Questions about Joining the CIA after Army career?

M

Marcus

New member
I graduated from UNC Chapel Hill in June with a Double Major in Chemistry and English. I'm now looking into, even though I've been pondering the idea for a while now, into enlisting into the Army. But I have no interest in being an officer. I want to go into the 18x program to become a Special Forces Medic. Which I'm scheduled to sit down with a recruiter on Friday to talk about my choices. From the conversation we had on the phone, I can see not only is the Army looking like a good choice because of the job, but also for the money. Since I have a Degree apparently I get some pat bonus. And since I also am fluent in foreign languages I get pay for that as well. Native English and Russian. I was born here but my parents are from Belarus, at the time which was the USSR. I'm also fluent in German, French, Swedish, Spanish, and I speak a good amount of Czech. But, I would like to pursue a career after my time in the Army in the CIA as a Paramilitary Operations Officer. Now I understand I have a long time to wait, but I'm just looking forward at the moment as well. So I was looking at the requirements on the CIA's Website. Except for the military, it seems like a fit all the requirements with education. But it says one of the requirements is "combat leadership experience." Now from what that says it seems as if there saying officership. I wonder if being an NCO can pass as leadership. So please help me out if you can. Sorry for the spelling and the grammar, I'm not a big fan of computers.
Forgat to say, my parents came here when they were kids as well. But the lived in the same area in Brooklyn befroe we came to Seattle. My dad was 8 and my mom was 13 when they came here.
 
If you really really want to get into the CIA, go the officer route. Yeah, it may not seem to be as glorious as being a grunt with boots on the ground but trust me when I say that any Intell Agency is looking for leadership skills that come from being an Officer. You can still go Spec Forces but you would be way ahead of the game if you go Intell. With your educational and personnel list of skills you could go a lot farther a lot faster.

http://www.dia.mil/
http://www.afisr.af.mil/
http://www.inscom.army.mil/Default.aspx?text=off&size=.8em
http://www.nmic.navy.mil/
http://www.quantico.usmc.mil/activities/?Section=MCIA
http://www.nsa.gov/
 
mrhymer is exactly correct on both accounts: 1.) you are a great candidate but 2.) you should not be talking about your intentions of joining the agency on the world wide web.

With regard to "only" being an NCO/SNCO with combat leadership experience, small unit leadership would be what (in my opinion) is going to have more weight with a transition from military to CIA. I would imagine in the role of Paramilitary Operations Officer you are not going to be leading a company, let alone a battalion or larger sized element into any type of combat. It would be more like a fire team or squad sized element. Again, no specific working knowledge of that role within the CIA, just can't see them trying to pull off some sort of clandestine operation with 20+ operatives.
 
I would definitely go in as an officer and not Enlist. You can become an intelligence officer and that seems more like the logical progression to become a CIA agent.
 
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