#089 Decoding the Navy Cryptologic and Cyber Communities: Your Guide to the Information Warfare Community

Are you considering a career in the Navy's Information Warfare Community? As a former cryptologic officer, I'm here to provide an insider's perspective on this rapidly evolving field.

In this episode, I break down the various designators within the Information Warfare Community, with a special focus on opportunities for those interested in cyber operations. From meteorology to intelligence, and from cryptologic warfare to the newly established Maritime Cyber Warfare Officer (MCWO) role, we explore the diverse paths available.

Key Insights:

• Understanding the differences between cryptologic warfare, MCWO, and cyber warfare engineer (CWE) roles
• The recent shift of Information Warfare from restricted line to direct line community
• Deployment expectations and career progression for each designator
• Understanding the Cyber Mission Force and its components that MCWOs will be a part of

What You'll Learn:

• How the Navy is adapting to meet the growing demand for cyber specialists
• The pros and cons of each Information Warfare designator
• What to expect in terms of education, training, and daily responsibilities
• How recent changes might affect commissioning opportunities at the Naval Academy

Whether you're a midshipman weighing your service assignment options or a high school student with an interest in military cyber operations, this episode provides valuable insights to help guide your decision-making process.

Remember, if you're looking for fleet experience and deployments, cryptologic warfare might be your best bet. But if you're set on focusing solely on cyber operations, the MCWO path could be your ideal route.

Have questions about the Information Warfare Community? Reach out, and I'll connect you with current officers who can provide even more detailed information about their experiences.

For any real estate questions, please text me at 650-282-1964

To stay most up to date with Grant, Naval Academy updates, and real estate insights, follow him on LinkedIn

The mission of Academy Insider is to guide, serve, and support Midshipmen, future Midshipmen, and their families.

This podcast is independently produced and reflects the views and opinions of its creators. It is not officially affiliated with, endorsed by, or representative of the United States Naval Academy or its affiliates.

Grant Vermeer your host is the person who started it all.  He is the founder of Academy Insider and the host of The Academy Insider podcast. He was a recruited athlete which brought him to Annapolis where he was a four year member of the varsity basketball team. He was a cyber operations major and commissioned into the Cryptologic Warfare Community. He was stationed at Fort Meade and supported the Subsurface Direct Support mission.

He separated from the Navy in 2023 and now owns The Vermeer Group, a residential real estate company that matches service academy families with trusted real estate teams all across the country.  Text (650) 282-1964 with any real estate questions.

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Exploring Information Warfare Community

Grant Vermeer 0:00

Welcome to Season 2 of the Academy Insider Podcast . Academy Insider is a 501c3 nonprofit organization that serves midshipmen , future midshipmen and their families . At its core , this podcast is designed to bring together a community of Naval Academy graduates and those affiliated with the United States Naval Academy in order to tell stories and provide a little bit of insight into what life at the Naval Academy is really like . I hope you enjoy it . Thank you so much for listening and reach out if you ever have any questions . Everyone , and welcome back to the Academy Insider Podcast . Today's episode is just going to be me no interview . Just got to listen to me ramble for a good amount of time , but we're going to be talking about the information warfare community . Again , this is a topic that's personal to me . I wanted the opportunity to kind of share my story , talk about my time as a cryptologic warfare officer and what I did , and then again talk about all things military cyber , because I think this is a really big topic where a lot of prospective students , a lot of midshipmen , they want to do cyber , but there's so many communities in the Navy that like may kind of do it , or a little bit or not really . So we're going to provide a lot of clarity into that . And what's good is the Navy is really trending in the right direction . I saw a recent article with a quote from Admiral Clapperton at Navi4 . It's the greatest thing I ever saw . It said Miklos are going to do cyber , and then after that they're going to do cyber , and then after that they're going to do more cyber . And so you know , once upon a time , when I was a cryptologic officer , the cryptologic community did SIGINT , cyber and EW , and you kind of do maybe only one tour of each and never really become a master of any of them . And so I'm excited to talk about some of the shifts in the information warfare community , talk about the different communities where you'd be stationed , what the jobs would be , how life would actually be , so you can get a sense of which of the designators within the information warfare community you may be interested in . So take a listen , let me know what you think and if you have any questions , as always , please reach out . Otherwise , thank you so much and I hope you have a good day . The Academy Insider Podcast is sponsored by the Vermeer Group , a residential real estate company that serves the United States Naval Academy community and other select clientele in both California and Texas . If I can ever answer a real estate related question for you or connect you with a trusted Academy affiliated agent in the market which you're in , please reach out to me directly at grant at the premier groupcom . You can also reach out to me on my LinkedIn page , grant from here , and I'd be happy to respond to you there . Thank you so much .

Grant Vermeer 2:21

And now let's get back to the episode of the cryptologic warfare community . And I was a direct accession out of the Naval Academy , so I was one of four in my class to commission into the cryptologic warfare community . I was a cyber major at the Naval Academy and it was my dream to be a cryptologic officer because in my opinion at that point in time it was my best chance to do like quote unquote cyber , to be a cybersecurity officer , to do cyber operations , military cyber , and so I was really excited about that . When I got selected to be a cryptologic officer , like I was juiced . You know what I mean . I was like I was pumped . And what's even crazier is now , in retrospect , I know I originally did not get one of the four spots originally . Originally there were four other individuals who had been selected to be a cryptologic officer and then , unfortunately , when the time came where the quota to meet submarine officers had not been completely filled , you know , the submarine community asked the information warfare community to provide one cryptologic billet to the submarine community . So one of those poor souls got shifted over to be a full-time submariner , which opened up one spot , which is then what I filled . So shout out to the powers that be to have given me that opportunity . But I'm super excited again about this opportunity to talk a little bit about these communities .

Grant Vermeer 3:51

And so when I became a cryptologic officer , I was stationed at Fort Meade , so not very far . I went from Annapolis , maryland , up to Fort Meade , maryland , and I was put into a role that's called a submarine direct support officer . So , even though I was not one of those people who had to go and be a submarine officer and go through nuclear power school , I was still in a role that was providing information warfare support to submarines . And so , again , what I originally thought was that I was going to be going to the NSA , I was going to work a cybersecurity job , I was going to work a desk job , I was going to kind of work again , less of like military-esque , less of Navy-esque and more cyber , more cybersecurity . But I think the funny reality was that I was actually out deploying probably more than anyone in my class in the first three years after commissioning , like I literally had done four submarine deployments before I put on 03 . So within four years of the Navy I'd done four submarine deployments , which was pretty wild . It was just pretty wild . And so again my mom would always be like oh yeah , no , my son does cybersecurity on submarines and like that's not technically correct , but it was easiest for her to understand . So we just kind of went with it and so that's again .

Grant Vermeer 5:01

That's really going to be the premise of today's podcast is I really want to provide a little bit of information about the information warfare community and then , with a heavy focus for all the midshipmen out there that are listening or for any prospective high school student that really wants to do cyber , we're going to have a conversation here about what that really means , how you would do that in the Navy , how things are changing and just learn a little bit about the information warfare community at large . And again , things have changed a little bit since I've been in , so again , it's been really lucky on my end to have some great friends and mentors who have kept me in the loop with everything that's going on . So I will have some insight , and probably the best thing is that I'm no longer in the Navy . So again , all this , again what I will be saying , some of it will be , you know , official things that the Navy has done and published and other things are just going to be a little bit of my opinion , a little bit of my perspective and then a little bit of like rumor , and so I get to , you know , have some of the conversations about the way things are trending , and so you know , I'll be sure to kind of again articulate what things are certain , what things are my opinion and what things are just pure speculation , and so as we go through that , I'm really excited about it . But let's talk about information warfare at large . All right . So when you see these things again for all the parents who may be listening , when you see those pictures of all the midshipmen during service assignment day and they're wearing their information warfare t-shirt , that can include anything in what we call the information domain . So again , there's going to be a wide swath .

Grant Vermeer 6:30

If you are an Information Warfare officer , that doesn't mean you're necessarily a cryptologic officer . If you're an Information Warfare officer , you can be a METOC officer , which is like our weather people , metoc , meteorology , oceanography . So you have METOC , you have the information professional community , ip . You have the intelligence community , you have the cryptologic warfare community and now , as of recently , you also have the cyber warfare engineer community and you have the maritime cyber warfare officer or the MICWO community . So , again , to put this in perspective , the term information warfare officer or the MCWO community .

Grant Vermeer 7:04

So , again , to put this in perspective , the term information warfare officer is going to encompass , it's going to be the umbrella term for all of these designators that do slightly different specialties within the information domain . Right , and so , when we talk about this in Navy terms , when you have that information warfare officer overarching underneath in these different things are what we call their designators , which is really your job code or your specialty when we're talking about officers in the Navy , right and so , although a METOC officer , an information professional , an intelligence officer , a cryptologic officer , a cyber warfare engineer and a maritime cyber warfare officer , all are going to fall under the umbrella of information warfare , they're still different jobs . Right , they're very different jobs , but at the same time , we're all going to wear the same warfare designation pin , right . And so an analogy I like to use , right is you may call everyone a Navy pilot , right , all the pilots are pilots and they're all going to wear the exact same wings of gold , right ? They're going to wear the same designator , no matter if they fly helicopters , no matter if they fly jets , no matter if they fly P-3s , no matter if they fly anything else . They're all going to wear the same gold wings and they're all going to be Navy pilots , just like we're all going to be Navy information warfare officers . We're all going to wear the pins , but we do very different jobs , and so that's going to be this idea here on the information warfare side .

Evolution of Naval Information Warfare

Grant Vermeer 8:31

So , again , to put a little things in perspective , when we talk about METOC again , meteorology I'm not going to lie . I never interacted much with METOC officers . I know they do really important work , and it's not just again , you're going to hear the joke just transparently . You're gonna hear the joke like they're the weather guys , like they're all about weather and climate , but it's so much more than that . They do a lot of research , development , testing , data analysis and stuff that really does affect naval operations , right , and so from weather patterns to flight plans , to actual routes that a strike group would take would be based on weather patterns , etc . There's so much going on . And then they're also involved in again so much when it comes to weather , topography , ocean floor , etc . They're a very important niche aspect of the naval mission , but you'll often hear again joke that they're just kind of the weather people niche aspect of the naval mission . But you'll often hear again joke that they're just kind of the weather people .

Grant Vermeer 9:26

Now , your IPs , the information professional , can put this in kind of layman's terms this is your IT department . These are the folks that deal with our communication systems . They're our sysadmins , right , they do do some security and they do some cyber defense and whatnot , but they're really your IT department . There again , they're making sure our communications are working , that everything is flowing well . They're the sysadmins providing access and control of our systems , right , and so that's great .

Grant Vermeer 9:54

The intelligence officers . The intelligence officers are again , this is going to be the running joke . I was a part of this community , so each community kind of has their little quips towards other people . The running joke is that they're PowerPoint builders . If you're an intelligence officer , you're going to build PowerPoints and you're going to brief PowerPoints . That's just the way it is . But really , what they're doing and I think again , this is a really important mission is they're the ones taking information just data , just pieces of information and turning it into actual intelligence . Just pieces of information and turning it into actual intelligence right . And so , if you think about it , there can be a lot of just pieces of information , but based on patterns , based on context , based on cultural aspects , whatever the case is . They'll take that information and they'll fuse it and blend it with everything they have to turn it into real intelligence and make intelligence reports , and so this is a really cool job .

Grant Vermeer 10:43

Intelligence officers are integrated with every aspect of naval warfare . There's intelligence officers at aviation squadrons , on major staffs , with SEAL teams , with whatever the case is right , like intelligence officers go everywhere and they do a lot of just . Hey , I'm at the Office of Naval Intelligence , oni , out in like the Maryland DC , virginia area , and so , again , a really cool combination . I think being an intelligence officer honestly is really awesome , and so that's a big piece of it . Now , those three things . In my opinion , they have nothing really to do with cyber , maybe a little bit of the IP officers , but not much to do with cyber . So , again , the focus of the remaining pieces of this episode is all about , if you want it to do cyber , like these next designators are kind of a part of it , and so the first one is cryptologic warfare . So , again , I was a cryptologic warfare officer .

Grant Vermeer 11:35

Now , at the time that I service selected cryptologic warfare , all of the cryptologists were known . There were three main like tenants of what cryptologic officers did . They did SIGINT , which stands for signals , intelligence . They did EW , which stands for electronic warfare , and then they did cyber . And so , as a cryptologic officer , again , you could do SIGINT missions , you could do electronic warfare missions , you could do cyber missions , and we would always joke we're the garbage men , right ? When we talk about intelligence officers taking information and turning it into intelligence . Where do the intelligence officers get their information from ? Well , from a lot of cryptologic officers , right , we're the garbage men , we're the collectors . You go out and collect data and information and then you bring it back for people to process and turn into reports , right ? And as a result , in order to actually do that , cryptologic officers are very fleet associated and very fleet adjacent .

Grant Vermeer 12:29

I didn't fully realize this and again , there was this stigma . Cryptologic warfare officers , you're a restricted line officer , right ? Restricted line means not deploying , not even sort of the case , like if we can get anything out of this episode at the end of this . What I want you to take away with all these things is that being a restricted line officer does not mean you're not deploying no-transcript support to the ships , to the submarines , to the whatever you're that complete support unit , and so that was kind of how cryptologic warfare operators and information warfare at large have been treated up until very recently . This actually did change just in the past couple of months , and so this is a brand new kind of development is actually that information warfare officers , as of very recently , are no longer restricted line officers . They are direct line officers . Now I'll kind of throw some speculation later in the episode . I don't know how this is going to affect commissioning at the United States Naval Academy now that they're no longer restricted line officers , but it is an interesting thing .

Grant Vermeer 13:52

We talked about information warfare again when I was commissioning . Those were your options MeTalk , ip , intel , cryptologic Warfare Again at that point in time , cw Cryptologic Warfare . They did this again . They did the EW , but they did cyber right , like that was your cyber chance , that was your cyber opportunity . And so , again , when I selected Cryptologic Warfare , I was juiced , I was excited about it , but then that was also kind of the frustration with my story is that , even though my degree was in cyber and I wanted to do cyber , when I went into the Cryptologic community I was put into tactical electronic warfare officer roles for the entire time in the Navy , and so , because of that fact , that was difficult tactical electronic warfare officer roles for the entire time in the Navy , right , and so , because of that fact , that was difficult , but our community loved it from the Navy's perspective . Again , I'm speaking back in 2017 . We'll talk about the development here . Our community loved that .

Grant Vermeer 14:57

The cryptologic community valued and promoted people who had a wide breadth of experience . Right , you would do one tour as a SIGINT , like in a SIGINT role doing signals , intelligence stuff at the NSA and things like you just had cool roles doing that . You would do one tour doing electronic warfare supporting the fleet . Right , you do electronic warfare support to submarines , to ships , to aircraft , to SEAL teams . We have these things called TACIWs Tactical Electronic Warfare Operators . Like you would go out and do a job supporting the fleet , the Navy in the electronic warfare realm , and then you would do one tour doing a cyber job , and so you would do all these things , and then what we kind of discovered towards the end is we had a bunch of officers who , honestly , just weren't great at cyber , and it's at no fault of their own , they just had no experience , right , like again , we were a jack of all trades but master of none , and so that was kind of the the reality of being a cryptologic officer . But this is where stuff like starts to get good .

Grant Vermeer 15:58

Now and this is part of the discussion is that in fiscal year 23 , literally in June of 2023 , the Navy was kind of told by Congress Again , who knows if it was an order or an ask , whatever the case is but they were basically hey , navy , you need to create a cyber officer and a cyber technician enlisted rate , right , like you just need to do it , because we're not at the same level of our counterparts and other services , right , army cyber officers , marine Corps cyber officers like they had a cyber officer where what they did was cyber and so . But the Navy didn't right , it was the cryptologic community , and the cryptologic community did a lot of things and so . So in June of 2023 , this designator again we use the term designator the designator of a MICWO , the Maritime Cryptologic Warfare Officer , excuse me , the Maritime Cyber Warfare Officer . So there you go . I'm messing up acronyms .

Grant Vermeer 16:48

Already MICWO , the Maritime Cyber Warfare Officer , was created , and it started with about a group of 20 or so original officers who lateral transferred into the MCWO community and so at that same time as well , the cyber warfare technician , cwt , which is an enlisted rate , was also stood up , and so kind of at that point , again , starting in June 2023 , the Navy literally was like , hey , we are going to have a cyber officer and that's what the plan is right . Like we wanted to make sure that we have cyber specialists and that we have SICN and EW specialists who that's what their job is they go and support the fleet and so that's kind of where it started . And since then , yes , there are now direct accessions , like the Maritime Cyber Warfare Officer Community , the MCWO community takes direct accessions , like you can , commission , rotc , ocs and even the Naval Academy I believe there were two in this class of 2024 that went directly into the MCWO community . So this thing is starting to happen , where you can go and actually be a cyber officer . And so , again , to be very clear , that's exactly what this plan is . We're going to split up the Cryptologic community and we're going to make again the Cryptologic community now will be SIGINT and EW specialists . Like that's what you're going to do . You're going to do a very Navy job . You're going to support ships , you're going to support submarines , you're going to support aircraft , you're going to support Navy SEALs . You're going to do all this and you're going to specialize and focus at SIGGN and EW . And then you're going to make Mikwos , your cyber specialists , right .

Grant Vermeer 19:55

And so there was actually a recent article I just posted on my LinkedIn just the other week , which I thought was awesome and it , like it brought me , it like made me kind of emotional because , again , like all I wanted to do was cyber and I didn't do any cyber as a cryptologic officer . And so Admiral Clapperton at Navi4 , he literally came out in the article and he said and this is a quote maritime cyber warfare officers are going to do cyber , and then they're going to do cyber , and then , right after that , they're going to do cyber . And so we're going to develop and build cyber specialists in the community , which is going to be just so darn cool . So , again , as we're explaining and breaking this out now again , I just wanted to give some background context into that . But now , as we're breaking out all the designators underneath the information warfare community , you have MeTalk , ip , intel , cryptologic Warfare , second EW , and now you have the Mikwos , and the Mikwo is a full like stood up community . This is a real thing .

Grant Vermeer 20:51

Now the final community that was kind of separate from this but has been recently developing , the final flavor of information warfare community officer you have now are what we call cyber warfare engineers , and your cyber warfare engineers are the most heavily technical role that you could possibly have as an officer in the United States Navy , especially when it comes into the information warfare community . Okay , because as we jump more into the , you know the in-depth of like what MICOs actually do . I know I keep saying cyber , cyber , cyber . They do cyber , blah , blah , blah , like Grant . What the heck does that mean ? We're going to talk about it .

Grant Vermeer 21:24

Micos , at the end of the day , are really just team leaders and project managers , right Of cyber teams . They're going to be mission commanders of cyber

Roles in Naval Information Warfare

Grant Vermeer 21:31

teams , but you're still going to be doing more administrative work , more planning work , more briefing work . Just again , you're going to be in that project manager role . They're not going to be an engineer in most cases . However , for cyber warfare engineers , this is where you really have the ability to truly be a developer and an engineer . All right . If you want to like build cyberspace capability development , like actually be a dev , like doing dev , software , like software dev or even some computer engineering , like building firmware , whatever the case is , if you want to apply the principles and techniques of computer science and computer engineering , the heavily technical aspects of software and hardware cyber warfare engineer , that's what you need to do , right . And so , again , as we take a look at all these things , as a cryptologic officer , it's going to be very Navy and very EW . Sigint Mikwo is going to be very project manager based , but it's going to be cyber . But your cyber warfare engineers are going to be your real engineers , your real developers , and so that's going to be your most technical role , all right . So I hope that kind of like lays a breakdown and helps us put it into perspective .

Grant Vermeer 22:41

I want to use these terms over and over and over again so you hear them and can get used to them and understand what I'm talking about in the information warfare community , with all of these separate designators . Now , with that being said , what the heck does that mean in terms of life , in terms of service assignment , in terms of trying to figure out what community you actually want to be a part of ? And so we're going to jump into what it means , like if you were to go and again this is specific Again , the follow-on conversation here is going to be about cryptologic officers . Like if you were to go and again this is specific , again , the follow-on conversation here is going to be about cryptologic officers , about Mikwos and about cyber warfare engineers . We're going to talk about cryptologic warfare first , right . Again , if you want to do cyber , this is going to doubling down here If you want to do cyber , do not become a cryptologic warfare officer . You're not going to do it .

Grant Vermeer 23:23

And with this shift right , this shift in kind of what we're talking about , it's clear that cryptologic officers are going to be very tactical , very deployable and SIGINT and EW focused officers that are supporting naval platforms right , and so that's big . For schooling what this means for you , you're going to go through some basic schooling in Pensacola . We have the cryptologic warfare officer basic course in Pensacola . Then you go to the information warfare basic course in Virginia Beach . It's very basic RF theory and technology , radio frequency , right . And so , again , to put this in perspective , when we talk about computer science , computer engineering , on the cyber warfare engineer side , being a cryptologic officer , to compare this to like majors and what would be the most comparable , major is going to be electrical engineering more than anything . And then , if you're paying attention in your weapons class as a firstie , right Like weapons systems and radars , a lot of radar theory and RF theory are going to be the most practical and direct application into what you're doing as a cryptologic officer . Okay Now , from that perspective , when you become a cryptologic officer , though , you're still going to go and be a part of the intelligence community at large , right Like , even though this is the case , you're still going to go and be a part of the intelligence community at large , right , like , even though this is the case , you're still going to go and likely be stationed on your first tour , right Like , after you finish your schooling your first PCS location is going to be the one of the big four .

Grant Vermeer 24:38

It's going to be to Maryland , hawaii , georgia and Texas . We use this term big four to reference the four main NSA sites , the National Security Agency , right , they have four main sites and that's going to be Maryland , at Fort Meade you may hear the term Fort Meade to reference the Maryland location of the National Security Agency , nsa . You have Hawaii , out on Oahu , there's like an NSA Pacific out there , and so again , as a cryptologic officer you'd be going to Maryland , fort Meade , maryland , you'd be going to Oahu , hawaii , fort Gordon , georgia , down in Georgia , you have the NSA down there , a detachment out there , and then in Texas and San Antonio . So again , it kind of goes in that order , right , like you're going to go to Maryland first-ish , or Hawaii Hawaii and Maryland are the two biggest locations and then Georgia it's kind of like a secondary tier of size and just the amount of billets and jobs that are available there , and then Texas , kind of fourth . But again , likely if you're going to the Cryptologic community , you're likely going to be stationed in Maryland , hawaii , georgia , texas first , but then from there you're going to see . You're going to see Again , if you go to the big four first , and when you go to the big four you're going to be qualifying , you're going to be standing watch on what we call the FIAC , the Fleet Information Operations Center just doing kind of some watch standing . You may go to an NSA you know billet and work with civilians and work in a joint environment and do some SIGINT and targeting stuff and like different cool NSA stuff right , and that'll be very cool . But the moment you're done with that like you're going to sea and so you know some sea billets , like what you would do as a cryptologic officer out at sea are .

Grant Vermeer 26:16

There's two things . You can go . We call PCS afloat , so the majority of cryptologic officers are going to go and actually be PCS permanently assigned to a ship . As you'll hear one of three terms . It should be standard across the fleet . People are constantly interchanging the terms the IWO , which stands for the Information Warfare Officer , the SIGWO , which is the Signals Warfare Officer , I'm assuming , or the TAIWO , the Tactical Information Warfare Officer . So IWO , sigwo , taiwo all basically mean the same thing . It means you're a cryptologic officer who's permanent like ship's crew on that ship and you are in charge of the , the ew and and sigint side of what the ship is doing , and so that's one thing .

Grant Vermeer 26:54

Another option is to do what I did , which is we call direct support , so you can do direct support for submarines and air platforms as a direct support officer . Basically you are pcs , like you are permanently assigned to one of the big four that we talked about earlier , and then you'll go and instead of being assigned to a singular ship , like in my case , you would go and deploy in support of multiple different units , right , and so I would take my team and instead of doing the training and workups and maintenance and all the different aspects of being on the ship permanently , we would only support , like operations and deployment , and so , like I would go and I would go on , you know , submarine X and then come home for a couple of weeks , debrief the mission , get prepared for the next one and go to submarine Y and then come home and rinse and repeat and go to submarine Z and so in direct support . It's a little bit different from that perspective , but you're still doing a ton of Navy operations , which is really cool . And then we have a ton of billets within Navy special warfare , including dev crew , which is like the super fancy again I'm talking about , like SEAL , team 6 , blah , blah , blah , all the cool stuff . Like there are a lot of cool billets within Navy Special Warfare and DevGrew really cool opportunities across the board , but you're gonna deploy , you're gonna spend a ton of time away from home and you're gonna do a full Navy experience .

Grant Vermeer 28:04

Now , with that comes you have clear pathway for promotion and command opportunities . The cryptologic community has set pathways . There are milestone billets , there's a clear , defined path for how to promote , to how to progress , to how to make your way up . And now , with the shift to cryptologic officers in the information warfare community , being a direct line community and not restricted line , you are eventually striving to become the information warfare commander for a carrier strike group , the IWC , and so that is being like that is quite literally a command opportunity at sea . You are in charge of all of the information warfare forces at sea as a part of a carrier strike group , right , and so that is the pinnacle of what you're striving for as a cryptologic officer , right , and so , again , that kind of wraps up being a CW . Again , I think being a CW was the coolest experience I ever had . Again , I wanted to do cyber , but I was really happy . I got this experience in the SIGINT and EW world , which was really cool . So , again , that's kind of the overall on the CW side .

Grant Vermeer 29:10

Again , my advice to anyone who's interested in becoming a cryptologic officer . Pay attention to your electrical engineering class , pay attention in EE and then pay attention in your first year weapons class . If you want to go CW because , again , radar theory and RF theory it's going to be your best friend All right . Now , on the complete flip side , if you want to go , if you want to be a maritime cyber warfare officer , a MCWO , and you want to deploy like you're wanting deployability , you're wanting the Navy experience you're probably going to find some disappointment , just genuinely right .

Grant Vermeer 29:45

Not a ton of infrastructure to support this . Yet . The closest fleet-aligned billets are like at NCDOC , the Navy Cyber Defense Operations Command , ncdoc , down in Norfolk and they'll do some opportunities to go to sea . You can support , like some pen testing on ships , penetration testing it's a cyber term and you can do that in the fleet . There's a growing presence within Naval Special Warfare as well . It's starting to shift slightly . But the majority of people , if you're going to be a MIQO , you should expect to not deploy all that often and some may see that as a positive , some may see that as a negative .

Grant Vermeer 30:16

Right , it's just important to understand , however you would want your experience to be , that that's going to be the case , right and so , again , mikwo , much like Cryptologic Officers , you're primarily going to be stationed in Maryland , hawaii and Georgia , right and so , and really between Maryland and Hawaii , some in Norfolk , all this stuff , but those are going to be your main basis . You're going to go like , if you're a direct accession , you're commissioning , into the cryptologic community , you're going to go to what they call the JCAC , the J-C-A-C , the Joint Cyber Analysis Course , which is the enlisted C school , which is like a very specific technical course that they teach the enlisted CWTs or cyber warfare technicians , down in Corrie Station in Pensacola . It's more technical , it's nitty-gritty education , it's Navy education about , again , systems and cyber analysis , and so that's going to be kind of like your pipeline on the schooling side . And then your first tour again , we talked about kind of cryptologic officers doing some of these different things , maybe SIGINT , and then going to see like your first tour as a maritime cyber warfare officer . Mcwoe , you're going .

Grant Vermeer 31:18

You're going to go to the CMF , the cyber mission force , and so CMF is an overarching term to talk about

Cyber Mission Force

Grant Vermeer 31:25

our nations like cyber teams , cyber structure , cyber organization . That is the cyber mission force , the CMF . If you're a part of the CMF , you can support different missions , different billets . We have things called the CMTs , the combat mission teams , the NMTs , the national mission teams , and the CPTs cyber protection teams . And so , whether it's offensive cyber operation , whether it's kind of grace-based , neutral , like navigating , you know , intelligence , preparation of the environment , like kind of doing some more reconnaissance stuff , preparation of the environment like kind of doing some more reconnaissance stuff or it's actual like cyber defense , right , and kind of to draw the comparison , ip officers who are doing that like sysadmin , network updates , protecting patches , all that stuff . The CPTs are really more like hey , if we have an intruder on the network , we're going to go find them and remove them , like that's what we're talking about .

Grant Vermeer 32:13

About defensive cyber operations is more of an active , defensive cyber operation , which can be really cool , and so , again , you're going to go and you're going to be a part of the cyber mission force . That's that's the reality of it . Now , this is a great community . If you want to have like a homestead , if you want to stay the way it is because you can stay in Maryland or you can stay in Hawaii for a pretty darn long time if that's what you want , right , because again , all the CMTs and all the NMTs and all these again , all these teams the cyber mission or the combat mission teams , the national mission teams , which are all parts of the cyber mission force these are all Maryland and Hawaii billets . Like that's where you're going to be really , again not a hundred percent , but the vast majority and they're no longer going to be billeted for cryptologic warfare officers , which means all of the MIQOs are going to get these jobs and you're going to do that . And so , again , it's really cool from that perspective because you're going to have an ability to stay in one location if that's what you want . Like there is a real opportunity . Again , things can always change , but there's like a real opportunity that you could stay in Maryland or you could stay in Hawaii . Again , we talk about military , and some of the difficulties in military life is the fact that you're going to have to pick up and move every two to three years . But you could potentially stay in Maryland or stay in Hawaii , promote advance , continue on , stay in the cyber mission and have a homestead , build your life in a singular location , right , like how darn cool is that ? Like there are opportunities to do that within the , the Mikwo community , which again , I think is like it's pretty darn awesome .

Grant Vermeer 33:47

Now , what I will talk about this is when you're part of cyber teams . It's not really going to be what we call hands-on keyboard all that often . You're not going to be the technical operator doing stuff . But , with that being said , is there's actually a trial run going on ? I think there's about six people right now that have been selected for kind of a pilot , like a test trial run for officers to be what we call IONs you hear this term ION which is an interactive on-net operator , because I think some of the complaint really was that like , hey , as an officer , like we're not doing anything , like we want to , you know , be technical , be hands on keyboard , be actually like doing these things , and so they're running this pilot program to get a sense of it makes sense for officers to be in this role , but as of right now , again , you're really going to be in that project manager , team leader , planner , briefer management role of the cyber mission , and so that's kind of the thing .

Grant Vermeer 34:38

And again there really is a growing desire , more or less right , to create kind of two separate fields within the cyber mission which is one to create like technical experts , which is , I would say , adversary agnostic right . It's just , it's a purely technical your ability to operate on a keyboard . And then we also need to create , like some target subject matter experts , and that's really where they want the officers to fill the role is by getting experience working against a similar target set for a long period of time , building that expertise , building that knowledge , building that context of so much stuff that's going on to become like the network subject matter expert for that target right , and so that's going to be kind of all the different stuff that's going on in more of your role as a , as a McWill right , and these are all high level things . It's really my intention , hopefully to bring on some , some people who are in this community to provide a little bit more in-depth explanation about their actual specific roles . Again , this stuff can get tough because we never want to blur classification lines . We never want to , you know , give out more information . You know that would not be appropriate or even come close to that right . So I'm very careful about bringing people on in current roles and opportunities . But I also want to make sure that midshipmen and prospective midshipmen have an opportunity to like know what they'd be getting themselves into and are making educated decisions about what they want to do in the Navy , and so we'll try and make that happen . But I'm just providing again a lot of high level generalities of what you could expect , kind of going one way or another . Now we're going to wrap this up with just like a little pro and con of like all this different stuff , right , like , I think , some of the pros , if you were to want to go Mikwo again , kind of like focusing in here on the Mikwo side .

Grant Vermeer 36:15

Now , the coolest thing about cyber , in my opinion , is that there's tons of responsibility really early on . Like you'll

Career Opportunities in Naval Information Warfare

Grant Vermeer 36:22

be an ensign , you'll be a JG , you'll be a lieutenant and you'll be in meetings with O6s . You'll be a lieutenant , junior grader , a lieutenant in a staff meeting with a COCOM , a combatant commander , like serious admiral , general level leadership , and you're taken seriously , right , and I think that's a really cool piece . You get a ton of responsibility really early on , but as it stands right now is that that kind of like . You have it very early on but then you kind of plateau into the end of your career .

Grant Vermeer 36:51

There are not a ton of flag opportunities . Again , if your life's dream is to be an admiral or general , there are not a lot of flag opportunities . Again , if your life's dream is to be an admiral or general , there are not a lot of flag opportunities for Mikwos . Right Like you don't have a lot of fleet knowledge and experience , which is what we need at the general admiral level , and so less opportunities in very senior ranks is probably a big con of the Mikwo community . And then , kind of on the flip side , we talk about the cool aspects of Mikwo and you know the lifestyle and being homesteaded and all this stuff , the sailors that you're going to lead . You know we're trying to recruit highly talented people to come in and work the cyber mission .

Grant Vermeer 37:29

Sometimes they can feel like they're not in the military and that can lead to really tough leadership challenges . Right Like you may be working with someone and they're like , sir , like , why the heck do I have to stand a 12 hour shift , a 12 hour watch from 6pm to 6am ? Like , what , like , why am I doing that ? It's like , hey , shipmate , like yeah , you're in the Navy , you're in the Navy , but again , it can be , it can be tough when , when you're in this environment and you'll probably be working in a lot of workspaces again , you're working in an NSA building You're working in technically like a government civilian building and even though you're going to be in uniform and you're going to be military and you're going to do all this aspect like you're in a really civilian environment . And so it's a tough leadership challenge for a lot of the officers as well because again , sometimes people can feel like they're not in the military right and so that piece can be difficult , can be really difficult .

Grant Vermeer 38:18

But again , big news , to kind of wrap this up and we had talked about it , I talked about it a little bit Again there is a shift that has already happened where the information warfare community is no longer a restricted line community , reinforcing that . The information warfare commander , that pinnacle billet that we were talking about , is a command at sea billet . That is what we're doing and what that means really is it's going to open up more . Again we talk about flag billets and we talk about being an admiral or a general , like putting on and wearing a star . We'll use all these terms to reference people who are admirals and generals Flag opportunity , putting on a star , all and generals , flag opportunity , putting on a star , like all these terms kind of reference the same thing and they're hoping that by getting that command at sea opportunity . That senior command , senior 06 , being the information warfare commander of all the information forces , a part of the carrier strike group , is just going to open up more flag opportunities for the cryptologic community .

Grant Vermeer 39:12

Now , again , what we don't have , unfortunately , is any insight into how this will affect commissioning right , for , especially at the Naval Academy , by definition , right , the mission of the Naval Academy is to commission direct line officers . Well , guess what ? The information warfare community is now a direct line community . So , like , should that raise the numbers ? Again , I'm just , I'm nobody , but I would argue yes , but again , it's really going to come down if you haven't watched , and we'll put a clip up here so you can click on the video and watch it about service assignment , where we talk about this exact factor , which is that the amount of billets that are allocated for each community are dictated at levels higher than the Naval Academy . Right , like that is a decision that is made above the Naval Academy , and so we'll see how this is affected by the changing to becoming a direct line community and we'll make sure to let you know .

Grant Vermeer 40:03

But I hope this was super informational . No idea about anything technical or cyber , and I'm using all these terms , and I'm so sorry , but I hope this is like information , like good information for all the young guys and gals out there that may be considering being a cryptologic officer , being a Mikwo , being a cyber warfare engineer , to at least get you started on the right path and hear some unfiltered thoughts in that world . If I can conclude this episode , right , singular thing , if we didn't even need to talk for 35 minutes . If you want to be a part of the fleet , if you want the Navy experience , go be a cryptologic officer . Go be a cryptologic officer . You're going to get fleet experience . You're going to deploy a lot . If you want to do cyber and be on land , go go McWell , it's as simple as that . It's really as simple as that , or try to do that .

Grant Vermeer 41:03

And so , again , thank you so much . If you have any questions , again , I have a ton of friends in all of these communities who'd be happy to chat with you , and so , again , if you're interested in more information , send me a message , reach out , and I'll be sure to put you in touch with the people who can answer more in depth , and I'm hoping to bring on some people from the fleet , like people from the current communities to talk about their experiences as well , but I hope this is a good little jumpstart here . So thank you so much . I really appreciate it . Y'all have a great day and thank you so much . Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Academy Insider podcast . I really hope you liked it , enjoyed it and learn something during this time . If you did , please feel free to like and subscribe or leave a comment about the episode . We really appreciate to hear your feedback about everything and continue to make Academy Insider an amazing service that guides , serves and supports midshipmen , future midshipmen and their families . Thank you .