aspiring_polyglot
Unverified
- Joined
- Apr 20, 2020
- Messages
- 9
Greetings all,
I want to thank everyone up front for your many years of service and willingness to mentor/provide information to us young folks and outsiders. We really appreciate your patience with us, even if we get a little ahead of ourselves sometimes and tend to write before we read.
By way of personal intro, I am a graduating college senior with an academic background in regional studies and foreign language. I spent a year overseas on a DoD scholarship and am committed to a career in national security. I am passionate about all things intelligence and enjoy travel, so I am hoping to one day step into that "send me" role of providing ground truth to the policymaker back home. I have a tentative one year job offer as a civilian, but plan on enlisting at the conclusion of that, so I am doing some long-ish term planning.
Now for my goals: My admiration for SOF and interest in going the SOT-A route in the National Guard brought me to this forum, where I've read almost every thread on the 35 series and the role of enablers. Side note: special thanks to Marauder 06 for posting his thesis draft, as it's a fantastic resource. I will be DC based and had a recruiter tell me that 20th SFG in Maryland would be my best bet, but have broadly not been able to find a reliable POC for this.
I am hoping to enlist as a 35N (I would be coming in with several languages at the 2+ or 3 level and my sense is that the November route will allow me to lean into the technical/analytic side of things while still filling the SOT-A role), do the "guard bum" (sorry, I have seen this used before and lack a better term) for a while (deployments, JCETs, schools, etc...), and later maintain a USG civilian job. If there's a need and a place for me, I believe this route will allow me to best contribute to the natsec mission.
From there, I just want to excel in support of my Guard unit and see where my career takes me. That's all I'll say for now as I don't want to get too far ahead of my 25m target, especially with all the uncertainty surrounding COVID.
I write this with all humility and know there's a long way to go - even to get a contract. That said, I really wanted to introduce myself on here as I may have some niche questions cropping up soon. Most of all, I would welcome any and all feedback or advice from the SOT-A cohort on this site. Please let me know if this route seems feasible.
Thanks again and all the best,
AP
I want to thank everyone up front for your many years of service and willingness to mentor/provide information to us young folks and outsiders. We really appreciate your patience with us, even if we get a little ahead of ourselves sometimes and tend to write before we read.
By way of personal intro, I am a graduating college senior with an academic background in regional studies and foreign language. I spent a year overseas on a DoD scholarship and am committed to a career in national security. I am passionate about all things intelligence and enjoy travel, so I am hoping to one day step into that "send me" role of providing ground truth to the policymaker back home. I have a tentative one year job offer as a civilian, but plan on enlisting at the conclusion of that, so I am doing some long-ish term planning.
Now for my goals: My admiration for SOF and interest in going the SOT-A route in the National Guard brought me to this forum, where I've read almost every thread on the 35 series and the role of enablers. Side note: special thanks to Marauder 06 for posting his thesis draft, as it's a fantastic resource. I will be DC based and had a recruiter tell me that 20th SFG in Maryland would be my best bet, but have broadly not been able to find a reliable POC for this.
I am hoping to enlist as a 35N (I would be coming in with several languages at the 2+ or 3 level and my sense is that the November route will allow me to lean into the technical/analytic side of things while still filling the SOT-A role), do the "guard bum" (sorry, I have seen this used before and lack a better term) for a while (deployments, JCETs, schools, etc...), and later maintain a USG civilian job. If there's a need and a place for me, I believe this route will allow me to best contribute to the natsec mission.
From there, I just want to excel in support of my Guard unit and see where my career takes me. That's all I'll say for now as I don't want to get too far ahead of my 25m target, especially with all the uncertainty surrounding COVID.
I write this with all humility and know there's a long way to go - even to get a contract. That said, I really wanted to introduce myself on here as I may have some niche questions cropping up soon. Most of all, I would welcome any and all feedback or advice from the SOT-A cohort on this site. Please let me know if this route seems feasible.
Thanks again and all the best,
AP