anybody here a current or former 35P cryptologic linguist

my son is interested in this field and I was looking to find out more about it. this is Army related as that is the branch he is looking at. one question that comes to mind is where you end(ed) up after DLI school completed? is it a state side deployment or do you end up nearer to the area of the world you are linguistically trained in?

thanks

Carl

 

Carl,

That is an intel MOS so you're unlikely to gain any information on it here. Try the forums at this website: http://usmilitary.about.com/ for questions about various Army MOS.

 

Probably not the response you had in mind, but I've been know to be a "cunning linguist" from time to time.

 

Hey, my brother is a crypto linguist. Albeit Air Force, but it seems that the Air Force and Army tend to work in similar locations (e.g. he is stationed at an Army base).

Location is dependent on which language your son is assigned. (deployments can be rare depending on the mission/language)

DLI is also dependent on the language assigned. The courses at DLI can vary from several months to a year and a half (haven't heard of many longer than that). Also the time spent at DLI is contingent upon the student passing the language course and being proficient in said language skills.

Being a crypto linguist can be very challenging/demanding/stressful. They work with a lot of other government agencies and work with very sensitive information, meaning they won't be able to talk about a lot of what they do. It's a very important mission and they spend long hours processing a massive amount of intel.

Sorry I am rambling, but hope this somewhat answers your question. Deployments are mostly stateside, but again, vary on language.

 

Thanks for the reply. I am proud of my boy, he is finishing boot camp in the next couple weeks. his life will be one adventure after another for the next few years. Part of me envy's him but it will be hard work. one good thing for him is he will be away from the WNY snow this winter in Ca.

thanks again.

Carl

 

I'm a former crypto in the Marine Corps. Currently using my trade in the civvi world. PM me, if you'd like some information.

 

I knew a few long ago. It's a very hard school, the completion rate is low in comparison to most schools. Hopefully he'll get a good language to learn that will serve him well. The right language and a business degree major with international trade as a minor would set him for life. I know one of my old buddies who is in Hong Kong for the last 10 years and making big bucks.

 

It's been many years since I was on active duty in the Army but most of my assignments in MI were overseas (Korea, Vietnam, Okinawa).

 

I'm a new member here, so I'm just seeing this thread, but that was my MOS (except it was called 98G back then, and included combat electronic warfare as well as crypto-linguist). Graduated DLI in 1983 - Russian.

I know this is probably too late to do any good, but first, yes, DLI is a very tough school - 40% dropout rate for the harder languages. When I was there if you ever fell below 75% on anything, you were 'recycled' - sent back to start over. Do it again, and you were out, 'reassigned according to the needs of the Army'. Consider that the expectation is that you walk in knowing nothing about a language and within 4-12 months (depending on the language) you are a functional linguist in it. so, yes, it's tough. Plus, now they treat DLI as initial training (sort of an extension of basic), so you are potentially under very strict restrictions on your personal freedom for up to 18 months (some languages extend to learn a dialect) and don't even have your MOS yet, since your actual MOS training comes later.

As far as where you go after that, the first stop is Goodfellow AFB in San Angelo, TX. That's crypto school. After that, depending on your scores, you'll probably deploy overseas. Where obviously depends on your language. Arabic, Farsi, Urdu, Dari, etc., likely mean someplace hot, dry, and sandy that either ends in '-stan' or '-aq'. The job has changed a lot since I was in (hence the splitting of the MOS into two separate ones), so I can't tell you exactly what or where he'd go, but it's a great job if you have to be in the army.

Edit: Oops, just noticed that this was 2015, not 2016, so definitely not going to be of help now. Hope he enjoyed Monterey, even with the el Nino (had a big one my year too).