers know what to do with former/current military or the military knows what to do with technology people.
Here in Iraq, my computer and technology experience is used for troubleshooting basic computer and networking problems, installing printers that the 25Bs (Army PC Techs) cannot and making general's PowerPoint presentations animated. They simply have no idea what to do with me.
I applied to join a cyber team, and they would not take me because I did not have enough completed OERs (Officer Evaluation Reports), never mind my fluency in 4 programming languages, 10 years experience and being able to speak and read Arabic.
Conversely, I have been fired by my civilian employer for being called to active duty (small semiconductor firm in Chandler, AZ). A battle through the Department of Labor eventually won my job back, but things got nasty, very nasty. Civilian tech firms do not know how to treat or what to do with military people. It is as if we suddenly develop leprosy when they learn that we serve.
In the military, it's important to have a clear unbreakable chain of command, or people die. In IT endeavors, it's more important to have the best ideas float to the top.
Combine the military senioritocracy with IT people, and you get managers that aren't open to different ideas. Projects are run with a "take that hill" mentality.
It's amazing they get anything done.
Everyone in my unit knew how technical we all were, and the whole shop was a bunch of geeks. We were treated well and highly respected (though inadequately paid.) We would get together for LAN parties and talk about geeky things and it was fun. Then I went to be an instructor and it all went to hell. Now I'm doing systems again and it is a blast all over. I'm not sure how it is in the Army and Marines, but if you fall into the right job at the right base, it can be a blast.
Even when we were deployed, we were still able to have a lot of fun because most of the time we went as a group. This has become less the case which is why I'm glad I got out when I did. I miss the atmosphere, but the time came to either get out or get shot at. What would you do?
....has a different meaning than most nerds expect.
DI: "Alright you nerds! Drop and give me half a pushup!"
Have gnu, will travel.
A military that's top-heavy and inefficient? Gee, how surprising.
Really though, the U.S. military seems to be known for "well if it was good enough in the past, why do something different now?" How many advances have had to be shoved down their collective throats over the decades?
Electronic = bad, triplicate paperwork = good
Computer = bad, gun = good
Efficiency = bad, go through 17 levels of a command structure to get light bulbs = good
I have high regard for the military and soldiers as a whole. Much more good stuff than bad. But if you ran a business the same way the military is run, you'd be shut down and broke!
If you're a competent geek and want to serve your country, the CIA is a good place to be.
It's a civilian environment, much different than the military. But the work is interesting and important.
https://www.cia.gov/careers/jobs/scientists-engineers-technology/view-jobs/index.html
I was kind of nerdy in HS and grew into a geek shortly after. This was a short while before 9-11 after which I couldn't find a job, so I joined the Marines.
While I was in the Marines I got to experience the undercutting of on-the-job training, due to civilian network management (EDS, now HP).
The problems are many and quite diverse. The biggest I saw is the communist nature of day-to-day military life. Strangely, it's also not very militaristic.
I don't see geeks as prima donas, however, geeks are highly intelligent, exacting individuals who militaristically prove themselves or are proven by this intellect - something rare, rarely matched, and even more rarely respected.
FTA, when the general said IT personnel are in ill-fitting positions he is not kidding. In the lower - more prevalent - echelons of the Marines, ITs get grouped with the "Communications" unit. There-in, they are managed by superiors with little or no computer literacy. Furthermore, Marines no longer manage their own base networks, making their chances for training and experience limited. Finally, they are shipped off to Iraq or other war zones where they have to hit the ground running and are inevitably usurped by superior units with inferior intellect.
As if my two cents were worth anything at all, I would require that the military sac-up, and start actually weeding out the geeks from the grunts. I had some many computer illiterate "Network Administrators" it made me - the supervisor - execute more work than they did. As it stands, any n00b with the "potential" to learn this stuff gets thrust into a class where they don't socially fit, and can't grow fast enough. Then they are sent to protect the networks and save the world.
As well, the subordinate units I described without any IT-proficient superiors could easily be seeded with some of the current leaders in the field and a separate classification, keeping out from under the ignorant and arrogant thumb of the masses.
As a final note, ITs should not be exempt from performing their militaristic duties. Virtual or real fragging are both basically point and click, but we all have the potential to save lives and think strategically for the benefit of our brothers.
Sgt of Marines
Speaking about things as a former USAF Programmer (3C0X2), there are a couple major problems with being in a highly technical area in the military, even if you are in a good unit that works with the technical fields.
One of the first issues that pops in to mind is culture, as at the end of the day, you are still military personnel and are expected to behave a certain way. For the most part this isn't as big of a personnel problem as you might think, as long as people know what they are getting into when they enlist, they typically don't have any problems. However, the bigger issue arises in part because the military likes to rotate people around to different bases and this can result in the loss of a knowledge base in a unit. So unless there are competent civilian employees (i.e. GS series, not contractors) that will be around for awhile, as people are transferred in and out of a unit, there is an overall loss of knowledge and productivity as people learn what they need know about the system they will be working on. For some of the larger applications it can take upwards of six months to a year to know everything about the application - and that is assuming that you know what you are doing as a programmer before you get there.
This leads to the second problem, namely, the majority of programmers in the USAF where young people that enlisted right out of high school. This means that a great deal of them either didn't know what they were doing when they arrived at tech school - which means that you have to spend more time teaching the basics - or they where self taught and had bad habits they needed to unlearn. This means that as a whole, the USAF was spending a lot of time and money training someone to be a programmer, but by the time they knew enough to do their job well, they were at the end of their enlistment and you don't know if someone is going to reenlist or not.
This brings us back to the military culture again as the USAF would likely be better off is getting into the AFSC required you to have advanced training of some sort outside of the military, but if that was the case then they would make you an officer and if that where the case, odds are you wouldn't be writing software. Due to this I always wondered if it might be a better idea to just bring back the warrant officer in the USAF and make the AFSC fall under that. Highly unlikely that such a suggestion would even be discussed at the higher levels though.
So the bottom line, in the USAF programmers and other technical fields, always took a bit of a back seat to the more "bombs on target" and medicine oriented fields and as far as I could tell when I was in and there was always a bit of an issue with retaining people with good technical talent when they came up for reenlistment. A couple ideas where kicked around in regards to how to solve these issues, but when I was in it seemed like the USAF was solving the problem by hiring more civilian contractors to do the jobs.
... without compiling anything. The military does not do a lot of programming itself, but it does a tremendous amount of other "high-tech stuff". Getting voice and data networks up and operating on a ship with hundreds of people onboard, and not a single wire leading to it, is a very complicated problem, and it takes very highly trained IT specialists to make all that work. Operating and maintaining the AEGIS combat system is a very difficult undertaking, and there's a lot of computer know-how required.
Bottom line: there's more to tech than programming.
The more intellectually advanced are already employed by the NSA.
...or the NASA...
nerds were treated with a bar of soap wrapped in a towel, routinely beat on, robbed from, cast out, and had their opinions dismissed.
Granted that was in 83-85.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
... you have to take a technical exam to get advanced, so you have to know at least something to get ahead. Just keeping your shoes polished and your hair cut to specs won't get you too far.
IT services are not the main mission of the armed forces - flying airplanes, driving ships, and pounding the ground are. It only makes sense that those are the guys who are going to be held in the highest esteem.
However, I think it's pretty dumb that you have to compete with the fly-boys for promotion. At least in the Navy, support types (supply guys, doctors, engineering duty types, etc) each had their own competitive pools, and if you were, say, a doctor, you could hope to be CO of a Naval hospital or something.
He's right. I spent 8 years as a 3C0x1 (Communications Computer Systems Operator) and the idea that any base would have 400 enlisted people dedicated to programming is utter bullshit, even bases as massive as Eglin or Vandenberg.
They should probably just scrap internal IT and create a new service branch to do all the IT operations. Of course, this would never happen, every division has to have it's own little shop.
I can attest to this behavior, in my case it was one Civilian DOD that decided they didn't like me and proceeded to torpedo everything I was trying to do and trash my "good name". A civilian running a section isn't really the right thing to do, too much control over military personnel they look down on from their high pedestal.
I am told that the FDF is one of, if not the most, technically advanced armed forces in the world, where IT experts have a real opportunity to make a contribution. Is there any one of them who reads Slashdot and can enlighten us? Is this true and, if so, what are they doing right?
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Back in the late 90's, I was an officer on a large joint staff in Norfolk, VA. I came to work one day, fired up my SIPRNET (SECRET) system, looked at my e-mail, and saw this in my inbox:
FM: COL So N. So, USMC
TO: Me
Subj: I LOVE YOU
I was pretty sure the Marine colonel upstairs didn't really love me, and if he did, I didn't want to know about it. Also, being a generally suspicious type, I didn't open the message. Later we found out that there was this new virus going around, and some dumbass (not the colonel) had moved files from the unclass network to the SIPRNET and infected it. It took forever to get our systems cleaned up, but having paid attention in computer security class, I didn't lose the use of my machine!
Why can't you get a 300? You don't have to be an Olympic athlete. There's no reason you can't be a warrior and be a top tech. The Marines, like the Army, look at the whole person. Physical fitness, weapons qualifications, general military knowledge, and your job-specific skills.
The problem I see with uniformed tech folks is that they see themselves as techs first instead of Soldiers/Marines first. Embrace your inner hooah/oorah!
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
I've been out of the military for a year and a half now. I left because I wanted to expand network security wise and the military would not let me do that. You can't treat the military's attitude towards geeks as a single attitude, however. It depends on who your divo is. My division officer was a non-technical person with a "my way or the highway" attitude. To him, network security was not an important issue for a ship command. His reason was that there is a NOC firewall between the ships and the shore connection, and that nobody would ever penetrate that firewall. Therefore, there was no need to "waste time" with network security except for 1 week out of the year during the required red team/blue team exercises. I have friends on other ships with almost a completely opposite situation. So, it all depends on who exactly you work under.
I was in the Marine Corps, and I can promise you there your intelligence gives you no real benefit. Sure once my SNCO's realized they could rely on me more than some of my straight retarded brothers and sisters, who could barely remember their name let alone what they were supposed to be doing, I was given more responsibility, but with no benefit.
Look at the way the Marine Corps promotes:
PFT (Physical Fitness Test)
Rifle Qualification Score
Proficiency and Conduct scores (which are up to the people you work for; so if they like you or hate you that can drastically alter the scores they give you)
up to 100 points for completing MCI's (Marine Corps Institute tests) for which most (surely not all) cheat there way through by copying answers, without even reading them
Time in grade and service.
That changes a lot once you obtain the rank of Sergeant, though I am not overly familiar with it because I was about 3-6 months shy of picking up E-5 when I hit my 4 year mark, and left for slightly greener pastures, but as you can see intelligence is not a real factor.
One could argue that the branch of service I joined does not lend itself to favorable treatment of smarter individuals, but even the 15-30 years veterans would admit that these days we work a lot more intelligently to accomplish the same things that they worked much harder at accomplishing. They (and I) would caution that neither is necessarily better, but then if you're going to offer people the ability to use their head, why not provide some sort of incentive for doing so, just as you do for those who work hard.
Is it any real wonder that with 6 or 7 years prior experience as a Systems/Network Admin, and couple years of college, I went running back to civilian life where I could use my mind, and make 70,000+ (in a position I think many here would kill for no less) a year doing it, versus being underutilized, underpayed, not to mention never getting to see my wife?
I did fine in the Marine Corps; I was going to be a Sergeant in under 5 years if I continued on the track I was on; even with the rapid promotions these days that is a pretty good rate. But had anyone ever taken a minute to see that I might be capable of a little more, they might have been able to keep me... it wouldn't have necessarily involved more money; there is just nothing worse than being put to task in a monotonous and altogether mindless job when you know you are capable of so much more.
One could argue I was in a different position than most; I was 26 when I joined and came with a bunch of skills most 17-19 year olds don't possess. But none of those were ever used to the benefit of my units or country. To me, there is a huge lack of ability, within the Marine Corps at least, and possibly other branches as well to seek out talent and utilize it to its fullest. And as I saw it there were a lot more of these 'less desireable' candidates joining because they could not get their hands on the fresh 18 year olds; lets face it there is a war happening and not as many are willing to join. But you start getting these older people creeping in who can bolster your abilities in new and interesting ways, and to simply squander it is doing no one any good. I was not the only one joining mid to late 20's or even very early thirties that was bringing something more than a high school education to the table, and I never saw any of them used to their capacity.
And, as I read back some of this might sound like a bitter rant, but it really isn't meant to be. As was said to me many times, nobody promised me a rose garden. (http://www.cadetstuff.org/images/rose_garden_poster.jpg); not to mention I took away many good habits from the Marine Corps as you really do look at things in a different way after awhile. And I don't know what all the answers are. I joined the toughest because I wanted to be the toughest; but when you say I've proven myself, tell me I can wear the uniform, and then stuff me in a mindless job behind a desk way beneath my ability do you real
I was a federal contractor. I had to migrate data from databases. I had to download via ftp and then later the web. I had to keep the web browser open in order to start the download again after the download would cancel. It was large files being downloaded with troop and aviation data from one base to the other, in flat text CSV files.
I had to import them into Oracle, MS-Access, SQL Server, and other databases.
The federal employees did not like us because we were the evil capitalists (ironically they earned more money and had better benefits than us contractors) and they were just doing their duty to the country and not for the money.
Who says federal contractors are not doing it for their country as well? I applied for federal jobs and scored 96% on the test they gave me, and I didn't get any federal jobs so I applied as a contractor instead.
The Generals loved me, I was one of their secret weapons that most of the Federal Employees couldn't or wouldn't do I was ordered to do. Plus I wrote a program that kept track of projects and emailed the chain of command for each 5 days it was late and if over 30 days late it emailed the general of the base. At the time Clinton was President and wanted to close down bases and migrate them all to one base or another. I was helping close down the St. Louis base to the Huntsville base. I migrated all databases down to the Huntsville base before moving on. Had I moved to Huntsville I might still have had a job there.
It was good, except for a few federal employees who knew I was a nerd and could do things they didn't understand how to do. Plus I wrote a butt-kicking project manager database that told on them, which may have been a factor.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
While I was enlisted in the Marines, a 300 requires (for males):
20 pullups (no kipping!)
100 crunches in 2 minutes
3.0 Mile run completed in 18:00 or less
I got to 20 pullups and 100 crunches within a few months of solid exercise. But through 4 years of trying, I never once made it to an 18 minute 3 mile time. I put a lot of time into conditioning and training for it, but the best I ever did was 19:11. Some people are not built for a constant 6 minute mile pace. I weigh around 215, I'm very lean (around 8%), and by all standards I'm in amazing physical condition. I can run a full 26 mile marathon in combat gear. But an 18 minute 3 mile time? I don't have a chance...
Of course this was back in the cold war but my understanding is that my experience is still rather common.
Technical people are not given commissions. If they are, they are usually expected to take on a supervisory role only. During my 4 year stint as an Army programmer I met an MIT CompSci grad who got a commission and was never given a technical assignment. He was the XO for our data processing unit but that is only an administrative position. He was rightly pissed during his enlistment. It was a complete waste of his talent.
I also knew a guy who had a masters from Yale who became a programmer. They offered him a commission but he turned it down when he found our that he would not be doing programming work. He took the training, let the army pay off his considerable student loan and left with 4 years of experience under his belt and a masters degree.
Keeping programmers past their enlistment period was so hard that they changed the minimum enlistment period to 6 years. In my opinion they should have at the very least made highly technical positions warrant officer positions so they get more pay, more respect and with that, longer retention.
But the problem with the army is their heirarchical thinking. An enlisted position has very little chance of becoming anything more. If you do real work, you are considered less than an officer who largely does pretend work.
WHINE: DoD contracts all their cool IT work out to Contractors.
I'm a contractor on a fairly major contract w/ DoD.
I have several years of experience and cultivated contacts specifically useful to this contract. If a 'blue shirt' were to be doing my job,it would likely take 'em several months to adjust and start being as productive. --a few short months later, they'd be shipp'd off to their next assignment. The result would be mostly chaos for the project. I'm not against DoD using enlisted folks to do the IT stuff.. I think they should.. it gives great experience for their future. But some pretty basic Military Life aspects will need to see change before it's viable.
V/R --Micke
My first tour was overseas. I got to work in a network operations center. And while I didn't like that job I got to work with some neat folks who "kept things running" and I was able to travel a lot on my time off.
My second tour was at a research lab and as an officer I wrote code related to "cyber warfare" stuff.
The military culture was good to me. Yes there was BS but I always felt I had the respect of my leadership, peers, and troops. And yes, the system is broken in terms of allocating technical expertise where it can do good. The leadership knows this and for me they did what they could to get me where I would do good.
I don't think cyber warfare nerds should get special status like the medical career fields. Some of us were just happy to have the privilege of serving our country and doing something fun at the same time.
Granted the AF has a different promotion and pt system from the other branches but I would never realistically achieve a 100% on the pt test.
Largely that's because the only times I ever met their requirements for height wieght was when I was anorexic. And it's not like I was even then the shape they wanted, I was still just under the max. When they went to the new system where waist size counts for 30% of your total score on a scale with a non-linear slope I did slightly better. Through short term anorexia and wearing a weight belt for 12 hours before being measured I was able to pass the last time.
That whole time though I could max or nearly max the numbers for pushups and situps. And my runtime while not spectacular was where I could catch up the points to make up for having a big waist measurement. I regularly outran people who appeared fitter.
So far as technical skills the military measures them in the most rediculous way. Our tests were based on 5 to 10 year old technologies. When I tested for Staff, I made selection without any studying whatsoever.
The only skill for which the military ever rewarded me was rifle shooting. I shot at the "expert"(90% in the black) level every single time I was sent to the range (5 times if I am counting properly). The last time I fired, three months before I seperated, I shot a 98% and the top enlisted guy in charge of the CATM gave me a neat coin.
That's good. I struggle to max the run, too. You don't have to be perfect, just make the attempt.
The point it that I've seen many Soldiers who struggle to even pass the APFT (not that hard in the Army), then complain about lack of advancement. The requirements are clearly spelled out and it's not rocket science to meet them. All it takes is determination and willpower. Too easy.
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
I think that the complaint in the article is that officers were feeling like they couldn't advance their careers without doing something actually militaryish. I have limited insight into this, as I was enlisted, but I do know that the Army just created a new career path for EW officers, and they created and EW command a few years ago.
But it might well be hard for officers to grow into positions of general responsibility for military activities, if they only have experience of one narrow specialty, which is indeed pretty different from the mainstream. I am not at all sure that this is a bad thing.
Maybe the roles that were being filled by these junior officers, should have been staffed by warrant officers, who exist exactly to provide technical leadership is specialized roles.
I served in the Marine Corps from 97-05. I was a 4067 - Computer Programmer. We had some work and built a few decent apps. I got out because they phased us out to outsource it to civilians.
Training was almost non-existent. The MOS school was 8 weeks long and taught basic C++, VB and an intro to RDBMS. Most of what you were to know was supposed to be learned on the job, which sucked if were sent somewhere where there was no knowledge to share or all of the programmers were assimilated into the help desk. We enrolled at night into college classes to improve our work during the day. Because people moved so often (1-3 yrs) if was difficult to maintain a consistent technical team. Many of the older senior enlisted had started on punch cards and with rank had stopped being technical to concentrate on leading. In many cases they were years behind in technology and theory. It wasn't entirely their fault they hadn't kept up with technology - the Corps didn't require that of them. Most officers we worked for didn't know how to run a software project. A couple of them were phenomenal, but they were both former coders.
I can remember a situation where we were tasked with writing an app for the Group Commander that aggregated information from 9 different areas. That was almost the entire requirements given to us. It was also added, "make sure there's a change every Friday to brief at the General's meeting". We asked if we could ask the General more about what he needed in the app and were told, "Absolutely not!" and then given a lecture on "Commander's Intent". That project failed hard...
At the end of my enlistment, I was offered a lateral move to Information Assurance. Half of the IA guys where I worked couldn't reinstall Windows by themselves, much less secure it. I was discouraged and left to find more technical pastures.
4 years later and I'm heading back. I've recently started with a civilian contracting company that the work was outsourced to for a long contract on a military installation. I will be in the same job, in the same building but making 4 times as much as when I left as an E-5 with 8 years.
I never joined the Corps to make money, and I would have stayed had they let me keep hacking. I didn't burn out from writing software because the schedule varied so much. Rifle range, Division Matches, Deployments, etc. There was something at least every quarter to give you a little break and keep things fresh. I think there are many geeks that would enjoy the work and the lifestyle. I liked writing software where I could interact with the users and see and feel the impact myself.
Running, shooting, swimming, fighting, communicating, and coding...all good times...
The problem lies with leadership, organization and training or rather the lack of all three.
Semper Fi!
Let me preface this with the fact that I'm a pretty hardcore geek. I'm not quite the type to dress up in a Star Fleet uniform and go to a convention, but close. I was in the USAF for 8 years as a 3c0X1 (Computer Operations Specialist). I had two duty stations, the Pentagon and Langley AFB VA. I was an E-5 (Staff Sergeant) by the time I got out. I will say this, I was given the opportunity to excel or fall flat on my face.
My first year at the Pentagon I was a telephone operator. I had gone through 6 weeks of Basic and 3 months of non-stop technical training for Computer Operations (Sys Admin on the civilian side) and I was answering telephones from 11pm to 7am. Needless to say I was very disgruntled at my initial assignment and it showed. I fortunately got through my evaluations without a mark and never got into too much trouble but it was apparent I was a malcontent. Most of the 3c0x1's stationed at the Pentagon (used to) go through the switch first, it's all civilian now, thank God. From there they would evaluate you and put you in a different IT shop. My friend who put in a bit of effort now and again worked network security for 3 years. I got stuck working on a 30 year old mainframe, processing message traffic for the remainder of my time at the Pentagon.
Fortunately I was given an assignment to Langley where I did Sys Ad work for an Intel Squadron. I worked on all types of equipment with applications and systems that you don't see outside of government operations. I saw that if I showed up on time, uniform straight and put in some effort day in and day out I was rewarded accordingly. The Major I worked for (not directly he was 4 people higher in my chain) noticed my work, said it was appreciated and put me in charge of an even better network with MUCH higher visibility. I was in charge, I had 3 people that worked for me and if they screwed up, it was my screw up. We did everything from scripts to SAN to Email, UNIX, Linux, you name it. The only thing we didn't do was routers, switches and cables. Life was good, my job was great.
In 2006, when it was time for my second re-enlistment, I tested the waters with my resume and I was astounded that I got offers in the 6 figures with only 4 real years of experience (plus an AS in Information Systems and a TS/SCI clearence). I got out and took a job as a contractor for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.
Ironically, I stayed in Virginia for 8 years in the Air Force, minus the occasional training at Keesler AFB, MI. When I worked for the NGA, I went all over the place, Japan, UK, all over the US, etc. I attribute the success, I had, to the hard learning I had in the military.
Basically I would say that, at least in the AF, if you show up to work, look good, act professional and do your job, you will generally excel. There are of course exceptions to this, however overall, I think it compares very much to how you could, or could not, be treated in the civilian world.
Read Singer's Wired for War. That's about military robots, and covers some of the issues that arise as the computers start taking over weapons.
Pilots of remotely piloted vehicles occupy a strange place in the Air Force. Most of them are based in the US, controlling vehicles in Iraq. They're stuck in a fighter-jock culture. The RPV pilots, though, are the ones doing damage to the enemy. They're flying combat missions. The fighter jocks are mostly zooming around, but don't have anything to shoot at.
There's a messy command authority problem with RPV pilots. Do they belong to the base commander where they're physically located? The unit that launches the aircraft, often far from the combat zone? Or the unit that's actually in the combat zone?
Then there's the problem of who flies the things. The USAF used to task fighter pilots to fly RPVs. They hated it. Worse, it turned out enlisted men trained to operate RPVs did at least as well as the fighter jocks. The USAF is facing the possibility that the fighter jocks may become irrelevant.
It's happened before, with aircraft carriers. The U.S. Navy, until early in WWII, was dominated by the "battleship admirals". There was heavy opposition to aircraft carriers. Congress finally stepped in and, over Navy objections, made it law that the captain of an aircraft carrier must be an aviator. Today, the battleships are history, and the Navy is dominated by aircraft carrier types.
It doesn't sound like the "military lifestyle" was the lifestyle he was talking about:
They repected my expertise and knew about how to be tolerant of my lifestyle even better than civilians (who hated my lifestyle).
I'm curious to know what he meant, but I don't think his profession was it.
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I'm active duty enlisted with the Air Force, job code 4A2 (kind of like a... medical electrician). Most of what I do is repair hospital equipment.
Right now I'm filling two job slots that are rated for an E-5 and an E-7. I am an E-3. I am paid as an E-3. My previous supervisor left for the private sector, my current supervisor is deployed.
In the last year, I've gone from being the apprentice repairman to being the *only* 4A2 on base. I'm doing tasks that are ordinarily not trusted to anyone under the pay-grade of E-7.
On top of repairing, inspecting, calibrating, researching, and approving purchase of medical equipment, I am also the alternate facility manager and alternate safety manager. On top of that are loads of unofficial duties and one-time tasks, for things I was never trained in but had to make up as I went along. Starting a lock-out-tag-out program from scratch, starting contracts for capital equipment, printing out blueprints on the plotter because no one else knew how after they fired the old facility manager (thank you, high school CAD classes). I do 20-30 hours of additional work beyond normal duty hours throughout the week, and I'm the on-call guy if something breaks over the weekend. Did I mention I'm the *only* person on base who is trained in my position?
I haven't taken a single day of leave in two years.
There's no possibility of getting any temporary assistance, because my AFSC is already down to 80% of what we're supposed to have. Even if my career specialty superiors could dig someone up, it'd just be another airman, E-4 at most, who would have only as much on-job experience as myself.
Down at the other end of the base, there's a guy with the same number of stripes as me, whose entire job consists of opening up cans of slop, microwaving it for 5 minutes, and serving it 3 times a day. He gets paid the exact same as me. More, even, if he's happened to knock someone up.
There's a female working in radiology, whose job consists of signing in patients, laying them down on a table, and x-raying whatever area the referring doctor specified. I learned how to do the entirety of her job in about 2 weeks of my 12 months of training. She got promoted before me, because she has the free time and regular schedule needed to go out and rack up all the volunteer work necessary to mark a troop as being "well-rounded".
Funny how few non-female, non-minority candidates manage to make "Below the Zone". You don't see a lot of caucasian males collecting awards or commanders' coins.
I've got to write my own damned performance report (remember, my supervisor's deployed), and somehow bullshit in enough "spiritual advancement" (seriously.) so the AF won't give me a 4/5 rating and shit-can me right out the door with an administrative discharge.
I've got 2 years left on my enlistment, and you can be sure as fuck that I'm getting out. Hopefully the country won't got bankrupt in the meantime, and I'll be able to collect on the new GI bill and get the bachelor's degree I put on hold when I signed up.
I don't know if the military 50 years ago really was any better, but I do know that its current incarnation is entirely suicidal. Any troop who shows a trace of competency is given greater and greater amounts of work, while mediocrity and finger-pointing earns slack, day passes, and lowered expectations. Anybody who actually possesses the skills to get a real job gets out and takes one at the first opportunity.
I can't help but think that the entire US military is going to hit a point in the next decade or two when they realize "holy shit, we kicked out all the workers, none of the retards still kicking around have any clue how to fight a war".
It is administered as part of DOD.
"In accordance with Department of Defense Directive 5100.20, dated December 23, 1971, the Director of the NSA and Chief of the CSS must always be a commissioned officer of the military services with at least the grade of a three star lieutenant general or vice admiral during the period of his incumbency."
NB: "Recruiting ethical, trustworthy people" means people who do not break ANY law. If you have ever downloaded something illegally or smoked pot, you do not fit this criteria, and will not get your security clearances.
Out of interest, when's the last time anybody undertook "a serious assault" on bases up the road from you? (is this mainland USA, European country, Iraq...?).
I agree wholeheartedly with you. Like everything else in military life, it just requires some effort. I got a perfect PFT score every time I took it except once, and I was hungover that time. It helped that I was "a runner".
Best time was 16:00 flat for the run.
Sent from your iPad.
When did they switch to crunches from situps? (Got out in 98)
If you weigh 215 and are slim, then you must be quite tall.
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Are there any papers out there that compare the evolution and eventual separation of the air-forces of the world to the evolution of the modern computer forces? Originally airplanes were contained within the branches of the Armies and Navies and led by generals and admirals who were unable and unwilling to use them to their fullest extent. I see the same pattern today.
Don't know about the other branches but the AF calls what everyone else calls a "situp" a "crunch".
I used to have a technical job in the Army, and like most geeks, I have a few complaints with the "culture."
First, the Army is designed around the infantry - which means that your physical fitness matters more in promotions than your knowledge. Promotions throughout the military are looking for a breadth of talents as opposed to specialization - being a "geek" necessarily implies that you overspecialize in one area of knowledge. The military is hierarchical, which means that rank matters more than knowledge. Work ethic, productivity, expertise are nowhere in Army promotions - education does play some role, but not as important as physical fitness.
The "disciplined" lifestyle will get a lot of geeks in trouble in the military. Having any alternate sexuality is strictly forbidden, having relationships with coworkers is mostly forbidden, and so on. For eight years, it was illegal to criticize George W. Bush. Drugs are strictly forbidden, while tobacco and alcohol use are expected. Long term obligations, daily exercise, mandatory hairdos, no facial hair, strict uniform appearances, getting yelled at a lot for minor deviations from the norm are all to be expected. In the Army, the most common background is suburban white male Republican Christian. As an urban white male moderate atheist, even I was uncomfortable in this environment.
As others have mentioned, if you are valuable, you're too valuable to be sent to schools which are necessary for promotion. Your boss, who you make look good by doing his work as ordered, has the authority to prevent you from getting promoted. Your only way out is to let your boss look like an idiot without anyone finding a way to blame you - that is, you have to have a neatly pressed uniform with highly polished boots, and appear more confident in your bullshit than he does.
I eventually learned to play the role, but it took me a hell of a long time. I loved the deployments, danger, bureaucracy and not having to figure out what I was wearing to work, but the culture turned me off and I left at my first opportunity.
Initially I was going to just dismiss this, but then it struck me: yeah, they do. The latest Secretary of the Air Force had this dumbass idea that he would try to make the Air Force tougher. It basically consisted of sending horribly, horribly undertrained airmen out with Marines and Army to do things they weren't good at. A good friend of mine took a 2 week crash course before being sent to Afghanistan where he had to beg Marines to show him how to do things like install the IED countermeasures on the Hummer he was issued. Another friend was sent to Camp Victory in Baghdad without a weapon, and when he finally got one, no ammo.
It had nothing to do with making USAF personnel tougher. It had everything to do with a temporary shortage of ground personnel in the fields because the Army and Marines are fighting a two front war. They need every one they can to be shooting at bad guys. The Navy did this too. Both services were asked to by the SecDef because of troop shortages. The Navy and Air Force "infantrymen" were basically sent TDY to do things like camp security and combat logistics, so the Army and USMC could send every warm body to combat. Its not like the Secratary of the Air Force woke up one morning and went "We're not tough enough. I know! We'll make our own infantry divisions!".
I think the "picking on geeks" thing here is way overblown, especially considering that both the Navy and USAF are manned largely by technocrats in the enlisted ranks. Maybe if a geek joined the Marines he'd get some heat, but the Air Force? I think someone got their feelings hurt. You joined a military force, not the Boy Scouts.
There is one caveat here, and that's the officer corps in USAF, which is a fighter pilot culture, and thus tends to go off the macho scale. I can easily see where, say, a comp sci grad in charge of computer networks would be given the nasty eye by his fellow officers. In USAF's officer corps, if you don't turn and burn for a living, you're somewhat less than a man.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Between 1992 and 2005, my experience was the RAAF treated their nerds exactly like general society treated their nerds. It was fine to be a technical genius but only you were "cool" and in the "in crowd". Otherwise you were ostracised, just like civilian life. Unless you were hidden away underground in some concrete hole with a bunch of other like minded individuals. Generally though these people were often referred to as "REMF's" (rear eschillon mother fkrs) and "blunts" (non pointy end) type people. Often in these environments, the security and "secret squirrel" IT was so structured and controlled that there was little opportunity for creativity. There were enough people to compensate for the inefficiencies in the existing IT solutions. When it came to promotion and career prospects, the RAAF always tended to look after their "warriors". Even if it was an orderly room, admin type, staff member who sat in several air conditioned offices in several hot countries, shuffled papers and got a chest full of medals. IMHO with so much action over the last 10 years, military units around the world will continue be run by "tough", decorated warriors for a while yet, and generally they treat nerds as tools to be kept in their bottom drawer. Maybe its changed drastically in the last 4 years... actually, probably not.
I think Mr. Fantastic made a pretty lame speech to an Army dude about how being a nerd got him the hot chick.
"The military these days contracts out EVERYTHING, not just IT stuff."
And I don't understand this, because the idea was that it would save money. But the contractors make so much that it more than eats any savings. The Navy does this with their supports ships now. They've transferred many to the USNS ranks, and the ships are mostly manned by contractors and GS career employees. And much of the work is physical deck labor... line handling and cargo management. Who costs more? A contractor making 60K+ a year with benefits, or an E-2 or E-3 that's in for one hitch, and thus, in addition to his low salary, isn't going to costs you a lifetime of retirement benefits that the GS personnel will?
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
The problem with the AF is pilots run AF's IA world, not engineers or IT guys. They need to realize that a network is not a plane!!!
I was a captain in the Air Force with a Masters degree in Aerospace Engineering. I worked as a mission analyst at a satellite ground station. By structure, the military does not trust their own to have intellect. Even though the folks in my unit knew and trusted me (commander included), The AFSPC IG that the Air Force is better served to outsource "thinking" positions to highly paid contractors - at my unit, the AF paid 150% of my burdened cost (pay, amortized retirement, etc) for civilian analysts with less education than me. His attitude was, "How could you know what you are doing, we have to pay for this expertise." I wrote a orbital propagator when my unit had an ad ho need to know the satellite's ground trace and performed other tasks consummate with my education and experience at the time. Yet the official policy of AFSPC at the time was to get rid of "engineer operators" because civilian contractors were "cheaper". Here is the big problem I had with that: first, not true. And second, I was uniformed, the contractors are not. That means something in a time of war. I think the experience with civilian security forces in Iraq should highlight the accountability issue. There is also the issue as to why the person was there. I wasn't in the Air Force for the money, I was there to serve my country. While I am in no way questioning the patriotism of individual civilian contractors, however, by the very structure of their contract, the contractors are not there to serve their country, they are there to make a buck.
I sincerely think the military needs to establish a uniformed engineering corps. The technology o warfare demands more technical skills, but we should be careful about turning out military over to what are effectively mercenaries.
.... Freedom to Serve Day. I know a lot more gay IT workers than I know gay hairdressers.
I'm in the Navy in a very technical field, cryptology. I see two groups of people in my office, those that are good at their jobs, and those that are good at being in the Navy. The USN consistently rewards those who volunteer for fund raisers and know their 11 General Orders over those who know how to do their job. I spend about 20 hours a week training people as a "subject matter expert", and the rest of the time gathering info and getting out to the fleet. This accounts for very little on my evaluations. "Where's your volunteering?" they ask. PTA and my astronomy club, nor my teaching martial arts to kids doesn't count. They want honor guard and donut sales. "Where's your leadership?" they ask. I'm too busy teaching the new personnel how to do their job ... err... wait, that would be any reasonable person's definition of "leadership". Not the Navy's.
But the pay is good, especially in this economy, I get 2 hours a day to go to the gym, and 30 days paid vacation. Plus, I don't have to make up time lost for doctor visits, and I get to go on my kids' field trips as well.
In a recent blog article, Cyber Command - Why stop there?, I referenced these same two articles. In my post I postulated creating a new service, combining the redundant Space and Cyber (IT) components that exist currently across all the services. I completely agree with the arguments presented by Lieutenant Colonel Greg Conti and Colonel Buck Surdu in "Is it Time for a Cyberwarfare Branch of Military?"
When I served (1984-1988) my unit treated its nerds very, very well. For example, I was only a sargeant, but because of my technical expertise, I was given a lieutenant to work for me, especially when we visited customers who respected rank more than ability. But my unit existed to do all sorts of odd technological things and everyone there knew that the nerds with ability were the most important cogs in our machine. If you were good, and could prove it by your actions on the job, then you could often choose your next job and often avoid getting transferred to a different unit. Every once in a while, the "real" USAF lumbered in (like getting assigned to base trash detail), but we accepted that stuff sort of like one accepts a mentally challenged in-law. I don't know how it is these days, but I hope that my unit is still mostly the same.
The problem isn't the miltary, its the nerds. Too many nerds have the 'my way is better' mentality, which in some cases is true.
The problem with the military is that far too many people think it should change to suit them, and they get very upset when they find out it doesn't work that way in the military. You do what you are told to do, when you are told to do it, or your time in the military is over or extremely unfun. If you're a commissioned officer, you can leave. If you're an enlisted man, you do what you're told or go to the brig.
I feel that the people who leave weren't meant to be in the military anyway. They don't understand or care that the military has existed for centuries and actually does know a lot more about how a military should operate than the guys who just joined. Most nerds can't accept the fact that they don't know everything or lack experience so they leave instead of sticking it out like most other military personal do.
You knew what you were getting into when you signed up. The military's job is to fight wars after all, its rather silly to be surprised that wars take many shapes and colors and sometimes it sucks working in those conditions.
Sarcarsm->
Must make someone proud to leave because they didn't like their desk job far away from the front lines while others are getting shot, exploded or otherwise mamed and/or killed. Its good that you get to go home and tell people you served your country, while others family members get to come home in a box or don't get to come home at all cause there isn't enough left to ship back.
Some people need a little perspective. You can take a fucking hazing or 'bad culture' or 'bad work environment' from the guys who risk their lives in a REAL bad work environment on the front lines. Pull your fucking head out of your ass you arrogant prick.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
I feel so proud. You guys deserve all the respect we give you....
It's totally worth it to outsource this stuff at $125k/yr. That is surely a better deal than getting an enlisted man to do his job. I mean, why stop here? Let's outsource more and more right up until we can outsource the actual fighting. And yes, I know they changed their name. Doesn't matter...they didn't change how the deal works.
The military today is vastly different than your military 20 years ago. Our govt TELLS us it's the same but anyone with half a brain can see it is not. The Military Industrial Complex is doing nothing but looting the coffers.
The American people have been and still are being fucked. Part of the reason we spend so damn much on our military is because of contracting. And each year that goes by, we get a little less in return.
In the old days, you told a private to do KP (kitchen patrol - think: peeling potatoes). That cost the country about a private's wages and salary to get the job done in the kitchen. Now, we contract "food specialists" > $30/hr to make the food. And we contract the food supplier at a nice 100% markup on his food. And we contract the people to SERVE the food. And we contract the ice cream company for dessert. All at a ridiculous cost to the taxpayer. The end result is that we pay $100 for something that used to cost $10. And inflation is not the reason. Looting, corruption, and a sense of entitlement (by the military ind complex) is.
And people wonder why the avg US citizen has less and less faith in his government. It's no surprise to this layman.
Sorry, the US Military is another politicised beaurocracy, as all militaries become between wars and don't talk about Vietnam, Afganistan or Iraq, they are not wars, they were ill-considered military adventures conducted by insulated pols with no down-side to THEM.
As in real wars, command gets better with practice. While there is no chance of the US loosing, in any real sense, the game will go on, but not least a moment in any nation threatening conflict. Leaders, not ass-lickers, become generals. That is the entire difference. To understand look at WW2 and Chester Nimitz and George S Patton. The Admiral an General were military outsiders until Perl and the Bulge then Nimitz became an insider while Patton stayed outside the delicious military lifestyle. For those with a real interest in military history, and a sense of fun, look at General of the Army, George McArthur and the Washington generals and admirals (some of whom McArthur said should not be given command of a regiment, but was C JCS)
The bottom line is that a peace-time military does not like to fight wars, they winge,
14.4k versus 125k... Respect is very expensive.
It doesn't matter how smart you are; if your sideburns extend past your ear holes, you're a Dirt Bag Airmen - or DBA for short. What the hell was i supposed to do anyway? Stay? 2001 rocked until about April (my birthday) we started bombing Baghdad until the 9/11 response. It wasn't a terrorist attack - we had all just got raises because of Bush, and we were out to prove a point. The Al Qaeda just took credit for some rogue vigilantes scared outta their minds from 6 months of bombing for no reason. Then i was like "My career in Unix is going nowhere in this NT4 world - Peace out!"
Now i make $150K in my spare time. With Linux. And Networks. F--- the Man
Zapp Brannigan: The key to victory is discipline, and that means a well-made bed. You will practice until you can make your bed in your sleep.
Fry: You mean while I'm sleeping in it?
Zapp Brannigan: You won't have time for sleeping, soldier, not with all the bed-making you'll be doing.
The military's needs are a mix of what one would expect in the civilian world, and what the DOD needs to function. I went into the Navy hoping to become a SysAdmin, and to some degree that happened. However I did not receive any formal schooling on the subject, due to both the needs of the ship/Navy and some politicking on the part of supervisors and coworkers. If I had the supervisors and coworkers that I had at the end of my service, I could have come out with NECs(Navy advanced schooling) relevant to systems administration, even router and switch administration. It's not ALL "you get what you put into it", though the aphorism does hold true to some extent.
Overall, I'm better off than when I went in, so I can't complain about the Navy as an organization though I'd say that the military could be doing a better job at advancement and education across all the branches.
Pay rate != Bill rate
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
survival......if that nerd survive.....that's not nerd...
only hackers.....>.^
When I was up for reenlistment in the Air Force in 1997, I was seriously considering it. Then one day I was feeling good because I just completed an overhaul of large network on the base. After my team and I finished up, we went to the chow hall to grab a bite to eat. I looked at the 3 stripes on the arm of the guy flipping my burger. I then looked at the 3 stripes on my own arm, realizing we both get paid the same. At that moment my mind was made up and a chose not to reenlist.
People who write books about managing software projects have a hard time coordinating the efforts of 50 programmers.
People who read such books have a hard time coordinating 10 programmers.
You expect that the military, with far less experience in the field, to be able to successfully manage *four hundred* programmers?!
The saddest poem
This is insane.
It's an Army. You're supposed to be learning how to FIGHT. Not how to clean floors instead of sleeping.
And sure - you might pick up some camaradarie doing so. But I think there are probably a million ways to get *more* camaradarie than this, and I bet those ways could actually invovled learning how to *fight*.
these organizations exist as ill-fitting appendages ... that attempt to operate in inhospitable cultures where technical expertise is not recognized, cultivated, or completely understood.'
So, pretty much the same as outside the military.
As a result of this discussion, the Association of Former Information Warriors was created.
LinkedIn Group:
http://www.linkedin.com/groups?about=&gid=1847393
Blog:
http://aofiw.blogspot.com/
Fuck the military.
Frequently, not all the time....
If you are not in charge you ain't shit.
If you work for the government you don't know shit.
If you are any good... IT/S..., then you're not on the top of anyones list for retention or promotion.
Government is just politics spelled wrong, especially for science and technology (True for US, EU, RU, CN...).
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
The military doesn't recognize the existence (or need for) a different type of person to fight their new battles. The problem is that even if they could morally convince a nerd to do that type of work (morally generally GENERALLY means money), they can't keep them because they don't allow thinking for yourself. That's all if they could convince us. Now lets see, you mean I could be a civilian working right beside the military guy and make twice as much as him? I wouldn't have to go to combat or cut my hair the way you tell me? I wouldn't have to wax floors or do ridiculous training exercises? I wouldn't deal with your bullshit inspections and esprit de corps events? No hazing or ridicule by ignorant higher ranking personal? You mean I'd have freedom of speech and religion, which I'm fighting for and others aren't but get before me? I could have my home the way I wanted it and didn't have to participate in your "family" building, non-mandatory but highly-recommended meetings? The military has existed as long as it has by doing what it has to. It gets the stupid people to do the bullshit and then hires outside organizations to do the real work. Hooray for government contractors ;) I am by no means saying that there are not smart people in the military, I'm stating that they don't stay in the military! It's just their jump off point.
I was in the military for 6 years with an honorable discharge. I was in an elite unit as THE information geek squad (no pun intended, we really were a squad of geeks). Everyone in my section had at LEAST one article 15 and was constantly being "talked" to about one thing or the other, especially people outside of our unit. We were generally looked down upon by the conventional military but inside our unit we were known as what we were: some badasses. We could have a guy in the field with a camera, radio and laptop sending video and imagery anywhere in the world in an hour from touch down to operational. Without getting into the specifics, for obvious reasons (and I'm writing this from work, hence the cowardly post!), we were the best at what we did but we didn't fit in. We had our award points maxed out right beside our extended list of punishments. We loved to shoot, we were damn good at it but I'm sure that was from all the CS tourney's in the barracks. We loved to jump from planes and do all of the badass stuff but we couldn't be trusted to sit back idly while stupid stuff went on around us; which got us into trouble often. Overall, the military treats its nerds like it treats everyone else. I believe that's how they should treat them. If they're smart they'll leave soon enough and get a job that's worth their time.
In my experience it's obvious that within the individual branches, the expertise is minimal and the programs weak. But there are elements of DoD that handle this stuff with excellence and the military members that get assigned there are most definitely top notch nerds. This is and will get better from here on out. It's definitely getting the attention it needs at the highest levels.