Military Intelligence Professional Bulletin - Federation of American ...

Challenges in Recruiting
Military Intelligence
Warrant
Officers
by Chief Warrant Offi cer Three Stephen Beckham
The program to apply for and become a U.S.
Army Army Warrant Offi cer is considered to be quite
challenging, not to mention the day-today
duties of being a technical expert
in any Military Intelligence (MI) fi eld.
You You will know that the lives of men
and women of our Armed SerServices could be in the balance
waiting on your reply when giving
that important piece of intelligence
to the commander.
Knowing the challenges, what
could motivate the MI noncommissioned
offi cer (NCO) to become a U.S. Army MI
Warrant Offi cer?
There are usually just over 11,600 active duty warrant
offi cers. That number nearly doubles when counting the
warrant offi cers in the Army Reserve and National Guard.
This number, constituting about 2 percent of the total Army
strength, is spread over fi fteen branches. The MI Warrant
Offi cer Corps is the third largest branch with about six to
seven percent of the total Warrant Offi cer Corps.
It is no secret that MI soldiers are well known for wanting
the “why” answered before making decisions. After
all, it is one of the fi ve “Ws” that we develop our intelligence
around. My purpose in this article is to try to give
the MI enlisted soldier the reasons “why” I became a warrant
offi cer. Before I go into my reasons, I want to offer
some background into the largely unknown efforts to fi ll
the ranks of the smallest corps in the Army.
Recruiting
In the past, re-
cruitment of future
warrant offi cers was
accomplished by warrant
offi cers through wordof-mouth.
Today, the U. S.
Army Recruiting Command
(USAREC) sponsors a six-person
team of three warrant offi cers
and three senior NCOs at Fort Knox,
Kentucky. Their fulltime mission is to actively
recruit between 1,300 to 1,400 soldiers
for fourteen of the branches through email, telephone,
and recruiting trips worldwide in order to maintain
the entire Warrant Offi cer Corps. I currently represent the
MI Corps at USAREC. Through maintaining MI representation
at the Headquarters USAREC, it ensures that the
MI mission for warrant offi cer accessions has an agent on
the inside.
The Application Process
The application process itself is quite easy although
sometimes it can be very time consuming, especially for
those soldiers who are deployed or have elements of their
unit deployed. The most diffi cult part of the process could
be getting the physical examination and letters of recommendation,
especially once deployed. Most MI missions
require some separation of the command and its support
elements and there are very few facilities available to obtain
a complete physical examination in the CENTCOM
region. So if you are thinking about applying and your unit
is due to rotate, you should start work on both of these
items.
July - September 2005 23