When I transferred to a cyber unit of the Massachusetts Air National Guard in 2019, I’ll never forget the first words my new supervisor said to me: “Just don’t create any paperwork.”
I thought she was joking. She wasn’t. I waited for her to ask what brought me to the Bay State, how I was adjusting so far, or if I needed anything. She didn’t. The conversation was over.
I was new to the unit and didn’t know a soul. I kept thinking we would have a sit-down in the near future, preferably over coffee, so that we could discuss long-term planning and career goals. Swap stories on why we each enlisted and chose to cross-train into Comm (military speak for IT and all things cyber). Or at the minimum, she would formally introduce me to the rest of our roughly 30-member team, as just about any supervisor would. All of the things they drill into your head at Air Force leadership training.
None of it happened. Not even the coffee. My new sup preferred to communicate almost solely by email and text. When I emailed back and asked if we could meet one-on-one so that I could receive hands-on instruction to properly run a software application (of which she was widely considered an expert), she didn’t reply. Then Covid struck and I spent six months on active orders, including a stint in Washington, DC as part of the wave of National Guard members called in to defend the Capitol following the January 6 insurrection.
How often did my supervisor feel the need to check in on her troop, to ask how things were going during those unprecedented historic events? Never.
Having served in the Guard in two other states, I’ve experienced both the midwestern hospitality of Illinois and the melting pot of California. This was my first brush with the cold shoulder of the Northeast.
Reading the headlines on Jack Teixeira this past week and his leaking of classified documents, I can’t help but wonder: Was his supervisor similarly disengaged? Was anyone regularly checking up on him? Teixeira and I served at different units, and certainly my experience is not unique to any region of the country nor to any branch of the military. We all have a sucky supervisor story to share.
But if there’ is any career field that deserves an extra dose of the human touch when it comes to handling troops, it’s the tech field. While we may fear (with reason) shadowy foreign adversaries plotting against us, the greatest cyber threat is always the insider threat sitting at the cubicle next to you.
Day-to-day IT operations can be mundane, even in the military. But like a firehouse that’s quiet 95 percent of the time, when smoke starts billowing out of a tall building, the consequences can be deadly. Many people are surprised that a 21-year-old enlisted Airman would have access to classified documents. To which I reply, those same 21-year-olds throughout the military have access to shoot automatic rifles, operate high-velocity tanks, and pilot aircraft armed with nuclear missiles. A considerable portion of the military itself comprises 18-25 year olds.
As Teixeira’s fate plays out, there will be many, many briefings on cybersecurity dos and don’ts, aimed at those like me who work in military IT roles. There will be discussion on proper procedures and acceptable level of classified access. There will be debate on monitoring social media activity among servicemembers. To which I would add one more conversation header: Know your troops. Talk to them, check in on them, spend time with them. In many case studies of intelligence breaches, there were plenty of warning signs.
I lasted only two years in Massachusetts before transferring to a Guard unit close to my hometown of St Louis, around the same time that my biannual Enlisted Performance Review (EPR) came due. An EPR includes your job description, work projects, volunteer service, and a rating scale of your strengths and areas of improvement. Given that servicemembers often transfer units every few years and new troops are the norm, an EPR can shed light on just what kind of new troop you’re getting.
Except that my current unit never got my latest EPR, because that same former supervisor never bothered to provide one. After a year of getting our calls and emails ignored, we finally gave up and submitted a “gap report” to explain the breach in protocol, and wrote our own EPR from there.
What kind of troop was my new unit getting with me? Without an EPR, they had no way of knowing.
I’ll foot-stomp it one more time: Get to know your troops, and know them well. Very well.
Over my 15-year writing career, it’s likely that 95 percent of the articles I wrote have vanished from the Internet. Gone. Poof. Google turns up zilch.
Before enlisting I spent the better part of a decade in journalism. Newspaper reporter, radio producer, TV anchor. My dream job was foreign correspondent, but due to budget cuts, most major news outlets had already begun downsizing their overseas bureaus if not gutting them altogether. How else could I combine my love of storytelling with a burning desire to travel? Enter Public Affairs.
My first deployment with the Air National Guard has come quite by accident. For years I’ve wanted to deploy overseas, but in the end it was a cancellation more so than pestering my supervisors that sealed the deal (
Now that my departure date has finally arrived, it turns out that getting there is quite the adventure in itself. After nearly a week of holding in place at Norfolk Navel Station, eating meals in the galley amid bright blue uniforms boarding on and off ships the size of the Titanic (my favorite monument there is the Navy sea mermaid, pic to the left), I taxi’d to the AMC Passenger Terminal to board my rotator plane. Our first stop will be a 0130 flight to Ireland.. then to Kuwait.. and finally to United Arab Emirates (unspecified location). Nearly two straight days on planes, assuming no delays. If you’re accustomed to direct flights at convenient times, don’t ever join the military.
Brian Jarvis 
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