https://www.instagram.com/reel/Czo9qgTRLz6/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

My daughter sent me this reel from Insta this morning. I never had anybody accuse me of being CIA on my mission; it was inferred jokingly once or twice between companions.

Because of language training, there are more than a few that become linguists in the military. Oddly enough, I only met one other in my local ward in Pacific Grove, while attending the Defense Language Institute for Korean.

In my company in the 125th MI Bn, I only knew of one inactive Mormon, and I too fell into blissful inactivity for the majority of my assignment: stopped wearing garments, quit attending church, and enjoyed whatever off duty time I had with my young family.

Is there a greater number of Mormons who find themselves in the Intelligence community than others? I don’t know. One of my high school teaching colleagues had been assigned to the DIA before he retired from the military but we both taught in the middle of the Morridor by an Air Force base so it’s hardly surprising that we crossed paths.

Looking forward to any additional perspective. EOD? Lot’s Wife?

Cuz X

This is how I answered my daughter though: No, I don’t think so. TSCC just wants to inculcate its youth into thinking that they’re special, that it’s the one true church, and establish a pattern of pray, pay, and obey . The worst thing, IMO, is getting them to commit to an early marriage before their education is complete or their career is established.

Cludgie was a military language person, and I think there was another poster here with that background.

For all their blather about patriotism, it seems to me that Mormons are not particularly enthusiastic about military careers.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/25/2023 06:23PM by Brother Of Jerry.

The best thing about my mission in Argentina Buenos Aires South is that it instilled the desire to learn more languages and to engage with a wide variety of people. That turned out to be a key part of my career in education. If I could do my life over again, I would choose the same path except that I would learn another language through study abroad initially.

Also, I really admire those young people who had language aptitude and joined the military fresh out of high school. They made outstanding soldiers and, thanks to reconnecting through social media, many have made fine contributions in civilian life later on.

Cuz X

cuzx Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The best thing about my mission in Argentina
> Buenos Aires South is that it instilled the desire
> to learn more languages and to engage with a wide
> variety of people. That turned out to be a key
> part of my career in education. If I could do my
> life over again, I would choose the same path
> except that I would learn another language through
> study abroad initially.

^^That^^

Except for the Buenos Aires stuff.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
----------------------
>
> Except for the Buenos Aires stuff.
>

Vos has said a mouthful !!

My mission president called me “Pibito” or “kid” in at least one interview. He was a hugger too. That seemed odd the first time he did it but his personality grew on you. He was definitely one of the most caring, authentic leaders I ever met in TSSC, Juan Carlos Avila.

Cuz X

Oh my. Juan Carlos Avila. My DH was in the mission presidency (1964) as a counselor and worked with Avila. In 1984 we went back to Argentina for the first time and attended a stake conference where we met up with Juan Carlos. He'd had a stroke and couldn't speak much, He and my DH embraced and cried. He wanted us to visit him, but his wife took us aside and asked him not to--it would be too upsetting for him. I don't know if she was right. He was a loving man.

Good question. Mormons are probably a good fit for certain sensitive career paths in the government. But when I consider which of all my college friends would have been the most likely recruit for the CIA, I think of a friend who was a party animal. But he also had a second language, had lived abroad extensively, was used to dealing with sketchy situations while abroad, and his father was a government employee and a likely CIA officer.

He chose to make money instead. But if I were recruiting for the CIA, he would have been my first choice, and I wouldn't have used the words, "squeaky clean" to describe him.

Summer, more than a few soldiers were quite the party animals during their off duty time. Because of FB, many of us reconnected and they are truly some of my favorite people.

Back when we had exmormon conferences in SLC, I met several folks IRL from RfM. They too are excellent people. We definitely share a bond in having lived through TSCC or similar experiences for a time and escaped its influence at some point in adulthood.

I am an infrequent visitor these days but I’ve always admired your posts for sharing your life experience and insights.

Cuz X

Personally, my exposure to the ways and byways of military intelligence has been by the way of what I hoped were semi-biographical writings.

Some made me laugh, and some made me cry.

Remember "The Winds of War"?  At the end of the third installment, Brian finally finds his son...  I cried like a baby.

I will check out “The Winds of War.” Thank you for that. I often think of you when I’m passing through between Orange County and LA. I hope all is well with you. Thank you for sharing your Thanksgiving story on another post. Mine was pretty mellow as I only had dinner with one daughter and one grandson this year. They were the best company though.

Cuz X

The CIA wants people who speak obscure languages and understand obscure cultures.

Traditionally that was disproportionately Catholics from funky parts of Europe. I know a now-elderly gentleman, a Czech Catholic, who was retained after WWII to interview the hundreds of thousands of Germans and Slavs who were moving west as refugees. He could help the Allies decide who was likely an ex-Nazi or collaborator, who was a Soviet spy, etc. Mormons became unusually well-represented because RMs had extensive experience in strange places and were politically conservative. There was also a fair smattering of people with BoJ's background.

My guess is that the rise of China and the greater importance of the Islamic world has shifted the supply-demand balance to favor people with experience in places where Catholics and Mormons are less prominent. But the coin of the realm remains language, so I'm sure those groups are still highly valued.

My SIL wasn’t a missionary but he became an Arabic linguist, based in the needs of the Army, and served in Iraq from ‘06 to the beginning of ‘08. So much respect for him. He figured out TSCC was nonsense as a teenager and, once an adult, never went back. Lucky for my daughter, they met in ‘09 and got married, raising each other’s stepchildren outside of the Mormon church. They are very much a loving and wise success story.

Cuz X

That's a great story, Cuz X. I'm glad your daughter and SIL have done so well.

I remember when after 9/11 the agencies sharply increased their recruitment of Arabic and Farsi speakers. That demand probably would not abate while the wars were/are continuing.

I spent 43 years in communications Intel, and have been to DLI in Monterey 3 times for two languages (Chinese and German). Remember that both NSA and CIA would not give you the required security clearance (TOP SECRET / SCI) if you had ever smoked cannabis. So back in the day, both agencies recruited heavily from BYU. But that all changed somewhere in the 1990's, and you can now get the clearance so long as you don't smoke weed anymore, or in any other way have THC in your system, And so now they no longer recruit so many Mormons. Besides, Mormons also turned out to have other issues. There is no longer the huge presence of Mormons in the two agencies. One issue was that the RM's always claimed to speak the language, no matter how badly they did. CIA always wanted recruits who could pass for a local, and missionaries, sadly,just can't perform to that standard.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/26/2023 04:48PM by cludgie.

Wow, Cludgie, 43 years. That’s amazing. Thank you for your insight and your service.

Cuz X

How did you learn Italian Cludgie?

That WAS on my mission (The Italian Mission, 1969-71). In 1997, State Dept wanted someone with knowledge of Italian to fill a bullet at the US Embassy in Rome, and they offered it to me out of the blue. I owned up to being out of practice, so they sent me through Dante Institute refresher, and sent us to Rome. We had three cats in tow, too. I served there for 4years before moving on to Frankfurt.

You have been to so many interesting places :)

That sounds amazing! What was your favorite posting, and why?

I've known quite a few mormons that worked for the state department, valued for their linquinstic skills and their ethics.

They were never allowed to work in a country they had family in or served a mission in.

Myself, I tell the story of my first interview for my security clearance.

Are you a mormon?

Yes

So no drinking, drugs, extramarital sex, no problems with the law?

Nope.

Ok, we're done.

I walked out of the interview in less than 2 minutes. My supervisor Sergeant told me to go in and get interviewed, I told him I was done.

He went in the office and asked the guy if I was really done and the guy said yes I was.

My Sergeant had the most bewildered look on his face. Then gave me the rest of the day off.

Wow! I like that interview! For TS/SCI clearance in SIGINT (Signals Intelligence), we got quite the grilling, had a lie detector test, and an extensive background check.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/26/2023 04:12PM by cuzx.

To maintain a TS/SCI clearance you have to reapply and get re- interviewed ewsd every5 years, followed by a polygraph.

Just a plain jane secret, nothing fancy, was the early 80s.

It will always be Italy. Frankfurt is fine, but it ain't no Rome. And those great assignments came with bad assignments, like Peshawar, Pakistan, and Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo. I was temporarily assigned to 4 or.5 weeks at some interesting locations. The best was Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

When were you in Peshawar? That was quite nice in the early 1970s, no?

And Phnom Penn? I can't believe it was a good place to be stationed for most of the 1970s and early 1980s.

In fact, Peshawar WAS very nice for a long time
Humble people, great food, hospitality, and kindness have always been the hallmarks of the region. But then came 9/12, and the Americans' scattershot reactions, and Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province and the Tribal Territories became the havens for terrorists just over the border in Afghanistan. Over a couple of years, the State Dept and other US government organizations pulled out the dependents. The DoDDs school (or possibly a private school -- I don't know -- closed down, and the US Consulate became a "remote assignment", meaning that an assigned was obligated for just one year with no dependents. I still pronounce Peshawar a keenly interesting city, and the entire region has the potential to be a skier's delight much like Switzerland or Austria. Sadly, the region will likely never support such infrastructure.

I can only vouch for my time in Cambodia.. By that time, even the Killing Fields became a tourist site -- a rather depressing one, but all tourists are encouraged to visit the site. Most everything was put back together, and it's a city full of wondrous and ancient Buddhist temples, and such. I did get a day (only one day, unfortunately) to visit Angkor Wat, and that's a world heritage site, and is so for good reason.*

*The local Mormon mission president invited me to a dinner at his house. He talked about Angkor Wat being "proof" of the BoM, because the temples, "just like the Mayan temples" -- were all built at the same time as the Egyptian pyramids, and that's why they look the same." Although I was an active member at that time, I could not take this weird presumption of knowledge while just sitting down at the table. I corrected him saying that the temples at Angkor Wat were only some 1,500 years old, built thousands of years after the Egyptian pyramids. After choking on his food, the MP said,"Have you seen all the vines and jungle reclaiming the old city? It's very ancient!" I had to disappoint him by saying that the temples were being reclaimed by the jungle, because jungles do that. Had they been built in northern Africa like the pyramids, they would likely still be in service, because they likely wouldn't be in such a ruined state. He retorted by admitting I could be right about Angkor Wat, but the Mayan temples were built "by many of the same people who built the Egyptian pyramids!" I just went back to eating, because the previous discussion had taken too much energy. Let the baby have his bottle, I said to myself. Sure I wonder where the church finds such otherwise normal seeming retired men to lead a couple hundred ignorant lads and lasses we get on church missions.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/09/2023 02:42PM by cludgie.

>> Let the baby have his bottle, I said to myself.

I'll have to remember that phrase.

Yeah, I imagine that Italy was great. You've had an interesting life, Cludgie.

Were Mormons really that good at following directions or being brown nosers?

From my mission experience, so many elders would suck up to the president then make all kinds of inappropriate gestures once the president left the the room (boner jokes).

Another member who I worked with couldn't handle sitting at a table where coffee was imbibed.

As a longtime member who has always been surrounded by non-members, I was used to adjusting to the ways of the world. However, not all members are flexible and feel comfortable around others who live differently.

I just have a hard time thinking that the CIA would want to send agents into a South American cafe and have a bunch of hard core TBM's making a ruckus over the smell of coffee or being served a beer. My point is that Mormons have hang ups and they have been conditioned that NOBODY will infringe on their religious rights.

We used to have an FBI man in our ward. I knew less about him when he left the ward than when he arrived. I asked him whether he had encountered Frank Abagnale Jr as a joke, and he immediately went into defensive mode and clammed up!