Poolees with Intel (DD) contracts! Any questions? Ask away!

[PNW2011]

Good afternoon, I've been a Marine for awhile so excuse the poolee profile, I really haven't bothered to post much anyways.

I just graduated from the 4207 MAGTF IS-E course at Dam Neck and earned the MOS of 0231. Before we start just know that if your questions are regarding the class itself, I can only give vague answers due to the clearance needed to even enter NMITC (Navy Marine Corps Intelligence Training Center, pronounced "namitcy"). However anything about the environment there, what there is to do out in town, what happens when you first arrive, etc. is all fair game. I'm aware that there is already a sticky about this, however reading through that, it's somewhat outdated in regards to the schoolhouse. I'll try to cover every thing off the top of my head, but if you have more questions feel free to ask, I have nothing but time.

We'll start the process at the boot camp level and go from there.

On the Friday you get there, yes black friday, you'll be taken to the SSO office from the receiving barracks to get your brief on what is expected of you. Essentially they just tell you to come back on Team Week (Week 8). When you do return on week 8 after all the fun you've been having, you'll begin your TS/SCI investigation with an interview and ensuring your SF-86 is good to go. Yes you may get to use a phone during this time, but only to get information from your family, still take the time to just enjoy hearing their voices, I know I did. After this is done you'll actually be given your final MOS, and it will be explained somewhat vaguely again, what you're going to be learning at MOS school. This brief while short was pretty motivating for me, what the Msgt there said to me is what helped me get through the crucible.


Now to boot leave/SOI

You'll be contacted by the OPM agent assigned to you while on leave, if you're west coast I would explain to him that you'll be at MCT soon and hard to contact. If you're west coast tell him you'll be at 52 Area, Camp Pendleton and he can get to you by entering the base from the north gate by the nuclear power plant. When he does tell you when he'll be arriving make sure to tell your Plt Commander so he can arrange for you to be pulled out for the interview. Mine was conducted the first week, but some guys were in the field and were taken out from range 214 to go conduct their interview. And this is where we stop talking about everyone and focus on the Marines who are going to be 0231's.

Actually getting to the schoolhouse/checking in.

East coasters, you'll bus to Dam Neck from Lejeune, West coast you'll be flying to either Norfolk or Richmond, from there you'll take a taxi to Dam Neck. Most likely you'll land at Norfolk so just tell the cab driver you're going to the intel school at Dam Neck and he'll know where to take you. Obviously you'll be in service alphas, and you'll have plenty of time to change at the USO. There's really nothing to be nervous about when you arrive, if you're having problems with your luggage and may be late just call the number provided in your orders, which should be the quarterdeck at NMITC. The biggest shocker for you boots just getting there is that there's pretty much no one in charge of you. You'll be taken to the PIT classroom by some other privates or PFCs, where they'll have you check in with the SSgt who technically supervises PIT, once you're added to the roster you can chill. After the work day is over PIT will grab your gear for you and take you to the barracks to get you a room.

PIT/The Barracks/Libo

You will soon realize that PIT does absolutely nothing, it is a holding platoon. Your days will consist of sitting in the PIT classroom doing nothing, to lunch, then back to the PIT classroom to do nothing. You cannot bring phones or any electronic devices into the building by the way ;D. If you don't have a clearance yet you'll be a "white badge" and escorted everywhere by another PIT Marine with his "red badge". I mean everywhere, to take a ****, to the command store, to get some water, everywhere. You'll also do stuff like run the command store, morning and evening colors, firewatch, cleaning the building, and A-duty at the barracks. Make sure you PT on your own while in PIT otherwise you'll be in for a bad time when you class up. Reservists, you'll class up quickly, active duty you can be there for 2-3 months. I'm a reservist so I spent 3 weeks in PIT, which wasn't too bad.

The barracks are pretty nice for Marine Corps standards, it's 2 Marines to a room, each room has it's own shower, ****ter, and sink so no sharing with other rooms. Besides that it's a pretty basic room with carpet. Two desks, two wall lockers, two beds, and that's pretty much it. There's lounges on every deck, but they've all been secured and will probably still be secured if and when you get there. Field day is on thursday, typically your room gets inspected friday morning.

Big things NOT to do are have girls in your room, have alcohol in your room, and if you've got porn, keep it on your harddrive. You can get ninja punched for all of the above, especially girls and booze. Which sets up perfectly the libo phases. There's phase 0,1, and 2. 0 is on base and in uniform, 1 is off base and civi's are allowed as long as you're back by 2230 on week days and 2359 weekends. 2 is the same as one except on weekends you have no curfew except like 2230 sunday night. As a PITster you'll have what they call phase 0.5 the first weekend meaning you have to stay on base but civis are allowed. Then you'll have phase 1 unless PIT ****s up like they usually do, then you'll be on 0.

Classing Up

There's a bunch of platoons named by color, you'll be in one of them. Class is 12-13 weeks, whatever fits in the training schedule of 60 days. You will cover Intelligence Preparation of the Battlespace, mapping, COIN/ASCOPE, Collections, Targeting, IADS, and whole lot of other stuff. Here you'll get really good at powerpoint and briefing, because that is essentially what you'll be doing. There are also tests on the material covered in class. Be prepared to work late nights and eat a lot of Subway (the only place to eat when the chowhall is closed). Powerpoint is just the medium used to present the information, just because you're building presentations doesn't mean you're not going through information, filtering, and analyzing it. The product you put up on the board is just the final product of your analysis. Besides that I can't really go into detail, feel free to ask more but specifics probably will be left unanswered.

[Rocky C]

Would you like to change your profile to Marine since you are one ???

[PNW2011]

Sure, but doesn't that mean I can't post here anymore? Also, some pics of lovely Dam Neck..

[Rocky C]

Done.
Status changed to Marine.
You can square away your profile now.
You can post in other Forums that will be helpful to other Poolees.

I moved this Thread to " Former Poolee Advice " where it belongs.

Congrats and Good Luck to you.

[PNW2011]

errrrh

[pdcoolmanila]

thanks for the post pnw2011
i do have a few questions
where are you stationed now?
how likely is jump school? were any of your peers given the opportunity?

[PNW2011]

Where I'm stationed isn't any of your concern

If you wanted jump school you should have joined the Army homeboy. Those school slots got to people who need them, or as re-enlistment incentives. So if you're not recon, nope, not going to happen. It really amazes me why this question comes up all of the time. It's not going to happen. You're going to be the recruit who never stops asking stupid questions during SDI time, I can feel it. Words of advice to all of you... focus on what is exactly in front of you at the time from boot camp until you make it to your school. You will have plenty of time to address those concerns later on. It's not the answer you want, but it is the reality of the Marine Corps.

If you happen to get Recon orders out of intel school, which entirely depends on the orders that your class receives (we had a guy smoke a bunch of officers in the force recon indoc and no recon orders were available to my platoon when the time came).

[Rocky C]

Watch your remarks " New Marine ".
You were asked a polite question from a Poolee.
Fill out your entire profile, site rules, which you already know.

You will not be told again... Next time I will delete this entire thread and you will be enjoying a Looong Vacation from this Forum.

[sjfalken]

Well, do you like working in this field? I know you probably can't say much about it, but can you at least vaguely give your opinions on it?

[pdcoolmanila]

thank you rhode island
and thanks for the reality pnw.

[PNW2011]

I'm not going to bull**** and sugarcoat it to make him feel nice and fuzzy. If he goes intel, he isn't going to jump school unless he gets recon orders or manages to get it as a re-enlistment incentive. Telling him anything else would be a lie, and that's not what I'm here to do.

I choose not to go into great lengths to talk about the specifics not because I'm concerned so much about leaking secret information. It's more so that I'm not putting out information that could help another country's intelligence service that happens to be combing through open source, that may answer one of their questions, even if it's unclassified. To put it bluntly, the methods we use can be found in unclassified Marine Corps publications, however we apply that, given a scenario that does utilize more sensitive information if that makes sense. That's all I'll comment on regarding the actual material of the class.

As for the field itself, the nice thing is you have lots of options. In the scope of things, yes you will be doing intel, but depending on where you go you also have the opportunity to work with Marines out in the field. If you get infantry orders, you'll be going to a battalion S-2 shop, and you may even go down to the company level where you're the only intel guy. This is known as a CLIC, and our instructors were pretty much trying to sell the concept of it to us. You have 1 or 2 guys talk to grunts they think they could train to essentially be their company level intel guys to assist with collecting information and being on the look out for certain indicators a regular 03 doesn't need to care about. If you go to one of the intel battalions, you'll be one of many analysts working on a bigger picture for an area you're deployed to, or about to deploy to. Air side will be doing intel work for pilots. There are also occasionally orders to recon, including force. Each of these jobs can change depending where you are, it being a CENTCOM deployment, a MEU, or in garrison.

The work can be tedious, I'm not going to lie. A lot of it involves reading and organizing information, then plotting it on maps, identifying trends, comparing them, understanding weapon's capabilities, knowing the terrain, etc. Once you take all of those factors you make an assessment that you're going to be giving a commander. It is a thinking man's game, but it's essential to all military operations, it's probably the single most important factor in operations besides the actual ability to carry out the mission.

I ended up #1 in my class, the cool thing about intel is that while you still have that instant obedience to orders you were taught in boot camp and MCT, but now you're being asked to think outside the box, to start thinking why things are the way they are. A lot of responsibility is put on the junior enlisted guys, if you're smart that is. During our FINEX, as a PFC I was being asked by Corporals and Sgt's what MY opinion was on certain matters, and what I had to say typically is what was the deciding factor in most of the decisions we made.

For example, a Sgt wanted to conduct a day time cordon and search of an entire complex. I said no because it would cut off the only MSR into a certain city during working hours, and the locals wouldn't be able to commute, these certain locals in this suburb are actually fond of the Marines and doing so would be harming our relationship with the population, not to mention the fact that we haven't even confirmed which building in the complex we want to hit. I recommended scout snipers observe the complex, and based on their report we could raid the specific building the following night.

Remember, this is PFC Me telling a Sgt that he's wrong for all of these reasons and that's how we can do it the right way. If you're not able to think like that and not be afraid of what a higher up may say to you, probably looking at the wrong job. You really have to stick your neck out and be willing to get your ass chewed.

[Tennessee Top]

Congratulations on being class honorman (I was one once myself and have the plaque presented to me from The Marine Corps Assn proudly hanging on my wall).

I know this is "nit-picky" but it's just a couple pet peeves of mine:

The "new Corps" seems to move farther-and-farther away from our Naval heritage and its unique language. Used to be, we Marines slept in racks but todays Marines seem to sleep in beds (just like airmen do). Our Commandant wants to get back to our nautical roots and I hope this is one of the areas that gets cleaned up soon.

We go to all the trouble of graduating bootcamp and earning the title for what? So we can be called a Marine. So why is it then todays Marines refer to one another as just guys? A guy did this or I know a guy who talked to other guys. I was always taught guys are the dudes back on the block who haven't earned a thing yet. As a SNCO, I never referred to my Marines as "guys"; they were called what they were and by the title they earned. This is a generational issue and I know sounds silly in todays Corps. Heaven forbid one Marine would call another a Marine when it's so much cooler to just refer to him as a guy. In fact, they should no longer make such a big deal about earning the title at bootcamp since we're not going to use it afterwards anyway.

Sorry to hijack your thread. Your intentions are good and the info pertinent for future 02 types. Just had to get a couple things off my chest. Good luck with your intel and USMC careers.

Side note: My niece was a poolee with a DD contract. During her senior year in highschool, she loaded up her class schedule with courses that would help her at intel school (English composition, writing, speech, etc.). But, her boyfriend and his family did not want her to leave town so they put a lot of pressure on her to not ship to MCRDPI. She quit going to poolee meetings/PT and was discharged from the DEP a week before she was due to ship. Now, she is a highschool graduate with no skills and cannot find a job...imagine that! But, her boyfriend is happy and I guess that's all that matters.

[PNW2011]

That is a real bummer, I loved most of intel school, loved working with the Marines in my class, and had a good time while there.

Regarding "guys" vs. "Marines", that's just something I consider for talking informally among peers. When talking to a non-02 type, it's typically "we're intel Marines, or I'm your new intel Marine."

You'll find that intel can be somewhat relaxed, because NCO's have to have a good relationship with their junior Marines. That doesn't mean there isn't the proper respect for the rank structure, but it means you're not going to get chewed out for forgetting to give a greeting every time you see an NCO. "What's up corporal?" is perfectly fine. Rank means much less than the ability to be a good analyst. If a Lcpl is much smarter than a new lat-move sergeant, he's going to be listened to more.

[Spears]

PNW2011, maybe you want to listen to rocky c's post, and maybe you want to reply to my personal message.

[Bad Intel]

Greetings. I was an 0231 for nine years, during which I did three Iraq deployments, one Afghanistan deployment, and one WESTPAC deployment with an air wing unit.

If you have questions about the field, feel free to ask me.

To pdcoolmanilla above: Jump school for an 0231 is unlikely, but not impossible to get. Most get it through the school re-enlistment incentive, but if you get orders to one of the few USMC units on jump status (Recon/Force, ANGLICO, MARSOC) they have a certain number of slots to go to airborne every month and they'll always be looking for people to attend. If the command likes you enough, they'll send you.