Military Q&A: My Time as a Military Intelligence Soldier

hey what's going on guys so I thought for this Q&A portion I would get into an environment where it actually makes sense for what I'm talking about so I posted up a picture of my Instagram about my job in the military and I've done a few of these military q and A's before and one of the biggest questions I still get is what my job was what my daily life was what it was to be in military intelligence field and what I'm gonna do first is to just describe the job so when I went in I listened in 2003 I was actually in the delayed entry process depths the maps program you go from depths to maps and so actually join when I was still 17 in high school had about six months to start training and preparing for it and then I enlisted as a 98 x-ray now since then that has turned into a 35 pop-up and actually they transferred that MOS about three years into my time in the military but as it stands now I thirty-five Papa Cryptologic linguist I'm reading this directly from the Army's website is primarily responsible for identifying foreign communications using signals equipment their role is crucial as the nation's defense depends largely on information that comes from foreign languages so bottom line is it breaks down into two different portions you can be an analyst with the language or without and now I was an analyst with the language I took about two years of Spanish in high school I was terrible so I don't really know what has asked me to join the military as a linguist but I knew that their program was extremely intense and they turned out phenomenal linguists so I joined I took a test I took the D lab the defense and language aptitude battery and it literally is about a three hour exam of just nothing but made-up noises and sounds and languages and characters auditory and visual that you you just have to decipher so it's just a bunch of made-up languages and based upon how you score in certain areas they give you a language they assign you the language that they think you were best suited for so I took that I don't know how I passed they thought it'd be best suited for Russian sent me to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey California and that's where I spent the next year every day learning Russian so we're going to take a few shots around the different areas here I'm gonna answer your questions about what it is to have a job as a Cryptologic linguist in the military intelligence field all right so first question is did you ever consider the Marines honestly I considered every branch when I first went in I was looking at the Air Force first and my recruiting station in Roanoke Virginia actually had all branches in it Army Navy Marines Air Force Coast Guard I met with the Air Force recruiter first she honestly didn't have much to offer me I was about to leave but then the army recruiter tricked me into going to lunch then the rest was history so I never really looked at the Marines although my uncle was a marine I think just for the job that I wanted the Marines didn't have the slots were at the time did you fight for the Union or the Confederacy in 1865 no Kevin I did not fight in the Civil War I'm not that old in the intelligence section did you have much interaction with other country's military yes actually so in the intelligence community you work with a lot of other intelligence communities so I worked directly with very often the Canadian Forces British forces and some other countries that are what is the best quality to have as an analyst honestly the best quality I don't know if I could say going into it what you should prepare most Laurel what qualities should you try to have because honestly they trained you on everything so I would say the best quality as an analyst a really any job going into military is just to have an open mind and try to absorb as much as possible as quickly as possible okay favorite boots I'm assuming you mean military boots honestly the when I was saying we switch I was still wearing BTUs and black leather boots but then we transitioned into the desert boots and the oak leaves were by far the most comfortable boots what's the one memory you will never forget while training for linguistics honestly I hate it I hate in the sense that just everyday you are so immersed in learning one skill set all day every day for a year and it is complete and total language culture history economics country training total immersion training for a year some languages a little bit shorter expanded Shore Italian I think about six months but Russian and the category four and five languages are all about a year and you literally just it's like going to school for one subject all the time what's the most awkward memory you have during your time in the intelligence field I don't know all my awkward memories we're in the military aren't really around the intelligence field but a few things maybe that I picked up on during my job that I can't really talk about it's probably one thing you'll notice throughout this is that some of the questions I can't really talk about is because you work in a very secure classified environment alright so did you do anything outside of your MOS yes so in the military you have your day-to-day job your MOS been the always had the opportunity to go to different schools go to different training you'll get tasks for different things so for a few months I was actually a brigade sergeant majors flunky for more or less so I responded and worked like the s3 shops and I worked outside of linguistics for a little bit did you serve with any British forces yes like I said earlier I worked a lot of other foreign services Great Britain Canada if it wasn't for your injuries would you have stayed in and made the army a long term career yes probably I would have I'm gonna go into that in another video about why I got kicked out of the army but yes I joined at 17 and wanted to stay until I was 37 get that full 20 but six years in life had different plans for me where the jump wings at yeah so long story short I was transitioning out of AIT into my first duty station and my platoon sergeant royally messed up my jump paperwork didn't make it Airborne School and after that I just honestly honestly forgot about it any difference between the Marine Corps and the Army in the intelligence field I did work personally side by side with airmen Marines Navy folks so there's a large intelligence community in each branch but I definitely feel that the army had the largest footprint in that MI community what did you score on the D lab I'd have to look it up but for some reason 126 stands out in my head how much do you miss luxury in the military TV etc honestly not really people have this misconception a lot in the military that it's just you're living in a hole in the dirt all the time so except for basic training and except for when you're doing field training soldier training your warrior tasks and duties it's really a nine-to-five job or 5:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. whatever your shift is so you have a room you can change into civilian clothes after hours you can go to the movies it's just you wear your uniform every day to work that's it are you just literally sitting in front of computer translating and interpreting Russian in English as Cryptologic linguist I will say it depends a lot on the unit that you get assigned to as a linguist really anyone in in cell field you get assigned to a strategic way tactical unit and depending on those two it makes up a big difference part of what your day looks like what job looks like now I did get assigned to a strategic unit I worked at Lackland Air Force Base technically attached to an NSA compound and I worked a lot doing signals interception translating transcribing interpreting things like that and a lot that I can't go into but what I will go into is what that day in the life of a military intelligence soldier looks like from a strategic standpoint because that's all I can test it so yes you check everything at the door you go into what is called a skip basically it's a vault sometimes sometimes it's just a really really secure building no phones nothing technical nothing technological and it's just no windows it's like a super secret room and so a lot of that time is yes you in front of a computer doing your job interpreting signals interpreting languages transcribing transcoding whatever it may look like so I worked a lot majority of my time in the military doing that in the Russian community I did do some cool missions and when I was stationed in San Angelo of working on the DRT equipment so basically what that does is intercept cellular communications and we worked a lot of honest human trafficking and things of that nature drug trafficking across the Mexico and American border but as a military intelligence soldier you will spend a lot of your time headphones on ears on we like to call them listening in on whatever target you may have but really your job is to gather that intelligence disseminate it to the proper client and then make sure that the guys have boots on ground are knocking down the right doors and what they do is heavily dependent on what give them so from a strategic mi soldier point of view that was my life and I wanted to branch out trying to get assigned to a tactical unit was trying to deploy my volunteer for that deployment I was going through my pre-deployment training on up tear my hamstring injuring my back which then led into my bilateral hip reconstructive surgeries and ultimately I got kicked out of the army so from a strategic in my point that was my day to day I spent about a year learning Russian then I went and did some more technical training AIT training in San Angelo Texas and I was assigned to my duty station in San Antonio so if you're interested in that MOS you have to go through your ad job of course you have to get a high enough as that score to be able even to take the d lab and then dependent on your D lab score you get assigned your language then after that you go to Monterey California Defense Language Institute to joint forces operations so you're there learning whatever language with the army the Air Force the Navy and Marine Corps whatever and then you go out from there so it's heavily dependent on your score and it's heavily dependent on your final test you can go through the whole year do the language training if you don't test out you don't pass they reclass you into something totally different so I highly encourage you to take it very seriously it's a hard place to take seriously sometimes because you're in beautiful California but if you don't do that you can wind up watching tanks and so for me I didn't want to lose my $20,000 signup bonus and I wanted to be a secret squirrel pretty much so thank you guys for all your questions stay tuned for another military video soon I really enjoy the Q&A style I really enjoy giving insight as much as possible into my time and Army and for those of you are thinking about joining the military whatever branch or currently in for your service and please any further questions you have about this job specifically taking the d-lab MEPs time and service please leave comments down below feel free to comment my Instagram and we'll go from there so as always thank you guys for watching and I'll see you in the next video you

Channel: Chase Chewning

Views: 171,884

Rating: 4.9211135 out of 5

Keywords: military, military intelligence, MI, army, DC, national monument, washington monument, linguist, cryptologic linguist, Russian, Medina, Lackland, NSA, Air Force, Marines, Marine Corps, wellness, Chewning, ever forward, chase chewning, DLI, defense language institute, soldier, active duty

Id: sKRioJIdzwM

Length: 11min 32sec (692 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 07 2016