News From The Front! - 1

[Editor's Note: These Reports are written by Thin Mints, so a severe thanks to him for being able and willing to keep everyone informed of the ongoings of MFT 3. Any major editing or alteration will be in brackets for reference]

Skill Level 10

35M (Human Intelligence Collector), as with any other Military Occupational Speciality in the US Army, has skill levels to indicate the knowledge of that job that a person has achieved in their career. Skill levels correspond with certain ranks.

• Private thru Specialist: Skill Level 10

• Sergeant: Skill Level 20

• Staff Sergeant: Skill Level 30

• Sergeant First Class: Skill Level 40

• First Sergeant: Skill Level 50

Looking at this scale, one would assume that the higher the rank of an individual, the more skills they possess over their subordinates. Apparently, that does not apply to Military Intelligence. Traitor and The Scream have their Iraqi counterparts. These counterparts will be trained up and reports will be collected from them, in turn Traitor and The Scream will give them money for each report they write. When the Iraqi counterpart gives them the reports, Traitor and The Scream are to write up the reports as a seperate report known as a DIIR (Draft Intelligence Information Report). This is the basic of the basics when it comes to report writing for the 35M MOS. This would be equivalent to a mechanic knowing how to operate a wrench or a carpenter a hammer.

In the 35M field, there is an array of teams I can be placed on as a skill level 10. The very basic being an HCT (HUMINT Collection Team) and the next team would be an OMT (Operational Management Team). HCT's are normally led by a Sergeant or Staff Sergeant, being a Skill Level 20 or 30 position they possess knowledge about the job that I, a skill level 10 would not have come into contact or experienced in my short lived Army career. For that reason they're in charge of the HCT's.

July 24, 2009. Traitor and Scream receive 7 reports that are to be written in a DIIR format and submitted up to the OMT for review. Simple... Wrong. Traitor ends up handing off all reports to The Scream, Sausage Fingers, and myself, Thin Mints; which in turn ends up as me having to write the reports and The Scream being taught how to write a basic DIIR by Sausage Fingers. Traitor eventually wrote 2 reports that needed an extensive review to fix all the errors. [And who fixed these 2 reports? That's right. Thin Mints.] Wait, a skill level 10 fixing reports written by a skill level 20 and 30? That is the US Army's Military Intelligence at its finest hour. I would not have it any other way, but apparently it's not enough that I have skill sets that my superiors do not yet possess in their career, which doubles that of mine. No, the US Army's MI demands, mind you, that even with these attributes I still haven't shown I possess the knowledge or skills to go to the board to be promoted. Army Strong!