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?"
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.
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.
Good post! I spent 20 years in the AF as an electronic warfare technician. I retired in 1999 but I got out exactly what I put into it. I came in a high school graduate. I came out with 3 college degrees, paid for by the Air force. I have lived in or visited about 15 different countries, married and raised 2 kids. I walked directly into a job working as a software engineer for nasa as a contractor making twice the pay even with benefits. Not to mention an additional retirement check every month. If I were still in Michigan I would probably be working for the auto companies or some factory as my father, two uncles and grandfather did. All in all, the Air Force did right by me. This doesn't mean I didn't have to deal with some real a-holes along the way. But really, aren't everywhere?
When I was in the Marine Corps as a 4067 (Computer Programmer), I lived the life of a Marine. I went to the range, I did my field training, I stood watch, I PTed, my life was almost identical to any other other POG on the base.
That said, as a Corporal in the Marine Corps in 2000, gross salary was about $14,400 a year. We had the barracks to live in, which was effectively a studio apartment with 3 guys crammed into it. The chow hall, which was operated by the lowest bidder, "shoe-leather steak" is not an exaggeration. And Navy Corpsmen for our medical needs, and I had only once seen a Corpsmen bend a needle while it was in someone's arm.
Compared to grunts and a lot of the menial labor guys, we had it easy in the office. AC, computers, internet access...
But sitting right along side of us were civilian contractors, often with bill rates about a factor of 10 larger than our pay rates, doing the exact same job.
We had one guy, an absolute wiz with Unix and Oracle. He got out as a Corporal making his 14.4k a year. The next day after his EAS he started working for the Marine Corps as a contractor, billing $125k/year. He did the exact same job, sat in the exact same seat. He had to do none of the extra military related work, no uniform, no risk of being sent off to war, and his pay-rate had over quintupled.
So anyway, not a whole lot of incentive for people to stay in the military as a nerd unless they are getting into one of these new programs.
There is an incentive to the military IMO of having long term personnel in these programs instead of short term contractors though. Trust, control, and tons of screening. You'll never have the level of control over a civilian contractor that you have over an active duty member of the military.
-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
Aliens
It's in reference to the line in the movie where Hudson makes fun of the Actress Jenette Goldstein playing the Marine Pvt. Vasquez.
Right, right. Somebody said "alien" she thought they said "illegal alien" and signed up!
When Jenette Goldstein showed up to read for the movie she only knew the title "Aliens" and thought it was a movie about illegal border crossers. She showed up in costume as an illegal border crosser. The line that made it into the movie was an ad-lib that was in reference to this slip-up.
I called and mentioned this to my dad, an Air Force veteran (vietnam, Panama, Gulf War I) and he just chuckled.
Basically, he said part of basic training, at least when he was in, was to teach you how to beg, borrow and steal. He can't count the times he was given a "mission" with no tools (for example: Mop this floor, but with no bucket, mop or cleaning agents.. or more nefariously "We need a new $PART for that truck over there, today" with no $PART in stock with a 6 week procurement time.. With some clever bartering with the Canteen and then with the Army base down the road (Air Force has better food), he'd "procure" 6 starters and get the job done.) and part of your "training" was to figure out how to locate, negotiate, or steal what you needed from someone else. They don't hand you everything in a war, some times you gotta figure it out yourself. If your buddy was truly not given any ammo in Camp Victory, a place filled with ammo, and couldn't figure out how to barter for it, well, according to my dad, maybe he's not cut out for military life. Then again, maybe things have changed since then.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai