Looking to interview recently separated Marines - $50/hour

[USMCsurvey]

Our company is developing foreign language training software for the military. To help our software designers, we are looking to interview several Marine Corps veterans (officers and enlisted) who separated within the last five years. We're interested in learning more about how Marines deploy and conduct daily operations... questions like: What ranks typically work a checkpoint? Which officers would typically go out on a patrol? Are all Marines trained to provide basic medical care? We won't be asking about anything that's restricted (or if we do out of ignorance, just tell us so).

We're looking for Marine Corps veterans who meet the following criteria:

• Separated within the last 5 years
• Enlisted, NCOs, or Officers
• Previously deployed to a foreign country and engaged in one or more of the following tasks:
• patrolling
• conducting checkpoints
• cordon and search
• providing medical care

[Vandrel]

Interesting

[gwamo1]

How is knowing what ranks are at a checkpoint and how many officers patrol going to help you develope language training....? Sounds pretty legit........

[Failuredrill]

Might be a talibaner, OPSEC

[AAV Crewchief]

Sounds like the French girl from the other day changed her point of attack and is now trying this....

I am still waiting for her to post that naked pic.

Anyhow, DOUG, Achmed, Abdul, Khalil or whomever you are, go PIZZ straight up a tree. Did you really expect that someone would come out with tactics and post them for you here on the internet? Want to find out firsthand? Put on a DIRKA DIRKA outfit and go shoot at the first Marine you see in Helmand Province. You'll get all the info you need and most rickytick.

[AAV Crewchief]

Here is all the info you need and fresh from the deployed location:

First Name: Smedley
Rank: General
Deployments: During my 34-year career as a Marine, I participated in military actions in the Philippines, China, in Central America during the Banana Wars, the Caribbean and during World War I, I served in France.
MOS: Straight up Gangsta
PHONE: 770- 867- 5309 ask for Jenny
EMAIL: Warisaracket@gmail.com

[Vandrel]

I checked into these guys a little, it appears they created sims for use with things such as the CA POST test.


Seems legit to a extent, I think some of their questions are pretty "civilian" and in our eyes raise eyebrows

[jetdawgg]

Sounds like the French girl from the other day changed her point of attack and is now trying this....

I am still waiting for her to post that naked pic.

Anyhow, DOUG, Achmed, Abdul, Khalil or whomever you are, go PIZZ straight up a tree. Did you really expect that someone would come out with tactics and post them for you here on the internet? Want to find out firsthand? Put on a DIRKA DIRKA outfit and go shoot at the first Marine you see in Helmand Province. You'll get all the info you need and most rickytick.

I hope that this party did not expect anything less. This is a Marine site and one can expect to be checked hard at the door

[Rocky C]

I checked into these guys a little, it appears they created sims for use with things such as the CA POST test.


Seems legit to a extent, I think some of their questions are pretty "civilian" and in our eyes raise eyebrows

I did the same thing HMMM..............

[temarti]

Checked them as well, looks like they are trying to get in with the Marine Corps and have already developed some items to propose to the Army.

[USMCsurvey]

Great to know the forum is active. Appreciate the responses and would be happy to address your concerns.

In regard to legitimacy: We'd be happy to provide additional information to establish our credibility, as we expected and understand your incredulity.

As mentioned above, you can checkout out website at http://www.worldwarfighter.com/

Here you can find information about the project we did for the Army Research Institute. To gather information for this study, we interviewed hundreds of Army service members, Officers and Enlisted, at military installations across the country including: Fort Benning, Fort Leavenworth, Fort Leonard Wood, and Fort Riley.

Also, you can check out Connect with Haji Kamal, a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure scenario we designed -- using awesome feedback from Army personnel -- that focuses on culture during a specific mission. Feel free to play through and see how you fare. You can find the activity here. http://www.worldwarfighter.com/hajikamal/activity/

There's audio, so turn your sound on. It reflects a graphic novel format that we've found effective with our audiences.


To answer a few of your more specific questions:

@gwamo1: Why ranks / checkpoints?

For this project, we were provided a language word list by CAOCL (USMC Center for Advanced Operational Culture Learning). This list includes the language that CAOCL feels Marines need to know to operate effectively. The list is based around activities / tasks, and it's where we pulled the tasks and activities from in our previous post (i.e., patrolling, conducting checkpoints). As we want to align ourselves with the Marines for this project, we felt the best path forward was to follow CAOCL's lead.

In essence, we're trying to establish what specific language (read words and phrases) would be helpful for what specific Marines in what tasks. The language training we've reviewed is often too general to be useful and lacks mission specificity.

As you can imagine, this is a daunting project. To drill down to this level, we need to have a better feel for what type of Marine we need to talk to in future interviews. Because you are a new audience for us, because we value direct feedback, and because the information we want at this point is general, we are targeting recently separated Marines. We feel you could help us understand who we need to talk to.


@Failuredrill: Might be a talibaner, OPSEC

Again, we'd be happy to provide whatever information you need to establish our legitimacy. In addition, we would encourage you to answer our questions only to the degree that you feel is appropriate. We're not interested in any classified / mission critical information (as Doug said originally) and in no way wish to jeopardize Operational Security. Quite the contrary, our goal is to help Marines operate more effectively by providing targeted language training. We hope to develop training where the time you spend pays off directly by providing the language you need.

If there's further information we can provide -- or if you or someone you know might be interested in learning more -- send an e-mail to usmcsurvey@worldwarfighter.com.

In addition, we'll be monitoring the forum to address questions and concerns.

Thanks,

Brian

[Isrowei]

Good response, Brian.

[echo3oscar1833]

I would never divulge this kind of information over an open internet forum, and I would have to hear the word given from a higher power to divulge such information. OPSEC!!

[Vandrel]

If there's further information we can provide -- or if you or someone you know might be interested in learning more -- send an e-mail to usmcsurvey@worldwarfighter.com.

In addition, we'll be monitoring the forum to address questions and concerns.

Thanks,

Brian

Brian,

A coworker of mine sent in a email earlier today and was immediately responded to with a automated email that appeared to be some sort of spam or untrusted email. It mentioned something about a user account and email address, etc. I'm unsure if this is intended but it sure steered us away from it.

For those on this forum who don't know, I worked around simulations and training. I see a lot of contractors and projects much like this but on a first hand basis and not over the internet like this. I can say to a degree that this sort of "interview process" is quite common amongst interactive designers and simulations. I happen to work with a program called Tactical Language which I'm sure most of you have heard of in some shape or form.

[Isrowei]

I was about to say this would definately have to be in person or at least across a phone line to be legitimate. The internet is certainly a valuable source to find contacts, but for anyone interested, it should progress to a more traditional interaction format for the paid work.

As for the automated e-mail... have to wait for Brian to respond. Not sure how they handle their business in that regard.