Ok, so I've spent a few hours digging through usajobs.Holy shit, I never knew the Air Force hired so many accountants.
At the moment, I'd prefer avoid a desk job. I'd like to get out on the ground and get some experience. And I want something which will transfer to later work in government or the military. A lot of the cool Intelligence stuff seems to want serious experience (I have some sort of cool business and administrative experience but nothing in law enforcement). The entry level CIA jobs supposedly want to see good grades, which I can not supply. I'd be interested in getting into some tech work, but I don't have any background in it. I looked for Iraq jobs, but they seemed to be mostly higher level stuff. Oddly, the only ones which might be within reach (GS9) required SCI clearance. Plus I'd have to talk pretty fast to convince them that my academic research counted as security experience.
It seems like the thing to do is jump in somewhere relatively low level - it looks the best shots are in Border Patrol, Forest Ranger, Police Officer, things like that. I figure I can try to get one of those jobs, then maybe jump into something else after a year or two? Do you have a sense of what that career transition is like? Is it easy to jump between agencies as you go on? Any other ideas for positions which would be a good start?
There's a lot of openings in Germany. I speak a little German and am currently living in Poland, but could take a job in DE pretty fast. I can't tell what the hiring procedure here is though - like, there are several Ramstein AFB career fairs listed in DC, but no jobs listed at Ramstein! I think living on a military base in Germany would be interesting but I don't know how valuable it would be on a resume.
One really cool looking thing I found is
Department of the Navy Criminal Investigator. I worry a little about the Top Secret security clearance though. I don't have a criminal past or anything, but I've had sort of a weird life. I'm not sure what they'll make of the vegetarian communist pot smoking housing cooperative where I used to live. I also did some therapy off and on in College, lived in Beijing for a couple months, and so forth.
Thanks for taking the time to give me advice all. It was very helpful, its sort of an intimidating thing, and I'm sort of bummed about not being able to enlist normally. Any other suggestions would be appreciated. This was a helluva lot better than most advice I've gotten on web forums.
Best,
Alex
PS - I am going to try to get a metacholine test done when I get back to the states, but I'm not optimistic. I think they'll tell me I have asthma but I just don't notice it because its so mild. And I don't think there's any waiver you can get there.
Esp. with a history degree, there are a LOT of historical parks (like my one) that will want you. The natural ones (Yosemite, etc.) won't care as much about your degree. Best part? You can work anywhere in the country at some of the most incredible places the US has to offer, and you get to do all of the things that visitors can't do.
