February 9, 2025 • 40 mins
Are you considering a career in the Navy's Information Warfare Community? As a former cryptologic officer, I'm here to provide an insider's perspective on this rapidly evolving field.
In this episode, I break down the various designators within the Information Warfare Community, with a special focus on opportunities for those interested in cyber operations. From meteorology to intelligence, and from cryptologic warfare to the newly established Maritime Cyber Warfare Officer (MCWO) role, we explore the diverse paths available.
Key Insights:
- Understanding the differences between cryptologic warfare, MCWO, and cyber warfare engineer (CWE) roles
- The recent shift of Information Warfare from restricted line to direct line community
- Deployment expectations and career progression for each designator
- Understanding the Cyber Mission Force and its components that MCWOs will be a part of
What You'll Learn:
- How the Navy is adapting to meet the growing demand for cyber specialists
- The pros and cons of each Information Warfare designator
- What to expect in terms of education, training, and daily responsibilities
- How recent changes might affect commissioning opportunities at the Naval Academy
Whether you're a midshipman weighing your service assignment options or a high school student with an interest in military cyber operations, this episode provides valuable insights to help guide your decision-making process.
Remember, if you're looking for fleet experience and deployments, cryptologic warfare might be your best bet. But if you're set on focusing solely on cyber operations, the MCWO path could be your ideal route.
Have questions about the Information Warfare Community? Reach out, and I'll connect you with current officers who can provide even more detailed information about their experiences.
The mission of Academy Insider is to guide, serve, and support Midshipmen, future Midshipmen, and their families.
Grant Vermeer your host is the person who started it all. He is the founder of Academy Insider and the host of The Academy Insider podcast. He was a recruited athlete which brought him to Annapolis where he was a four year member of the varsity basketball team. He was a cyber operations major and commissioned into the Cryptologic Warfare Community. He was stationed at Fort Meade and supported the Subsurface Direct Support mission.
He separated from the Navy in 2023 and now owns The Vermeer Group, a residential real estate company that specializes in serving the United States Naval Academy community with nationwide consulting and connection.
We are here to be your guide through the USNA experience.
Connect with Grant on Linkedin
Academy Insider Website
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If you are interested in sponsoring the podcast, have an idea, question or topic you would like to see covered, reach out: podcast@academyinsider.com.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Grant Vermeer (00:00):
Welcome to Season 2 of the Academy Insider
Podcast.
Academy Insider is a 501c3nonprofit organization that
serves midshipmen, futuremidshipmen and their families.
At its core, this podcast isdesigned to bring together a
community of Naval Academygraduates and those affiliated
with the United States NavalAcademy in order to tell stories
and provide a little bit ofinsight into what life at the
(00:22):
Naval Academy is really like.
I hope you enjoy it.
Thank you so much for listeningand reach out if you ever have
any questions.
Everyone, and welcome back tothe Academy Insider Podcast.
Today's episode is just goingto be me no interview.
Just got to listen to me ramblefor a good amount of time, but
we're going to be talking aboutthe information warfare
community.
Again, this is a topic that'spersonal to me.
I wanted the opportunity tokind of share my story, talk
(00:43):
about my time as a cryptologicwarfare officer and what I did,
and then again talk about allthings military cyber, because I
think this is a really bigtopic where a lot of prospective
students, a lot of midshipmen,they want to do cyber, but
there's so many communities inthe Navy that like may kind of
do it, or a little bit or notreally.
So we're going to provide a lotof clarity into that.
And what's good is the Navy isreally trending in the right
direction.
(01:03):
I saw a recent article with aquote from Admiral Clapperton at
Navi4.
It's the greatest thing I eversaw.
It said Miklos are going to docyber, and then after that
they're going to do cyber, andthen after that they're going to
do more cyber.
And so you know, once upon atime, when I was a cryptologic
officer, the cryptologiccommunity did SIGINT, cyber and
EW, and you kind of do maybeonly one tour of each and never
(01:25):
really become a master of any ofthem.
And so I'm excited to talkabout some of the shifts in the
information warfare community,talk about the different
communities where you'd bestationed, what the jobs would
be, how life would actually be,so you can get a sense of which
of the designators within theinformation warfare community
you may be interested in.
So take a listen, let me knowwhat you think and if you have
any questions, as always, pleasereach out.
Otherwise, thank you so muchand I hope you have a good day.
(01:50):
The Academy Insider Podcast issponsored by the Vermeer Group,
a residential real estatecompany that serves the United
States Naval Academy communityand other select clientele in
both California and Texas.
If I can ever answer a realestate related question for you
(02:11):
or connect you with a trustedAcademy affiliated agent in the
market which you're in, pleasereach out to me directly at
grant at the premier groupcom.
You can also reach out to me onmy LinkedIn page, grant from
here, and I'd be happy torespond to you there.
Thank you so much.
And now let's get back to theepisode of the cryptologic
warfare community.
And I was a direct accessionout of the Naval Academy, so I
was one of four in my class tocommission into the cryptologic
(02:48):
warfare community.
I was a cyber major at theNaval Academy and it was my
dream to be a cryptologicofficer because in my opinion at
that point in time it was mybest chance to do like quote
unquote cyber, to be acybersecurity officer, to do
cyber operations, military cyber, and so I was really excited
about that.
When I got selected to be acryptologic officer, like I was
juiced.
(03:08):
You know what I mean.
I was like I was pumped.
And what's even crazier is now,in retrospect, I know I
originally did not get one ofthe four spots originally.
Originally there were fourother individuals who had been
selected to be a cryptologicofficer and then, unfortunately,
when the time came where thequota to meet submarine officers
had not been completely filled,you know, the submarine
(03:29):
community asked the informationwarfare community to provide one
cryptologic billet to thesubmarine community.
So one of those poor souls gotshifted over to be a full-time
submariner, which opened up onespot, which is then what I
filled.
So shout out to the powers thatbe to have given me that
opportunity.
But I'm super excited againabout this opportunity to talk a
(03:49):
little bit about thesecommunities.
And so when I became acryptologic officer, I was
stationed at Fort Meade, so notvery far.
I went from Annapolis, maryland, up to Fort Meade, maryland,
and I was put into a role that'scalled a submarine direct
support officer.
So, even though I was not oneof those people who had to go
and be a submarine officer andgo through nuclear power school,
I was still in a role that wasproviding information warfare
(04:12):
support to submarines.
And so, again, what Ioriginally thought was that I
was going to be going to the NSA, I was going to work a
cybersecurity job, I was goingto work a desk job, I was going
to kind of work again, less oflike military-esque, less of
Navy-esque and more cyber, morecybersecurity.
But I think the funny realitywas that I was actually out
deploying probably more thananyone in my class in the first
(04:33):
three years after commissioning,like I literally had done four
submarine deployments before Iput on 03.
So within four years of theNavy I'd done four submarine
deployments, which was prettywild.
It was just pretty wild.
And so again my mom wouldalways be like oh yeah, no, my
son does cybersecurity onsubmarines and like that's not
(04:54):
technically correct, but it waseasiest for her to understand.
So we just kind of went with itand so that's again.
That's really going to be thepremise of today's podcast is I
really want to provide a littlebit of information about the
information warfare communityand then, with a heavy focus for
all the midshipmen out therethat are listening or for any
prospective high school studentthat really wants to do cyber,
(05:17):
we're going to have aconversation here about what
that really means, how you woulddo that in the Navy, how things
are changing and just learn alittle bit about the information
warfare community at large.
And again, things have changeda little bit since I've been in,
so again, it's been reallylucky on my end to have some
great friends and mentors whohave kept me in the loop with
everything that's going on.
So I will have some insight,and probably the best thing is
(05:38):
that I'm no longer in the Navy.
So again, all this, again whatI will be saying, some of it
will be, you know, officialthings that the Navy has done
and published and other thingsare just going to be a little
bit of my opinion, a little bitof my perspective and then a
little bit of like rumor, and soI get to, you know, have some
of the conversations about theway things are trending, and so
you know, I'll be sure to kindof again articulate what things
(06:00):
are certain, what things are myopinion and what things are just
pure speculation, and so as wego through that, I'm really
excited about it.
But let's talk aboutinformation warfare at large.
All right.
So when you see these thingsagain for all the parents who
may be listening, when you seethose pictures of all the
midshipmen during serviceassignment day and they're
wearing their informationwarfare t-shirt, that can
(06:23):
include anything in what we callthe information domain.
So again, there's going to be awide swath.
If you are an InformationWarfare officer, that doesn't
mean you're necessarily acryptologic officer.
If you're an InformationWarfare officer, you can be a
METOC officer, which is like ourweather people, metoc,
meteorology, oceanography.
(06:44):
So you have METOC, you have theinformation professional
community, ip.
You have the intelligencecommunity, you have the
cryptologic warfare communityand now, as of recently, you
also have the cyber warfareengineer community and you have
the maritime cyber warfareofficer or the MICWO community.
So, again, to put this inperspective, the term
information warfare officer orthe MCWO community.
(07:04):
So, again, to put this inperspective, the term
information warfare officer isgoing to encompass, it's going
to be the umbrella term for allof these designators that do
slightly different specialtieswithin the information domain.
Right, and so, when we talkabout this in Navy terms, when
you have that informationwarfare officer overarching
underneath in these differentthings are what we call their
(07:27):
designators, which is reallyyour job code or your specialty
when we're talking aboutofficers in the Navy, right and
so, although a METOC officer, aninformation professional, an
intelligence officer, acryptologic officer, a cyber
warfare engineer and a maritimecyber warfare officer, all are
going to fall under the umbrellaof information warfare, they're
(07:49):
still different jobs.
Right, they're very differentjobs, but at the same time,
we're all going to wear the samewarfare designation pin, right.
And so an analogy I like to use, right is you may call everyone
a Navy pilot, right, all thepilots are pilots and they're
all going to wear the exact samewings of gold, right?
They're going to wear the samedesignator, no matter if they
(08:10):
fly helicopters, no matter ifthey fly jets, no matter if they
fly P-3s, no matter if they flyanything else.
They're all going to wear thesame gold wings and they're all
going to be Navy pilots, justlike we're all going to be Navy
information warfare officers.
We're all going to wear thepins, but we do very different
jobs, and so that's going to bethis idea here on the
information warfare side.
(08:31):
So, again, to put a littlethings in perspective, when we
talk about METOC again,meteorology I'm not going to lie
.
I never interacted much withMETOC officers.
I know they do really importantwork, and it's not just again,
you're going to hear the jokejust transparently.
You're gonna hear the joke likethey're the weather guys, like
(08:51):
they're all about weather andclimate, but it's so much more
than that.
They do a lot of research,development, testing, data
analysis and stuff that reallydoes affect naval operations,
right, and so from weatherpatterns to flight plans, to
actual routes that a strikegroup would take would be based
on weather patterns, etc.
There's so much going on.
(09:11):
And then they're also involvedin again so much when it comes
to weather, topography, oceanfloor, etc.
They're a very important nicheaspect of the naval mission, but
you'll often hear again jokethat they're just kind of the
weather people niche aspect ofthe naval mission.
But you'll often hear againjoke that they're just kind of
the weather people.
Now, your IPs, the informationprofessional, can put this in
kind of layman's terms this isyour IT department.
These are the folks that dealwith our communication systems.
(09:35):
They're our sysadmins, right,they do do some security and
they do some cyber defense andwhatnot, but they're really your
IT department.
There again, they're makingsure our communications are
working, that everything isflowing well.
They're the sysadmins providingaccess and control of our
systems, right, and so that'sgreat.
The intelligence officers.
(09:56):
The intelligence officers areagain, this is going to be the
running joke.
I was a part of this community,so each community kind of has
their little quips towards otherpeople.
The running joke is thatthey're PowerPoint builders.
If you're an intelligenceofficer, you're going to build
PowerPoints and you're going tobrief PowerPoints.
That's just the way it is.
But really, what they're doingand I think again, this is a
really important mission isthey're the ones taking
(10:18):
information just data, justpieces of information and
turning it into actualintelligence.
Just pieces of information andturning it into actual
intelligence right.
And so, if you think about it,there can be a lot of just
pieces of information, but basedon patterns, based on context,
based on cultural aspects,whatever the case is.
They'll take that informationand they'll fuse it and blend it
with everything they have toturn it into real intelligence
(10:40):
and make intelligence reports,and so this is a really cool job
.
Intelligence officers areintegrated with every aspect of
naval warfare.
There's intelligence officersat aviation squadrons, on major
staffs, with SEAL teams, withwhatever the case is right, like
intelligence officers goeverywhere and they do a lot of
just.
Hey, I'm at the Office of NavalIntelligence, oni, out in like
(11:02):
the Maryland DC, virginia area,and so, again, a really cool
combination.
I think being an intelligenceofficer honestly is really
awesome, and so that's a bigpiece of it.
Now, those three things.
In my opinion, they havenothing really to do with cyber,
maybe a little bit of the IPofficers, but not much to do
with cyber.
So, again, the focus of theremaining pieces of this episode
(11:23):
is all about, if you want it todo cyber, like these next
designators are kind of a partof it, and so the first one is
cryptologic warfare.
So, again, I was a cryptologicwarfare officer.
Now, at the time that I serviceselected cryptologic warfare,
all of the cryptologists wereknown.
There were three main liketenants of what cryptologic
(11:44):
officers did.
They did SIGINT, which standsfor signals, intelligence.
They did EW, which stands forelectronic warfare, and then
they did cyber.
And so, as a cryptologicofficer, again, you could do
SIGINT missions, you could doelectronic warfare missions, you
could do cyber missions, and wewould always joke we're the
garbage men, right?
When we talk about intelligenceofficers taking information and
(12:06):
turning it into intelligence.
Where do the intelligenceofficers get their information
from?
Well, from a lot of cryptologicofficers, right, we're the
garbage men, we're thecollectors.
You go out and collect data andinformation and then you bring
it back for people to processand turn into reports, right?
And as a result, in order toactually do that, cryptologic
officers are very fleetassociated and very fleet
(12:29):
adjacent.
I didn't fully realize this andagain, there was this stigma.
Cryptologic warfare officers,you're a restricted line officer
, right?
Restricted line means notdeploying, not even sort of the
case, like if we can getanything out of this episode at
the end of this.
What I want you to take awaywith all these things is that
being a restricted line officerdoes not mean you're not
(12:49):
deploying no-transcript supportto the ships, to the submarines,
(13:13):
to the whatever you're thatcomplete support unit, and so
that was kind of how cryptologicwarfare operators and
information warfare at largehave been treated up until very
recently.
This actually did change justin the past couple of months,
and so this is a brand new kindof development is actually that
information warfare officers, asof very recently, are no longer
(13:36):
restricted line officers.
They are direct line officers.
Now I'll kind of throw somespeculation later in the episode
.
I don't know how this is goingto affect commissioning at the
United States Naval Academy nowthat they're no longer
restricted line officers, but itis an interesting thing.
We talked about informationwarfare again when I was
commissioning.
Those were your options MeTalk,ip, intel, cryptologic Warfare
(14:10):
Again at that point in time, cwCryptologic Warfare.
They did this again.
They did the EW, but they didcyber right, like that was your
cyber chance, that was yourcyber opportunity.
And so, again, when I selectedCryptologic Warfare, I was
juiced, I was excited about it,but then that was also kind of
the frustration with my story isthat, even though my degree was
(14:32):
in cyber and I wanted to docyber, when I went into the
Cryptologic community I was putinto tactical electronic warfare
officer roles for the entiretime in the Navy, and so,
because of that fact, that wasdifficult tactical electronic
warfare officer roles for theentire time in the Navy, right,
and so, because of that fact,that was difficult, but our
(14:52):
community loved it from theNavy's perspective.
Again, I'm speaking back in2017.
We'll talk about thedevelopment here.
Our community loved that.
The cryptologic community valuedand promoted people who had a
wide breadth of experience.
Right, you would do one tour asa SIGINT, like in a SIGINT role
doing signals, intelligencestuff at the NSA and things like
you just had cool roles doingthat.
You would do one tour doingelectronic warfare supporting
(15:14):
the fleet.
Right, you do electronicwarfare support to submarines,
to ships, to aircraft, to SEALteams.
We have these things calledTACIWs Tactical Electronic
Warfare Operators.
Like you would go out and do ajob supporting the fleet, the
Navy in the electronic warfarerealm, and then you would do one
tour doing a cyber job, and soyou would do all these things,
(15:40):
and then what we kind ofdiscovered towards the end is we
had a bunch of officers who,honestly, just weren't great at
cyber, and it's at no fault oftheir own, they just had no
experience, right, like again,we were a jack of all trades but
master of none, and so that waskind of the the reality of
being a cryptologic officer.
But this is where stuff likestarts to get good.
Now and this is part of thediscussion is that in fiscal
year 23, literally in June of2023, the Navy was kind of told
(16:04):
by Congress Again, who knows ifit was an order or an ask,
whatever the case is but theywere basically hey, navy, you
need to create a cyber officerand a cyber technician enlisted
rate, right, like you just needto do it, because we're not at
the same level of ourcounterparts and other services,
right, army cyber officers,marine Corps cyber officers like
they had a cyber officer wherewhat they did was cyber and so.
(16:29):
But the Navy didn't right, itwas the cryptologic community,
and the cryptologic communitydid a lot of things and so.
So in June of 2023, thisdesignator again we use the term
designator the designator of aMICWO, the Maritime Cryptologic
Warfare Officer, excuse me, theMaritime Cyber Warfare Officer.
So there you go.
I'm messing up acronyms.
Already MICWO, the MaritimeCyber Warfare Officer, was
(16:52):
created, and it started withabout a group of 20 or so
original officers who lateraltransferred into the MCWO
community and so at that sametime as well, the cyber warfare
technician, cwt, which is anenlisted rate, was also stood up
, and so kind of at that point,again, starting in June 2023,
the Navy literally was like, hey, we are going to have a cyber
(17:16):
officer and that's what the planis right.
Like we wanted to make surethat we have cyber specialists
and that we have SICN and EWspecialists who that's what
their job is they go and supportthe fleet and so that's kind of
where it started.
And since then, yes, there arenow direct accessions, like the
Maritime Cyber Warfare OfficerCommunity, the MCWO community
(17:37):
takes direct accessions, likeyou can, commission, rotc, ocs
and even the Naval Academy Ibelieve there were two in this
class of 2024 that went directlyinto the MCWO community.
So this thing is starting tohappen, where you can go and
actually be a cyber officer.
And so, again, to be very clear, that's exactly what this plan
(17:57):
is.
We're going to split up theCryptologic community and we're
going to make again theCryptologic community now will
be SIGINT and EW specialists.
Like that's what you're goingto do.
You're going to do a very Navyjob.
You're going to support ships,you're going to support
submarines, you're going tosupport aircraft, you're going
to support Navy SEALs.
You're going to do all this andyou're going to specialize and
(18:22):
focus at SIGGN and EW.
And then you're going to makeMikwos, your cyber specialists,
right.
And so there was actually arecent article I just posted on
my LinkedIn just the other week,which I thought was awesome and
it, like it brought me, it likemade me kind of emotional
because, again, like all Iwanted to do was cyber and I
didn't do any cyber as acryptologic officer.
And so Admiral Clapperton atNavi4, he literally came out in
the article and he said and thisis a quote maritime cyber
(18:42):
warfare officers are going to docyber, and then they're going
to do cyber, and then, rightafter that, they're going to do
cyber.
And so we're going to developand build cyber specialists in
the community, which is going tobe just so darn cool.
So, again, as we're explainingand breaking this out now again,
(19:02):
I just wanted to give somebackground context into that.
But now, as we're breaking outall the designators underneath
the information warfarecommunity, you have MeTalk, ip,
intel, cryptologic Warfare,second EW, and now you have the
Mikwos, and the Mikwo is a fulllike stood up community.
This is a real thing.
Now the final community that waskind of separate from this but
(19:24):
has been recently developing,the final flavor of information
warfare community officer youhave now are what we call cyber
warfare engineers, and yourcyber warfare engineers are the
most heavily technical role thatyou could possibly have as an
officer in the United StatesNavy, especially when it comes
into the information warfarecommunity.
Okay, because as we jump moreinto the, you know the in-depth
(19:45):
of like what MICOs actually do.
I know I keep saying cyber,cyber, cyber.
They do cyber, blah, blah, blah, like Grant.
What the heck does that mean?
We're going to talk about it.
Micos, at the end of the day,are really just team leaders and
project managers, right Ofcyber teams.
They're going to be missioncommanders of cyber teams, but
you're still going to be doingmore administrative work, more
planning work, more briefingwork.
Just again, you're going to bein that project manager role.
(20:08):
They're not going to be anengineer in most cases.
However, for cyber warfareengineers, this is where you
really have the ability to trulybe a developer and an engineer.
All right.
If you want to like buildcyberspace capability
development, like actually be adev, like doing dev, software,
(20:28):
like software dev or even somecomputer engineering, like
building firmware, whatever thecase is, if you want to apply
the principles and techniques ofcomputer science and computer
engineering, the heavilytechnical aspects of software
and hardware cyber warfareengineer, that's what you need
to do, right.
And so, again, as we take alook at all these things, as a
(20:48):
cryptologic officer, it's goingto be very Navy and very EW.
Sigint Mikwo is going to bevery project manager based, but
it's going to be cyber.
But your cyber warfareengineers are going to be your
real engineers, your realdevelopers, and so that's going
to be your most technical role,all right.
So I hope that kind of likelays a breakdown and helps us
(21:09):
put it into perspective.
I want to use these terms overand over and over again so you
hear them and can get used tothem and understand what I'm
talking about in the informationwarfare community, with all of
these separate designators.
Now, with that being said, whatthe heck does that mean in
terms of life, in terms ofservice assignment, in terms of
trying to figure out whatcommunity you actually want to
(21:29):
be a part of?
And so we're going to jump intowhat it means, like if you were
to go and again this isspecific Again, the follow-on
conversation here is going to beabout cryptologic officers.
Like if you were to go andagain this is specific, again,
the follow-on conversation hereis going to be about cryptologic
officers, about Mikwos andabout cyber warfare engineers.
We're going to talk aboutcryptologic warfare first, right
.
Again, if you want to do cyber,this is going to doubling down
here If you want to do cyber, donot become a cryptologic
(21:50):
warfare officer.
You're not going to do it.
And with this shift right, thisshift in kind of what we're
talking about, it's clear thatcryptologic officers are going
to be very tactical, verydeployable and SIGINT and EW
focused officers that aresupporting naval platforms right
, and so that's big.
For schooling what this meansfor you, you're going to go
through some basic schooling inPensacola.
We have the cryptologic warfareofficer basic course in
(22:12):
Pensacola.
Then you go to the informationwarfare basic course in Virginia
Beach.
It's very basic RF theory andtechnology, radio frequency,
right.
And so, again, to put this inperspective, when we talk about
computer science, computerengineering, on the cyber
warfare engineer side, being acryptologic officer, to compare
this to like majors and whatwould be the most comparable,
major is going to be electricalengineering more than anything.
(22:34):
And then, if you're payingattention in your weapons class
as a firstie, right Like weaponssystems and radars, a lot of
radar theory and RF theory aregoing to be the most practical
and direct application into whatyou're doing as a cryptologic
officer.
Okay Now, from that perspective, when you become a cryptologic
officer, though, you're stillgoing to go and be a part of the
(22:55):
intelligence community at large, right Like, even though this
is the case, you're still goingto go and be a part of the
intelligence community at large,right, like, even though this
is the case, you're still goingto go and likely be stationed on
your first tour, right Like,after you finish your schooling
your first PCS location is goingto be the one of the big four.
It's going to be to Maryland,hawaii, georgia and Texas.
We use this term big four toreference the four main NSA
sites, the National SecurityAgency, right, they have four
(23:16):
main sites and that's going tobe Maryland, at Fort Meade you
may hear the term Fort Meade toreference the Maryland location
of the National Security Agency,nsa.
You have Hawaii, out on Oahu,there's like an NSA Pacific out
there, and so again, as acryptologic officer you'd be
going to Maryland, fort Meade,maryland, you'd be going to Oahu
, hawaii, fort Gordon, georgia,down in Georgia, you have the
(23:39):
NSA down there, a detachment outthere, and then in Texas and
San Antonio.
So again, it kind of goes inthat order, right, like you're
going to go to Marylandfirst-ish, or Hawaii Hawaii and
Maryland are the two biggestlocations and then Georgia it's
kind of like a secondary tier ofsize and just the amount of
billets and jobs that areavailable there, and then Texas,
(23:59):
kind of fourth.
But again, likely if you'regoing to the Cryptologic
community, you're likely goingto be stationed in Maryland,
hawaii, georgia, texas first,but then from there you're going
to see.
You're going to see Again, ifyou go to the big four first,
and when you go to the big fouryou're going to be qualifying,
you're going to be standingwatch on what we call the FIAC,
the Fleet Information OperationsCenter just doing kind of some
(24:20):
watch standing.
You may go to an NSA you knowbillet and work with civilians
and work in a joint environmentand do some SIGINT and targeting
stuff and like different coolNSA stuff right, and that'll be
very cool.
But the moment you're done withthat like you're going to sea
(24:42):
and so you know some sea billets, like what you would do as a
cryptologic officer out at seaare.
There's two things.
You can go.
We call PCS afloat, so themajority of cryptologic officers
are going to go and actually bePCS permanently assigned to a
ship.
As you'll hear one of threeterms.
It should be standard acrossthe fleet.
People are constantlyinterchanging the terms the IWO,
which stands for theInformation Warfare Officer, the
SIGWO, which is the SignalsWarfare Officer, I'm assuming,
(25:03):
or the TAIWO, the TacticalInformation Warfare Officer.
So IWO, sigwo, taiwo allbasically mean the same thing.
It means you're a cryptologicofficer who's permanent like
ship's crew on that ship and youare in charge of the, the ew
and and sigint side of what theship is doing, and so that's one
thing.
Another option is to do what Idid, which is we call direct
(25:25):
support, so you can do directsupport for submarines and air
platforms as a direct supportofficer.
Basically you are pcs, like youare permanently assigned to one
of the big four that we talkedabout earlier, and then you'll
go and instead of being assignedto a singular ship, like in my
case, you would go and deploy insupport of multiple different
units, right, and so I wouldtake my team and instead of
(25:45):
doing the training and workupsand maintenance and all the
different aspects of being onthe ship permanently, we would
only support, like operationsand deployment, and so, like I
would go and I would go on, youknow, submarine X and then come
home for a couple of weeks,debrief the mission, get
prepared for the next one and goto submarine Y and then come
home and rinse and repeat and goto submarine Z and so in direct
(26:05):
support.
It's a little bit differentfrom that perspective, but
you're still doing a ton of Navyoperations, which is really
cool.
And then we have a ton ofbillets within Navy special
warfare, including dev crew,which is like the super fancy
again I'm talking about, likeSEAL, team 6, blah, blah, blah,
all the cool stuff.
Like there are a lot of coolbillets within Navy Special
Warfare and DevGrew really coolopportunities across the board,
(26:26):
but you're gonna deploy, you'regonna spend a ton of time away
from home and you're gonna do afull Navy experience.
Now, with that comes you haveclear pathway for promotion and
command opportunities.
The cryptologic community hasset pathways.
There are milestone billets,there's a clear, defined path
(26:47):
for how to promote, to how toprogress, to how to make your
way up.
And now, with the shift tocryptologic officers in the
information warfare community,being a direct line community
and not restricted line, you areeventually striving to become
the information warfarecommander for a carrier strike
group, the IWC, and so that isbeing like that is quite
literally a command opportunityat sea.
(27:07):
You are in charge of all of theinformation warfare forces at
sea as a part of a carrierstrike group, right, and so that
is the pinnacle of what you'restriving for as a cryptologic
officer, right, and so, again,that kind of wraps up being a CW
.
Again, I think being a CW wasthe coolest experience I ever
had.
Again, I wanted to do cyber,but I was really happy.
(27:29):
I got this experience in theSIGINT and EW world, which was
really cool.
So, again, that's kind of theoverall on the CW side.
Again, my advice to anyone who'sinterested in becoming a
cryptologic officer.
Pay attention to yourelectrical engineering class,
pay attention in EE and then payattention in your first year
(27:49):
weapons class.
If you want to go CW because,again, radar theory and RF
theory it's going to be yourbest friend All right.
Now, on the complete flip side,if you want to go, if you want
to be a maritime cyber warfareofficer, a MCWO, and you want to
deploy like you're wantingdeployability, you're wanting
the Navy experience you'reprobably going to find some
(28:11):
disappointment, just genuinelyright.
Not a ton of infrastructure tosupport this.
Yet.
The closest fleet-alignedbillets are like at NCDOC, the
Navy Cyber Defense OperationsCommand, ncdoc, down in Norfolk
and they'll do someopportunities to go to sea.
You can support, like some pentesting on ships, penetration
testing it's a cyber term andyou can do that in the fleet.
(28:31):
There's a growing presencewithin Naval Special Warfare as
well.
It's starting to shift slightly.
But the majority of people, ifyou're going to be a MIQO, you
should expect to not deploy allthat often and some may see that
as a positive, some may seethat as a negative.
Right, it's just important tounderstand, however you would
want your experience to be, thatthat's going to be the case,
right and so, again, mikwo, muchlike Cryptologic Officers,
(28:53):
you're primarily going to bestationed in Maryland, hawaii
and Georgia, right and so, andreally between Maryland and
Hawaii, some in Norfolk, allthis stuff, but those are going
to be your main basis.
You're going to go like, ifyou're a direct accession,
you're commissioning, into thecryptologic community, you're
going to go to what they callthe JCAC, the J-C-A-C, the Joint
Cyber Analysis Course, which isthe enlisted C school, which is
(29:14):
like a very specific technicalcourse that they teach the
enlisted CWTs or cyber warfaretechnicians, down in Corrie
Station in Pensacola.
It's more technical, it'snitty-gritty education, it's
Navy education about, again,systems and cyber analysis, and
so that's going to be kind oflike your pipeline on the
schooling side.
(29:34):
And then your first tour again,we talked about kind of
cryptologic officers doing someof these different things, maybe
SIGINT, and then going to seelike your first tour as a
maritime cyber warfare officer.
Mcwoe, you're going.
You're going to go to the CMF,the cyber mission force, and so
CMF is an overarching term totalk about our nations like
(29:56):
cyber teams, cyber structure,cyber organization.
That is the cyber mission force, the CMF.
If you're a part of the CMF,you can support different
missions, different billets.
We have things called the CMTs,the combat mission teams, the
NMTs, the national mission teams, and the CPTs cyber protection
teams.
And so, whether it's offensivecyber operation, whether it's
(30:16):
kind of grace-based, neutral,like navigating, you know,
intelligence, preparation of theenvironment, like kind of doing
some more reconnaissance stuff,preparation of the environment
like kind of doing some morereconnaissance stuff or it's
actual like cyber defense, right, and kind of to draw the
comparison, ip officers who aredoing that like sysadmin,
network updates, protectingpatches, all that stuff.
(30:37):
The CPTs are really more likehey, if we have an intruder on
the network, we're going to gofind them and remove them, like
that's what we're talking about.
About defensive cyber operationsis more of an active, defensive
cyber operation, which can bereally cool, and so, again,
you're going to go and you'regoing to be a part of the cyber
mission force.
That's that's the reality of it.
Now, this is a great community.
If you want to have like ahomestead, if you want to stay
(31:00):
the way it is because you canstay in Maryland or you can stay
in Hawaii for a pretty darnlong time if that's what you
want, right, because again, allthe CMTs and all the NMTs and
all these again, all these teamsthe cyber mission or the combat
mission teams, the nationalmission teams, which are all
parts of the cyber mission forcethese are all Maryland and
Hawaii billets.
Like that's where you're goingto be really, again not a
(31:22):
hundred percent, but the vastmajority and they're no longer
going to be billeted forcryptologic warfare officers,
which means all of the MIQOs aregoing to get these jobs and
you're going to do that.
And so, again, it's really coolfrom that perspective because
you're going to have an abilityto stay in one location if
that's what you want.
Like there is a realopportunity.
Again, things can always change, but there's like a real
(31:42):
opportunity that you could stayin Maryland or you could stay in
Hawaii.
Again, we talk about military,and some of the difficulties in
military life is the fact thatyou're going to have to pick up
and move every two to threeyears.
But you could potentially stayin Maryland or stay in Hawaii,
promote advance, continue on,stay in the cyber mission and
have a homestead, build yourlife in a singular location,
(32:11):
right, like how darn cool isthat?
Like there are opportunities todo that within the, the Mikwo
community, which again, I thinkis like it's pretty darn awesome
.
Now, what I will talk about thisis when you're part of cyber
teams.
It's not really going to bewhat we call hands-on keyboard
all that often.
You're not going to be thetechnical operator doing stuff.
But, with that being said, isthere's actually a trial run
going on?
I think there's about sixpeople right now that have been
selected for kind of a pilot,like a test trial run for
(32:34):
officers to be what we call IONsyou hear this term ION which is
an interactive on-net operator,because I think some of the
complaint really was that like,hey, as an officer, like we're
not doing anything, like we wantto, you know, be technical, be
hands on keyboard, be actuallylike doing these things, and so
they're running this pilotprogram to get a sense of it
makes sense for officers to bein this role, but as of right
(32:56):
now, again, you're really goingto be in that project manager,
team leader, planner, briefermanagement role of the cyber
mission, and so that's kind ofthe thing.
And again there really is agrowing desire, more or less
right, to create kind of twoseparate fields within the cyber
mission which is one to createlike technical experts, which is
(33:18):
, I would say, adversaryagnostic right.
It's just, it's a purelytechnical your ability to
operate on a keyboard.
And then we also need to create, like some target subject
matter experts, and that'sreally where they want the
officers to fill the role is bygetting experience working
against a similar target set fora long period of time, building
that expertise, building thatknowledge, building that context
(33:40):
of so much stuff that's goingon to become like the network
subject matter expert for thattarget right, and so that's
going to be kind of all thedifferent stuff that's going on
in more of your role as a, as aMcWill right, and these are all
high level things.
It's really my intention,hopefully to bring on some, some
people who are in thiscommunity to provide a little
(34:00):
bit more in-depth explanationabout their actual specific
roles.
Again, this stuff can get toughbecause we never want to blur
classification lines.
We never want to, you know,give out more information.
You know that would not beappropriate or even come close
to that right.
So I'm very careful aboutbringing people on in current
roles and opportunities.
But I also want to make surethat midshipmen and prospective
midshipmen have an opportunityto like know what they'd be
(34:22):
getting themselves into and aremaking educated decisions about
what they want to do in the Navy, and so we'll try and make that
happen.
But I'm just providing again alot of high level generalities
of what you could expect, kindof going one way or another.
Now we're going to wrap this upwith just like a little pro and
con of like all this differentstuff, right, like, I think,
some of the pros, if you were towant to go Mikwo again, kind of
(34:42):
like focusing in here on theMikwo side.
Now, the coolest thing aboutcyber, in my opinion, is that
there's tons of responsibilityreally early on.
Like you'll be an ensign,you'll be a JG, you'll be a
lieutenant and you'll be inmeetings with O6s.
You'll be a lieutenant, juniorgrader, a lieutenant in a staff
meeting with a COCOM, acombatant commander, like
(35:03):
serious admiral, general levelleadership, and you're taken
seriously, right, and I thinkthat's a really cool piece.
You get a ton of responsibilityreally early on, but as it
stands right now is that thatkind of like.
You have it very early on butthen you kind of plateau into
the end of your career.
There are not a ton of flagopportunities.
Again, if your life's dream isto be an admiral or general,
(35:23):
there are not a lot of flagopportunities.
Again, if your life's dream isto be an admiral or general,
there are not a lot of flagopportunities for Mikwos.
Right Like you don't have a lotof fleet knowledge and
experience, which is what weneed at the general admiral
level, and so less opportunitiesin very senior ranks is
probably a big con of the Mikwocommunity.
And then, kind of on the flipside, we talk about the cool
(35:44):
aspects of Mikwo and you knowthe lifestyle and being
homesteaded and all this stuff,the sailors that you're going to
lead.
You know we're trying torecruit highly talented people
to come in and work the cybermission.
Sometimes they can feel likethey're not in the military and
that can lead to really toughleadership challenges.
Right Like you may be workingwith someone and they're like,
(36:06):
sir, like, why the heck do Ihave to stand a 12 hour shift, a
12 hour watch from 6pm to 6am?
Like, what, like, why am Idoing that?
It's like, hey, shipmate, likeyeah, you're in the Navy, you're
in the Navy, but again, it canbe, it can be tough when, when
you're in this environment andyou'll probably be working in a
lot of workspaces again, you'reworking in an NSA building
You're working in technicallylike a government civilian
(36:28):
building and even though you'regoing to be in uniform and
you're going to be military andyou're going to do all this
aspect like you're in a reallycivilian environment.
And so it's a tough leadershipchallenge for a lot of the
officers as well because again,sometimes people can feel like
they're not in the militaryright and so that piece can be
difficult, can be reallydifficult.
But again, big news, to kind ofwrap this up and we had talked
(36:50):
about it, I talked about it alittle bit Again there is a
shift that has already happenedwhere the information warfare
community is no longer arestricted line community,
reinforcing that.
The information warfarecommander, that pinnacle billet
that we were talking about, is acommand at sea billet.
That is what we're doing andwhat that means really is it's
going to open up more.
(37:11):
Again we talk about flagbillets and we talk about being
an admiral or a general, likeputting on and wearing a star.
We'll use all these terms toreference people who are
admirals and generals Flagopportunity, putting on a star,
all and generals, flagopportunity, putting on a star,
like all these terms kind ofreference the same thing and
they're hoping that by gettingthat command at sea opportunity.
That senior command, senior 06,being the information warfare
(37:32):
commander of all the informationforces, a part of the carrier
strike group, is just going toopen up more flag opportunities
for the cryptologic community.
Now, again, what we don't have,unfortunately, is any insight
into how this will affectcommissioning right, for,
especially at the Naval Academy,by definition, right, the
(37:52):
mission of the Naval Academy isto commission direct line
officers.
Well, guess what?
The information warfarecommunity is now a direct line
community.
So, like, should that raise thenumbers?
Again, I'm just, I'm nobody,but I would argue yes, but again
, it's really going to come downif you haven't watched, and
we'll put a clip up here so youcan click on the video and watch
it about service assignment,where we talk about this exact
(38:13):
factor, which is that the amountof billets that are allocated
for each community are dictatedat levels higher than the Naval
Academy.
Right, like that is a decisionthat is made above the Naval
Academy, and so we'll see howthis is affected by the changing
to becoming a direct linecommunity and we'll make sure to
let you know.
But I hope this was superinformational.
(38:35):
No idea about anythingtechnical or cyber, and I'm
using all these terms, and I'mso sorry, but I hope this is
like information, like goodinformation for all the young
guys and gals out there that maybe considering being a
cryptologic officer, being aMikwo, being a cyber warfare
engineer, to at least get youstarted on the right path and
(38:56):
hear some unfiltered thoughts inthat world.
If I can conclude this episode,right, singular thing, if we
didn't even need to talk for 35minutes.
If you want to be a part of thefleet, if you want the Navy
experience, go be a cryptologicofficer.
Go be a cryptologic officer.
You're going to get fleetexperience.
You're going to deploy a lot.
If you want to do cyber and beon land, go go McWell, it's as
(39:23):
simple as that.
It's really as simple as that,or try to do that.
And so, again, thank you so much.
If you have any questions,again, I have a ton of friends
in all of these communitieswho'd be happy to chat with you,
and so, again, if you'reinterested in more information,
send me a message, reach out,and I'll be sure to put you in
touch with the people who cananswer more in depth, and I'm
hoping to bring on some peoplefrom the fleet, like people from
(39:44):
the current communities to talkabout their experiences as well
, but I hope this is a goodlittle jumpstart here.
So thank you so much.
I really appreciate it.
Y'all have a great day andthank you so much.
Thank you so much for listeningto this episode of the Academy
Insider podcast.
I really hope you liked it,enjoyed it and learn something
during this time.
If you did, please feel free tolike and subscribe or leave a
(40:07):
comment about the episode.
We really appreciate to hearyour feedback about everything
and continue to make AcademyInsider an amazing service that
guides, serves and supportsmidshipmen, future midshipmen
and their families.
Thank you.
Welcome to Season 2 of the Academy Insider
Podcast.
Academy Insider is a 501c3nonprofit organization that
serves midshipmen, futuremidshipmen and their families.
At its core, this podcast isdesigned to bring together a
community of Naval Academygraduates and those affiliated
with the United States NavalAcademy in order to tell stories
and provide a little bit ofinsight into what life at the
(00:22):
Naval Academy is really like.
I hope you enjoy it.
Thank you so much for listeningand reach out if you ever have
any questions.
Everyone, and welcome back tothe Academy Insider Podcast.
Today's episode is just goingto be me no interview.
Just got to listen to me ramblefor a good amount of time, but
we're going to be talking aboutthe information warfare
community.
Again, this is a topic that'spersonal to me.
I wanted the opportunity tokind of share my story, talk
(00:43):
about my time as a cryptologicwarfare officer and what I did,
and then again talk about allthings military cyber, because I
think this is a really bigtopic where a lot of prospective
students, a lot of midshipmen,they want to do cyber, but
there's so many communities inthe Navy that like may kind of
do it, or a little bit or notreally.
So we're going to provide a lotof clarity into that.
And what's good is the Navy isreally trending in the right
direction.
(01:03):
I saw a recent article with aquote from Admiral Clapperton at
Navi4.
It's the greatest thing I eversaw.
It said Miklos are going to docyber, and then after that
they're going to do cyber, andthen after that they're going to
do more cyber.
And so you know, once upon atime, when I was a cryptologic
officer, the cryptologiccommunity did SIGINT, cyber and
EW, and you kind of do maybeonly one tour of each and never
(01:25):
really become a master of any ofthem.
And so I'm excited to talkabout some of the shifts in the
information warfare community,talk about the different
communities where you'd bestationed, what the jobs would
be, how life would actually be,so you can get a sense of which
of the designators within theinformation warfare community
you may be interested in.
So take a listen, let me knowwhat you think and if you have
any questions, as always, pleasereach out.
Otherwise, thank you so muchand I hope you have a good day.
(01:50):
The Academy Insider Podcast issponsored by the Vermeer Group,
a residential real estatecompany that serves the United
States Naval Academy communityand other select clientele in
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If I can ever answer a realestate related question for you
(02:11):
or connect you with a trustedAcademy affiliated agent in the
market which you're in, pleasereach out to me directly at
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You can also reach out to me onmy LinkedIn page, grant from
here, and I'd be happy torespond to you there.
Thank you so much.
And now let's get back to theepisode of the cryptologic
warfare community.
And I was a direct accessionout of the Naval Academy, so I
was one of four in my class tocommission into the cryptologic
(02:48):
warfare community.
I was a cyber major at theNaval Academy and it was my
dream to be a cryptologicofficer because in my opinion at
that point in time it was mybest chance to do like quote
unquote cyber, to be acybersecurity officer, to do
cyber operations, military cyber, and so I was really excited
about that.
When I got selected to be acryptologic officer, like I was
juiced.
(03:08):
You know what I mean.
I was like I was pumped.
And what's even crazier is now,in retrospect, I know I
originally did not get one ofthe four spots originally.
Originally there were fourother individuals who had been
selected to be a cryptologicofficer and then, unfortunately,
when the time came where thequota to meet submarine officers
had not been completely filled,you know, the submarine
(03:29):
community asked the informationwarfare community to provide one
cryptologic billet to thesubmarine community.
So one of those poor souls gotshifted over to be a full-time
submariner, which opened up onespot, which is then what I
filled.
So shout out to the powers thatbe to have given me that
opportunity.
But I'm super excited againabout this opportunity to talk a
(03:49):
little bit about thesecommunities.
And so when I became acryptologic officer, I was
stationed at Fort Meade, so notvery far.
I went from Annapolis, maryland, up to Fort Meade, maryland,
and I was put into a role that'scalled a submarine direct
support officer.
So, even though I was not oneof those people who had to go
and be a submarine officer andgo through nuclear power school,
I was still in a role that wasproviding information warfare
(04:12):
support to submarines.
And so, again, what Ioriginally thought was that I
was going to be going to the NSA, I was going to work a
cybersecurity job, I was goingto work a desk job, I was going
to kind of work again, less oflike military-esque, less of
Navy-esque and more cyber, morecybersecurity.
But I think the funny realitywas that I was actually out
deploying probably more thananyone in my class in the first
(04:33):
three years after commissioning,like I literally had done four
submarine deployments before Iput on 03.
So within four years of theNavy I'd done four submarine
deployments, which was prettywild.
It was just pretty wild.
And so again my mom wouldalways be like oh yeah, no, my
son does cybersecurity onsubmarines and like that's not
(04:54):
technically correct, but it waseasiest for her to understand.
So we just kind of went with itand so that's again.
That's really going to be thepremise of today's podcast is I
really want to provide a littlebit of information about the
information warfare communityand then, with a heavy focus for
all the midshipmen out therethat are listening or for any
prospective high school studentthat really wants to do cyber,
(05:17):
we're going to have aconversation here about what
that really means, how you woulddo that in the Navy, how things
are changing and just learn alittle bit about the information
warfare community at large.
And again, things have changeda little bit since I've been in,
so again, it's been reallylucky on my end to have some
great friends and mentors whohave kept me in the loop with
everything that's going on.
So I will have some insight,and probably the best thing is
(05:38):
that I'm no longer in the Navy.
So again, all this, again whatI will be saying, some of it
will be, you know, officialthings that the Navy has done
and published and other thingsare just going to be a little
bit of my opinion, a little bitof my perspective and then a
little bit of like rumor, and soI get to, you know, have some
of the conversations about theway things are trending, and so
you know, I'll be sure to kindof again articulate what things
(06:00):
are certain, what things are myopinion and what things are just
pure speculation, and so as wego through that, I'm really
excited about it.
But let's talk aboutinformation warfare at large.
All right.
So when you see these thingsagain for all the parents who
may be listening, when you seethose pictures of all the
midshipmen during serviceassignment day and they're
wearing their informationwarfare t-shirt, that can
(06:23):
include anything in what we callthe information domain.
So again, there's going to be awide swath.
If you are an InformationWarfare officer, that doesn't
mean you're necessarily acryptologic officer.
If you're an InformationWarfare officer, you can be a
METOC officer, which is like ourweather people, metoc,
meteorology, oceanography.
(06:44):
So you have METOC, you have theinformation professional
community, ip.
You have the intelligencecommunity, you have the
cryptologic warfare communityand now, as of recently, you
also have the cyber warfareengineer community and you have
the maritime cyber warfareofficer or the MICWO community.
So, again, to put this inperspective, the term
information warfare officer orthe MCWO community.
(07:04):
So, again, to put this inperspective, the term
information warfare officer isgoing to encompass, it's going
to be the umbrella term for allof these designators that do
slightly different specialtieswithin the information domain.
Right, and so, when we talkabout this in Navy terms, when
you have that informationwarfare officer overarching
underneath in these differentthings are what we call their
(07:27):
designators, which is reallyyour job code or your specialty
when we're talking aboutofficers in the Navy, right and
so, although a METOC officer, aninformation professional, an
intelligence officer, acryptologic officer, a cyber
warfare engineer and a maritimecyber warfare officer, all are
going to fall under the umbrellaof information warfare, they're
(07:49):
still different jobs.
Right, they're very differentjobs, but at the same time,
we're all going to wear the samewarfare designation pin, right.
And so an analogy I like to use, right is you may call everyone
a Navy pilot, right, all thepilots are pilots and they're
all going to wear the exact samewings of gold, right?
They're going to wear the samedesignator, no matter if they
(08:10):
fly helicopters, no matter ifthey fly jets, no matter if they
fly P-3s, no matter if they flyanything else.
They're all going to wear thesame gold wings and they're all
going to be Navy pilots, justlike we're all going to be Navy
information warfare officers.
We're all going to wear thepins, but we do very different
jobs, and so that's going to bethis idea here on the
information warfare side.
(08:31):
So, again, to put a littlethings in perspective, when we
talk about METOC again,meteorology I'm not going to lie
.
I never interacted much withMETOC officers.
I know they do really importantwork, and it's not just again,
you're going to hear the jokejust transparently.
You're gonna hear the joke likethey're the weather guys, like
(08:51):
they're all about weather andclimate, but it's so much more
than that.
They do a lot of research,development, testing, data
analysis and stuff that reallydoes affect naval operations,
right, and so from weatherpatterns to flight plans, to
actual routes that a strikegroup would take would be based
on weather patterns, etc.
There's so much going on.
(09:11):
And then they're also involvedin again so much when it comes
to weather, topography, oceanfloor, etc.
They're a very important nicheaspect of the naval mission, but
you'll often hear again jokethat they're just kind of the
weather people niche aspect ofthe naval mission.
But you'll often hear againjoke that they're just kind of
the weather people.
Now, your IPs, the informationprofessional, can put this in
kind of layman's terms this isyour IT department.
These are the folks that dealwith our communication systems.
(09:35):
They're our sysadmins, right,they do do some security and
they do some cyber defense andwhatnot, but they're really your
IT department.
There again, they're makingsure our communications are
working, that everything isflowing well.
They're the sysadmins providingaccess and control of our
systems, right, and so that'sgreat.
The intelligence officers.
(09:56):
The intelligence officers areagain, this is going to be the
running joke.
I was a part of this community,so each community kind of has
their little quips towards otherpeople.
The running joke is thatthey're PowerPoint builders.
If you're an intelligenceofficer, you're going to build
PowerPoints and you're going tobrief PowerPoints.
That's just the way it is.
But really, what they're doingand I think again, this is a
really important mission isthey're the ones taking
(10:18):
information just data, justpieces of information and
turning it into actualintelligence.
Just pieces of information andturning it into actual
intelligence right.
And so, if you think about it,there can be a lot of just
pieces of information, but basedon patterns, based on context,
based on cultural aspects,whatever the case is.
They'll take that informationand they'll fuse it and blend it
with everything they have toturn it into real intelligence
(10:40):
and make intelligence reports,and so this is a really cool job
.
Intelligence officers areintegrated with every aspect of
naval warfare.
There's intelligence officersat aviation squadrons, on major
staffs, with SEAL teams, withwhatever the case is right, like
intelligence officers goeverywhere and they do a lot of
just.
Hey, I'm at the Office of NavalIntelligence, oni, out in like
(11:02):
the Maryland DC, virginia area,and so, again, a really cool
combination.
I think being an intelligenceofficer honestly is really
awesome, and so that's a bigpiece of it.
Now, those three things.
In my opinion, they havenothing really to do with cyber,
maybe a little bit of the IPofficers, but not much to do
with cyber.
So, again, the focus of theremaining pieces of this episode
(11:23):
is all about, if you want it todo cyber, like these next
designators are kind of a partof it, and so the first one is
cryptologic warfare.
So, again, I was a cryptologicwarfare officer.
Now, at the time that I serviceselected cryptologic warfare,
all of the cryptologists wereknown.
There were three main liketenants of what cryptologic
(11:44):
officers did.
They did SIGINT, which standsfor signals, intelligence.
They did EW, which stands forelectronic warfare, and then
they did cyber.
And so, as a cryptologicofficer, again, you could do
SIGINT missions, you could doelectronic warfare missions, you
could do cyber missions, and wewould always joke we're the
garbage men, right?
When we talk about intelligenceofficers taking information and
(12:06):
turning it into intelligence.
Where do the intelligenceofficers get their information
from?
Well, from a lot of cryptologicofficers, right, we're the
garbage men, we're thecollectors.
You go out and collect data andinformation and then you bring
it back for people to processand turn into reports, right?
And as a result, in order toactually do that, cryptologic
officers are very fleetassociated and very fleet
(12:29):
adjacent.
I didn't fully realize this andagain, there was this stigma.
Cryptologic warfare officers,you're a restricted line officer
, right?
Restricted line means notdeploying, not even sort of the
case, like if we can getanything out of this episode at
the end of this.
What I want you to take awaywith all these things is that
being a restricted line officerdoes not mean you're not
(12:49):
deploying no-transcript supportto the ships, to the submarines,
(13:13):
to the whatever you're thatcomplete support unit, and so
that was kind of how cryptologicwarfare operators and
information warfare at largehave been treated up until very
recently.
This actually did change justin the past couple of months,
and so this is a brand new kindof development is actually that
information warfare officers, asof very recently, are no longer
(13:36):
restricted line officers.
They are direct line officers.
Now I'll kind of throw somespeculation later in the episode
.
I don't know how this is goingto affect commissioning at the
United States Naval Academy nowthat they're no longer
restricted line officers, but itis an interesting thing.
We talked about informationwarfare again when I was
commissioning.
Those were your options MeTalk,ip, intel, cryptologic Warfare
(14:10):
Again at that point in time, cwCryptologic Warfare.
They did this again.
They did the EW, but they didcyber right, like that was your
cyber chance, that was yourcyber opportunity.
And so, again, when I selectedCryptologic Warfare, I was
juiced, I was excited about it,but then that was also kind of
the frustration with my story isthat, even though my degree was
(14:32):
in cyber and I wanted to docyber, when I went into the
Cryptologic community I was putinto tactical electronic warfare
officer roles for the entiretime in the Navy, and so,
because of that fact, that wasdifficult tactical electronic
warfare officer roles for theentire time in the Navy, right,
and so, because of that fact,that was difficult, but our
(14:52):
community loved it from theNavy's perspective.
Again, I'm speaking back in2017.
We'll talk about thedevelopment here.
Our community loved that.
The cryptologic community valuedand promoted people who had a
wide breadth of experience.
Right, you would do one tour asa SIGINT, like in a SIGINT role
doing signals, intelligencestuff at the NSA and things like
you just had cool roles doingthat.
You would do one tour doingelectronic warfare supporting
(15:14):
the fleet.
Right, you do electronicwarfare support to submarines,
to ships, to aircraft, to SEALteams.
We have these things calledTACIWs Tactical Electronic
Warfare Operators.
Like you would go out and do ajob supporting the fleet, the
Navy in the electronic warfarerealm, and then you would do one
tour doing a cyber job, and soyou would do all these things,
(15:40):
and then what we kind ofdiscovered towards the end is we
had a bunch of officers who,honestly, just weren't great at
cyber, and it's at no fault oftheir own, they just had no
experience, right, like again,we were a jack of all trades but
master of none, and so that waskind of the the reality of
being a cryptologic officer.
But this is where stuff likestarts to get good.
Now and this is part of thediscussion is that in fiscal
year 23, literally in June of2023, the Navy was kind of told
(16:04):
by Congress Again, who knows ifit was an order or an ask,
whatever the case is but theywere basically hey, navy, you
need to create a cyber officerand a cyber technician enlisted
rate, right, like you just needto do it, because we're not at
the same level of ourcounterparts and other services,
right, army cyber officers,marine Corps cyber officers like
they had a cyber officer wherewhat they did was cyber and so.
(16:29):
But the Navy didn't right, itwas the cryptologic community,
and the cryptologic communitydid a lot of things and so.
So in June of 2023, thisdesignator again we use the term
designator the designator of aMICWO, the Maritime Cryptologic
Warfare Officer, excuse me, theMaritime Cyber Warfare Officer.
So there you go.
I'm messing up acronyms.
Already MICWO, the MaritimeCyber Warfare Officer, was
(16:52):
created, and it started withabout a group of 20 or so
original officers who lateraltransferred into the MCWO
community and so at that sametime as well, the cyber warfare
technician, cwt, which is anenlisted rate, was also stood up
, and so kind of at that point,again, starting in June 2023,
the Navy literally was like, hey, we are going to have a cyber
(17:16):
officer and that's what the planis right.
Like we wanted to make surethat we have cyber specialists
and that we have SICN and EWspecialists who that's what
their job is they go and supportthe fleet and so that's kind of
where it started.
And since then, yes, there arenow direct accessions, like the
Maritime Cyber Warfare OfficerCommunity, the MCWO community
(17:37):
takes direct accessions, likeyou can, commission, rotc, ocs
and even the Naval Academy Ibelieve there were two in this
class of 2024 that went directlyinto the MCWO community.
So this thing is starting tohappen, where you can go and
actually be a cyber officer.
And so, again, to be very clear, that's exactly what this plan
(17:57):
is.
We're going to split up theCryptologic community and we're
going to make again theCryptologic community now will
be SIGINT and EW specialists.
Like that's what you're goingto do.
You're going to do a very Navyjob.
You're going to support ships,you're going to support
submarines, you're going tosupport aircraft, you're going
to support Navy SEALs.
You're going to do all this andyou're going to specialize and
(18:22):
focus at SIGGN and EW.
And then you're going to makeMikwos, your cyber specialists,
right.
And so there was actually arecent article I just posted on
my LinkedIn just the other week,which I thought was awesome and
it, like it brought me, it likemade me kind of emotional
because, again, like all Iwanted to do was cyber and I
didn't do any cyber as acryptologic officer.
And so Admiral Clapperton atNavi4, he literally came out in
the article and he said and thisis a quote maritime cyber
(18:42):
warfare officers are going to docyber, and then they're going
to do cyber, and then, rightafter that, they're going to do
cyber.
And so we're going to developand build cyber specialists in
the community, which is going tobe just so darn cool.
So, again, as we're explainingand breaking this out now again,
(19:02):
I just wanted to give somebackground context into that.
But now, as we're breaking outall the designators underneath
the information warfarecommunity, you have MeTalk, ip,
intel, cryptologic Warfare,second EW, and now you have the
Mikwos, and the Mikwo is a fulllike stood up community.
This is a real thing.
Now the final community that waskind of separate from this but
(19:24):
has been recently developing,the final flavor of information
warfare community officer youhave now are what we call cyber
warfare engineers, and yourcyber warfare engineers are the
most heavily technical role thatyou could possibly have as an
officer in the United StatesNavy, especially when it comes
into the information warfarecommunity.
Okay, because as we jump moreinto the, you know the in-depth
(19:45):
of like what MICOs actually do.
I know I keep saying cyber,cyber, cyber.
They do cyber, blah, blah, blah, like Grant.
What the heck does that mean?
We're going to talk about it.
Micos, at the end of the day,are really just team leaders and
project managers, right Ofcyber teams.
They're going to be missioncommanders of cyber teams, but
you're still going to be doingmore administrative work, more
planning work, more briefingwork.
Just again, you're going to bein that project manager role.
(20:08):
They're not going to be anengineer in most cases.
However, for cyber warfareengineers, this is where you
really have the ability to trulybe a developer and an engineer.
All right.
If you want to like buildcyberspace capability
development, like actually be adev, like doing dev, software,
(20:28):
like software dev or even somecomputer engineering, like
building firmware, whatever thecase is, if you want to apply
the principles and techniques ofcomputer science and computer
engineering, the heavilytechnical aspects of software
and hardware cyber warfareengineer, that's what you need
to do, right.
And so, again, as we take alook at all these things, as a
(20:48):
cryptologic officer, it's goingto be very Navy and very EW.
Sigint Mikwo is going to bevery project manager based, but
it's going to be cyber.
But your cyber warfareengineers are going to be your
real engineers, your realdevelopers, and so that's going
to be your most technical role,all right.
So I hope that kind of likelays a breakdown and helps us
(21:09):
put it into perspective.
I want to use these terms overand over and over again so you
hear them and can get used tothem and understand what I'm
talking about in the informationwarfare community, with all of
these separate designators.
Now, with that being said, whatthe heck does that mean in
terms of life, in terms ofservice assignment, in terms of
trying to figure out whatcommunity you actually want to
(21:29):
be a part of?
And so we're going to jump intowhat it means, like if you were
to go and again this isspecific Again, the follow-on
conversation here is going to beabout cryptologic officers.
Like if you were to go andagain this is specific, again,
the follow-on conversation hereis going to be about cryptologic
officers, about Mikwos andabout cyber warfare engineers.
We're going to talk aboutcryptologic warfare first, right
.
Again, if you want to do cyber,this is going to doubling down
here If you want to do cyber, donot become a cryptologic
(21:50):
warfare officer.
You're not going to do it.
And with this shift right, thisshift in kind of what we're
talking about, it's clear thatcryptologic officers are going
to be very tactical, verydeployable and SIGINT and EW
focused officers that aresupporting naval platforms right
, and so that's big.
For schooling what this meansfor you, you're going to go
through some basic schooling inPensacola.
We have the cryptologic warfareofficer basic course in
(22:12):
Pensacola.
Then you go to the informationwarfare basic course in Virginia
Beach.
It's very basic RF theory andtechnology, radio frequency,
right.
And so, again, to put this inperspective, when we talk about
computer science, computerengineering, on the cyber
warfare engineer side, being acryptologic officer, to compare
this to like majors and whatwould be the most comparable,
major is going to be electricalengineering more than anything.
(22:34):
And then, if you're payingattention in your weapons class
as a firstie, right Like weaponssystems and radars, a lot of
radar theory and RF theory aregoing to be the most practical
and direct application into whatyou're doing as a cryptologic
officer.
Okay Now, from that perspective, when you become a cryptologic
officer, though, you're stillgoing to go and be a part of the
(22:55):
intelligence community at large, right Like, even though this
is the case, you're still goingto go and be a part of the
intelligence community at large,right, like, even though this
is the case, you're still goingto go and likely be stationed on
your first tour, right Like,after you finish your schooling
your first PCS location is goingto be the one of the big four.
It's going to be to Maryland,hawaii, georgia and Texas.
We use this term big four toreference the four main NSA
sites, the National SecurityAgency, right, they have four
(23:16):
main sites and that's going tobe Maryland, at Fort Meade you
may hear the term Fort Meade toreference the Maryland location
of the National Security Agency,nsa.
You have Hawaii, out on Oahu,there's like an NSA Pacific out
there, and so again, as acryptologic officer you'd be
going to Maryland, fort Meade,maryland, you'd be going to Oahu
, hawaii, fort Gordon, georgia,down in Georgia, you have the
(23:39):
NSA down there, a detachment outthere, and then in Texas and
San Antonio.
So again, it kind of goes inthat order, right, like you're
going to go to Marylandfirst-ish, or Hawaii Hawaii and
Maryland are the two biggestlocations and then Georgia it's
kind of like a secondary tier ofsize and just the amount of
billets and jobs that areavailable there, and then Texas,
(23:59):
kind of fourth.
But again, likely if you'regoing to the Cryptologic
community, you're likely goingto be stationed in Maryland,
hawaii, georgia, texas first,but then from there you're going
to see.
You're going to see Again, ifyou go to the big four first,
and when you go to the big fouryou're going to be qualifying,
you're going to be standingwatch on what we call the FIAC,
the Fleet Information OperationsCenter just doing kind of some
(24:20):
watch standing.
You may go to an NSA you knowbillet and work with civilians
and work in a joint environmentand do some SIGINT and targeting
stuff and like different coolNSA stuff right, and that'll be
very cool.
But the moment you're done withthat like you're going to sea
(24:42):
and so you know some sea billets, like what you would do as a
cryptologic officer out at seaare.
There's two things.
You can go.
We call PCS afloat, so themajority of cryptologic officers
are going to go and actually bePCS permanently assigned to a
ship.
As you'll hear one of threeterms.
It should be standard acrossthe fleet.
People are constantlyinterchanging the terms the IWO,
which stands for theInformation Warfare Officer, the
SIGWO, which is the SignalsWarfare Officer, I'm assuming,
(25:03):
or the TAIWO, the TacticalInformation Warfare Officer.
So IWO, sigwo, taiwo allbasically mean the same thing.
It means you're a cryptologicofficer who's permanent like
ship's crew on that ship and youare in charge of the, the ew
and and sigint side of what theship is doing, and so that's one
thing.
Another option is to do what Idid, which is we call direct
(25:25):
support, so you can do directsupport for submarines and air
platforms as a direct supportofficer.
Basically you are pcs, like youare permanently assigned to one
of the big four that we talkedabout earlier, and then you'll
go and instead of being assignedto a singular ship, like in my
case, you would go and deploy insupport of multiple different
units, right, and so I wouldtake my team and instead of
(25:45):
doing the training and workupsand maintenance and all the
different aspects of being onthe ship permanently, we would
only support, like operationsand deployment, and so, like I
would go and I would go on, youknow, submarine X and then come
home for a couple of weeks,debrief the mission, get
prepared for the next one and goto submarine Y and then come
home and rinse and repeat and goto submarine Z and so in direct
(26:05):
support.
It's a little bit differentfrom that perspective, but
you're still doing a ton of Navyoperations, which is really
cool.
And then we have a ton ofbillets within Navy special
warfare, including dev crew,which is like the super fancy
again I'm talking about, likeSEAL, team 6, blah, blah, blah,
all the cool stuff.
Like there are a lot of coolbillets within Navy Special
Warfare and DevGrew really coolopportunities across the board,
(26:26):
but you're gonna deploy, you'regonna spend a ton of time away
from home and you're gonna do afull Navy experience.
Now, with that comes you haveclear pathway for promotion and
command opportunities.
The cryptologic community hasset pathways.
There are milestone billets,there's a clear, defined path
(26:47):
for how to promote, to how toprogress, to how to make your
way up.
And now, with the shift tocryptologic officers in the
information warfare community,being a direct line community
and not restricted line, you areeventually striving to become
the information warfarecommander for a carrier strike
group, the IWC, and so that isbeing like that is quite
literally a command opportunityat sea.
(27:07):
You are in charge of all of theinformation warfare forces at
sea as a part of a carrierstrike group, right, and so that
is the pinnacle of what you'restriving for as a cryptologic
officer, right, and so, again,that kind of wraps up being a CW
.
Again, I think being a CW wasthe coolest experience I ever
had.
Again, I wanted to do cyber,but I was really happy.
(27:29):
I got this experience in theSIGINT and EW world, which was
really cool.
So, again, that's kind of theoverall on the CW side.
Again, my advice to anyone who'sinterested in becoming a
cryptologic officer.
Pay attention to yourelectrical engineering class,
pay attention in EE and then payattention in your first year
(27:49):
weapons class.
If you want to go CW because,again, radar theory and RF
theory it's going to be yourbest friend All right.
Now, on the complete flip side,if you want to go, if you want
to be a maritime cyber warfareofficer, a MCWO, and you want to
deploy like you're wantingdeployability, you're wanting
the Navy experience you'reprobably going to find some
(28:11):
disappointment, just genuinelyright.
Not a ton of infrastructure tosupport this.
Yet.
The closest fleet-alignedbillets are like at NCDOC, the
Navy Cyber Defense OperationsCommand, ncdoc, down in Norfolk
and they'll do someopportunities to go to sea.
You can support, like some pentesting on ships, penetration
testing it's a cyber term andyou can do that in the fleet.
(28:31):
There's a growing presencewithin Naval Special Warfare as
well.
It's starting to shift slightly.
But the majority of people, ifyou're going to be a MIQO, you
should expect to not deploy allthat often and some may see that
as a positive, some may seethat as a negative.
Right, it's just important tounderstand, however you would
want your experience to be, thatthat's going to be the case,
right and so, again, mikwo, muchlike Cryptologic Officers,
(28:53):
you're primarily going to bestationed in Maryland, hawaii
and Georgia, right and so, andreally between Maryland and
Hawaii, some in Norfolk, allthis stuff, but those are going
to be your main basis.
You're going to go like, ifyou're a direct accession,
you're commissioning, into thecryptologic community, you're
going to go to what they callthe JCAC, the J-C-A-C, the Joint
Cyber Analysis Course, which isthe enlisted C school, which is
(29:14):
like a very specific technicalcourse that they teach the
enlisted CWTs or cyber warfaretechnicians, down in Corrie
Station in Pensacola.
It's more technical, it'snitty-gritty education, it's
Navy education about, again,systems and cyber analysis, and
so that's going to be kind oflike your pipeline on the
schooling side.
(29:34):
And then your first tour again,we talked about kind of
cryptologic officers doing someof these different things, maybe
SIGINT, and then going to seelike your first tour as a
maritime cyber warfare officer.
Mcwoe, you're going.
You're going to go to the CMF,the cyber mission force, and so
CMF is an overarching term totalk about our nations like
(29:56):
cyber teams, cyber structure,cyber organization.
That is the cyber mission force, the CMF.
If you're a part of the CMF,you can support different
missions, different billets.
We have things called the CMTs,the combat mission teams, the
NMTs, the national mission teams, and the CPTs cyber protection
teams.
And so, whether it's offensivecyber operation, whether it's
(30:16):
kind of grace-based, neutral,like navigating, you know,
intelligence, preparation of theenvironment, like kind of doing
some more reconnaissance stuff,preparation of the environment
like kind of doing some morereconnaissance stuff or it's
actual like cyber defense, right, and kind of to draw the
comparison, ip officers who aredoing that like sysadmin,
network updates, protectingpatches, all that stuff.
(30:37):
The CPTs are really more likehey, if we have an intruder on
the network, we're going to gofind them and remove them, like
that's what we're talking about.
About defensive cyber operationsis more of an active, defensive
cyber operation, which can bereally cool, and so, again,
you're going to go and you'regoing to be a part of the cyber
mission force.
That's that's the reality of it.
Now, this is a great community.
If you want to have like ahomestead, if you want to stay
(31:00):
the way it is because you canstay in Maryland or you can stay
in Hawaii for a pretty darnlong time if that's what you
want, right, because again, allthe CMTs and all the NMTs and
all these again, all these teamsthe cyber mission or the combat
mission teams, the nationalmission teams, which are all
parts of the cyber mission forcethese are all Maryland and
Hawaii billets.
Like that's where you're goingto be really, again not a
(31:22):
hundred percent, but the vastmajority and they're no longer
going to be billeted forcryptologic warfare officers,
which means all of the MIQOs aregoing to get these jobs and
you're going to do that.
And so, again, it's really coolfrom that perspective because
you're going to have an abilityto stay in one location if
that's what you want.
Like there is a realopportunity.
Again, things can always change, but there's like a real
(31:42):
opportunity that you could stayin Maryland or you could stay in
Hawaii.
Again, we talk about military,and some of the difficulties in
military life is the fact thatyou're going to have to pick up
and move every two to threeyears.
But you could potentially stayin Maryland or stay in Hawaii,
promote advance, continue on,stay in the cyber mission and
have a homestead, build yourlife in a singular location,
(32:11):
right, like how darn cool isthat?
Like there are opportunities todo that within the, the Mikwo
community, which again, I thinkis like it's pretty darn awesome
.
Now, what I will talk about thisis when you're part of cyber
teams.
It's not really going to bewhat we call hands-on keyboard
all that often.
You're not going to be thetechnical operator doing stuff.
But, with that being said, isthere's actually a trial run
going on?
I think there's about sixpeople right now that have been
selected for kind of a pilot,like a test trial run for
(32:34):
officers to be what we call IONsyou hear this term ION which is
an interactive on-net operator,because I think some of the
complaint really was that like,hey, as an officer, like we're
not doing anything, like we wantto, you know, be technical, be
hands on keyboard, be actuallylike doing these things, and so
they're running this pilotprogram to get a sense of it
makes sense for officers to bein this role, but as of right
(32:56):
now, again, you're really goingto be in that project manager,
team leader, planner, briefermanagement role of the cyber
mission, and so that's kind ofthe thing.
And again there really is agrowing desire, more or less
right, to create kind of twoseparate fields within the cyber
mission which is one to createlike technical experts, which is
(33:18):
, I would say, adversaryagnostic right.
It's just, it's a purelytechnical your ability to
operate on a keyboard.
And then we also need to create, like some target subject
matter experts, and that'sreally where they want the
officers to fill the role is bygetting experience working
against a similar target set fora long period of time, building
that expertise, building thatknowledge, building that context
(33:40):
of so much stuff that's goingon to become like the network
subject matter expert for thattarget right, and so that's
going to be kind of all thedifferent stuff that's going on
in more of your role as a, as aMcWill right, and these are all
high level things.
It's really my intention,hopefully to bring on some, some
people who are in thiscommunity to provide a little
(34:00):
bit more in-depth explanationabout their actual specific
roles.
Again, this stuff can get toughbecause we never want to blur
classification lines.
We never want to, you know,give out more information.
You know that would not beappropriate or even come close
to that right.
So I'm very careful aboutbringing people on in current
roles and opportunities.
But I also want to make surethat midshipmen and prospective
midshipmen have an opportunityto like know what they'd be
(34:22):
getting themselves into and aremaking educated decisions about
what they want to do in the Navy, and so we'll try and make that
happen.
But I'm just providing again alot of high level generalities
of what you could expect, kindof going one way or another.
Now we're going to wrap this upwith just like a little pro and
con of like all this differentstuff, right, like, I think,
some of the pros, if you were towant to go Mikwo again, kind of
(34:42):
like focusing in here on theMikwo side.
Now, the coolest thing aboutcyber, in my opinion, is that
there's tons of responsibilityreally early on.
Like you'll be an ensign,you'll be a JG, you'll be a
lieutenant and you'll be inmeetings with O6s.
You'll be a lieutenant, juniorgrader, a lieutenant in a staff
meeting with a COCOM, acombatant commander, like
(35:03):
serious admiral, general levelleadership, and you're taken
seriously, right, and I thinkthat's a really cool piece.
You get a ton of responsibilityreally early on, but as it
stands right now is that thatkind of like.
You have it very early on butthen you kind of plateau into
the end of your career.
There are not a ton of flagopportunities.
Again, if your life's dream isto be an admiral or general,
(35:23):
there are not a lot of flagopportunities.
Again, if your life's dream isto be an admiral or general,
there are not a lot of flagopportunities for Mikwos.
Right Like you don't have a lotof fleet knowledge and
experience, which is what weneed at the general admiral
level, and so less opportunitiesin very senior ranks is
probably a big con of the Mikwocommunity.
And then, kind of on the flipside, we talk about the cool
(35:44):
aspects of Mikwo and you knowthe lifestyle and being
homesteaded and all this stuff,the sailors that you're going to
lead.
You know we're trying torecruit highly talented people
to come in and work the cybermission.
Sometimes they can feel likethey're not in the military and
that can lead to really toughleadership challenges.
Right Like you may be workingwith someone and they're like,
(36:06):
sir, like, why the heck do Ihave to stand a 12 hour shift, a
12 hour watch from 6pm to 6am?
Like, what, like, why am Idoing that?
It's like, hey, shipmate, likeyeah, you're in the Navy, you're
in the Navy, but again, it canbe, it can be tough when, when
you're in this environment andyou'll probably be working in a
lot of workspaces again, you'reworking in an NSA building
You're working in technicallylike a government civilian
(36:28):
building and even though you'regoing to be in uniform and
you're going to be military andyou're going to do all this
aspect like you're in a reallycivilian environment.
And so it's a tough leadershipchallenge for a lot of the
officers as well because again,sometimes people can feel like
they're not in the militaryright and so that piece can be
difficult, can be reallydifficult.
But again, big news, to kind ofwrap this up and we had talked
(36:50):
about it, I talked about it alittle bit Again there is a
shift that has already happenedwhere the information warfare
community is no longer arestricted line community,
reinforcing that.
The information warfarecommander, that pinnacle billet
that we were talking about, is acommand at sea billet.
That is what we're doing andwhat that means really is it's
going to open up more.
(37:11):
Again we talk about flagbillets and we talk about being
an admiral or a general, likeputting on and wearing a star.
We'll use all these terms toreference people who are
admirals and generals Flagopportunity, putting on a star,
all and generals, flagopportunity, putting on a star,
like all these terms kind ofreference the same thing and
they're hoping that by gettingthat command at sea opportunity.
That senior command, senior 06,being the information warfare
(37:32):
commander of all the informationforces, a part of the carrier
strike group, is just going toopen up more flag opportunities
for the cryptologic community.
Now, again, what we don't have,unfortunately, is any insight
into how this will affectcommissioning right, for,
especially at the Naval Academy,by definition, right, the
(37:52):
mission of the Naval Academy isto commission direct line
officers.
Well, guess what?
The information warfarecommunity is now a direct line
community.
So, like, should that raise thenumbers?
Again, I'm just, I'm nobody,but I would argue yes, but again
, it's really going to come downif you haven't watched, and
we'll put a clip up here so youcan click on the video and watch
it about service assignment,where we talk about this exact
(38:13):
factor, which is that the amountof billets that are allocated
for each community are dictatedat levels higher than the Naval
Academy.
Right, like that is a decisionthat is made above the Naval
Academy, and so we'll see howthis is affected by the changing
to becoming a direct linecommunity and we'll make sure to
let you know.
But I hope this was superinformational.
(38:35):
No idea about anythingtechnical or cyber, and I'm
using all these terms, and I'mso sorry, but I hope this is
like information, like goodinformation for all the young
guys and gals out there that maybe considering being a
cryptologic officer, being aMikwo, being a cyber warfare
engineer, to at least get youstarted on the right path and
(38:56):
hear some unfiltered thoughts inthat world.
If I can conclude this episode,right, singular thing, if we
didn't even need to talk for 35minutes.
If you want to be a part of thefleet, if you want the Navy
experience, go be a cryptologicofficer.
Go be a cryptologic officer.
You're going to get fleetexperience.
You're going to deploy a lot.
If you want to do cyber and beon land, go go McWell, it's as
(39:23):
simple as that.
It's really as simple as that,or try to do that.
And so, again, thank you so much.
If you have any questions,again, I have a ton of friends
in all of these communitieswho'd be happy to chat with you,
and so, again, if you'reinterested in more information,
send me a message, reach out,and I'll be sure to put you in
touch with the people who cananswer more in depth, and I'm
hoping to bring on some peoplefrom the fleet, like people from
(39:44):
the current communities to talkabout their experiences as well
, but I hope this is a goodlittle jumpstart here.
So thank you so much.
I really appreciate it.
Y'all have a great day andthank you so much.
Thank you so much for listeningto this episode of the Academy
Insider podcast.
I really hope you liked it,enjoyed it and learn something
during this time.
If you did, please feel free tolike and subscribe or leave a
(40:07):
comment about the episode.
We really appreciate to hearyour feedback about everything
and continue to make AcademyInsider an amazing service that
guides, serves and supportsmidshipmen, future midshipmen
and their families.
Thank you.
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