Message to all:
The Navy's board process for intelligence officer is completely fixed. If you are not a current or former sailor, or child of privilege, you need not even consider applying. You would be more likely to win the Powerball.The intelligence board is all about who you know, not how capable or qualified you might be. In short, intelligence officer appointments are little more than sinecures for children who hail from politically-connected, privileged families.
Some of my stats:
--DLI honor graduate in Japanese, according to the State Department, the MOST CHALLENGING language that the American government teaches its language professionals.
*Before anyone begins baselessly saying such inane things as "Japanese isn't important," please reference the strategic language lists for the CIA, State Department and DOD! Just because few enlisted chaps are trained in the language (most are suited government agents or FAO/intel officers of the four branches), it doesn't mean it isn't a strategic language or "important." I was hired by Blackwater for 115K per year to work on a sensitive contract for MDA right out of DLI. I was also offered a job at the Defense Intelligence Agency that I declined last year, given that my ambition was to become a naval officer.
--Japanese DLPT V: 2+/3 Yes, I actually have official certification proving my proficiency; I didn't simply claim to have mastered/"picked up" Arabic in a year whilst vacationing on mommy and daddy's money in Madrid, Spain! (Check out Jill Gentry's insufferably entitled and absurd comments from the December 2016 IWC Board. She was selected, by the way, with a 3.6 in political science out of a state college w/ no prior service or special skills to speak of. . . No, Spanish is not what intel needs, you silver-spooned twit. LOL It is a peasant's language that anyone with half a brain cell can learn, especially at the ridiculously basic collegiate level (College language programs are pathetic, and I speak from experience, having studied at both Middlebury College and a highly respected Jesuit college in Japan (Most of my classmates hailed from Princeton, Georgetown, Middlebury, Carnegie Mellon, and Columbia. I was, far and a way, the best student in attendance at both programs. Thank you, DLI!). It is a Cat. I language at the DLI; it is also, incidentally, the language that is occasionally offered to the DLI's FAILURES when they can't hack their assigned Cat. IV language programs! Cat. IV and Cat. III languages are what intel wants! Sh$%! DLI students often make fun of Spanish students for the aforementioned reasons.) If you are not a Green Beret fighting drug lords in S. America, a border patrol agent, social worker, or aspiring drug smuggler, it is practically worthless.
--AA degree in Japanese from the Defense Language Institute
--BA degree in international business, political science and international studies from a REAL and respected liberal arts college, magna cum laude (GPA: 3.8). Thank you, GI Bill!
--DINFOS-trained print journalist and public affairs specialist
--Former Marine and USANG sergeant (I did my time, I am a proven asset, and I served with distinction.)
--ACTIVE TS/SCI clearance
--OAR: 51 (I asked my OR if I should retake it in order to attain a higher score, and I was flatly told that there was absolutely no necessity to do so.)
Since starting this process, I have observed so many people get selected for Navy intel officer slots with online degrees--yes, online "degrees"--and nothing especially noteworthy or remarkable about their applications, save for their landed gentry backgrounds, that it has completely shattered my faith in the system. At least as it concerns the Navy's intel slots, the game is completely rigged, rigged, rigged. The selections are not remotely based upon merit; they are political and class/influence-based, period. Sheesh, a friggin' Marine Corps Reserve supply Marine (Yes, supply!) was selected on the December board. You cannot make this stuff up! Folks, it is true: People of Jill Gentry's ilk are what Naval Intelligence wants. It is completely who you know. Welcome to oligarchy/plutocracy, folks. Damn all who defend a patently un-American and feudalistic system such as this! U.S. Navy, you wasted a year of my sincere time and energy! More than that, you diminished my respect for your branch of service. I am now glad that I will not be serving in the Navy. How insufferable it would have had been working side by side a bunch of entitled blue-bloods who were handed their appointments based solely upon who they knew/what their lineage was. I pity the enlisted who will be cursed with the misfortune of serving under your authority. It is not difficult to conceive of how Jill Gentry-like people will treat their lowly enlisted subordinates. What a pity! Three cheers for feudalism! NRD, you should be ashamed of yourselves for misleading so many sincere and patriotic American intel candidates.
To those worthy two to three genuine American aspirants who happen to win the Powerball on these boards (in other words, those who are not politically extended their appointments by virtue of connections), I heartily congratulate you. Upon earning your commissions and acquiring sufficient rank, I entreat you to fix this broken system for posterity!
ORs: Do not waste peoples' lives and build up their hopes to simply fulfill your quotas! Such behavior is at once unethical and wrong and does no credit to our naval service.
Cheers!
