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Most things concerning USS Gerald R. Ford’s (CVN 78) intelligence department are classified in nature. Even the creation of their department in January 2017 started out as a classified memorandum.
“It’s been a long time coming that we were finally made our own department,” said Cryptologic Technician (Collection) 1st Class John Drum, an intelligence divisional leading petty officer. “After forming what is now the Navy Information Forces in 10th fleet, this is another step in recognizing the information warfare rates by giving us our own department.”
The intelligence department used to belong to operations department.
“Being that I’ve been in a long time, I’ve only known being in operations,” said Cryptologic Technician (Technical) 1st Class Aris Thompson. “Splitting from them kind of felt like I’m splitting with something familiar but I’m also going into something that refines our job more.”
Their workspaces on board remained the same and the people they saw and worked with did not change.
“There was one major difference - It allows us to focus on analysis, indication and warning, and training for our jobs,” said Thompson. “We look forward to what is to come rather than solely being focus on the immediate here and now operations of the ship like operations department.”
Yet outside of operations department, many on board may not know the impact of the intelligence department.
“A lot of the work we do, other rates can’t see or know,” said Thompson. “We are a quieter rate. Other people see us as the quiet guys and gals that sit in dark rooms.”
The rate of cryptologic technician and all rates belonging to the intelligence department are more secret in nature.
“Some people call us the secret squirrels,” said Cryptologic Technician (Collection) 2nd Class Matt Micone. “Our rates in intelligence are the hush-hush rates. Nobody really knows a lot about them because we simply can’t tell a lot of people. I embrace the term and for most people in intelligence it doesn’t offend us at all because it’s an actual representation of who we are and what we do.”
So what do these secret squirrels do?
“Our job is to protect the ship and battle group through signal intelligence for indications, warnings, and anti-ship missiles,” said Thompson.
In laymen’s terms, they intercept and collect radio and communication signals and decrypt them.
“The information we provide has been crucial throughout the ages,” said Drum. “Back to the early history of war fighting, you had people who were trying to get a leg up on their adversaries by getting as much information about them as they could. That is our job in the intelligence department.”
The intercepted signals are often compared to that of a puzzle, in that you have to separate all the pieces then form them back together to reveal the bigger picture.
“Being able to take something out of the air and turn it into something tangible is very interesting,” said Micone. “We can tell what’s coming before it gets here. If we weren’t able to do what we do then there is a potential for a lot of people to lose their lives. We are somewhat of an unsung hero in that sense.”
Being the unsung hero best displays itself in shipboard simulated general quarters (GQ). Most people on ship may not know before every GQ there is an intelligence brief. Much like a navigation brief plotting out the ship’s course of direction, the intelligence brief details any potential harm we could foresee as a ship or battle group.
“We actually are the guys who call away to the TAO to set general quarters,” said Micone. “We are the ones who start the GQ evolution. Being in a real situation, and the thought of us being the ones who hold that responsibility is extremely thrilling.”
The thrill of the job also comes along with high-pressure situations.
“Being able to make decisions on the fly you feel the pressure and importance of your job,” said Thompson. “If we don’t do our job we then have to rely on our last counter measure for an attack – CWIS, and if we fail there is a high probability of the ship being hit.”
Both Thompson and Drum say they have become used to that pressure.
“I’m a pretty cool, calm, collected person,” said Thompson. “So when it comes to a high-pressure training environment, it comes to knowing the equipment layout of the other platform and what they have and how we counter back. When we get to the point when it’s time to implement, I just have to go down the line of procedures and then timing comes into play. It’s important to know all of our steps. You have to be very methodical and streamlined in the process. You just have to fall back and trust all of our training – the training we’ve had more time to do now becoming our own department.”
Their training involves many things including what information they can and cannot disclose. No secret is ever out in the intelligence department. But with this new light being shed on their newly created department, the secret is out about them. As a ship, we now know just exactly who these secrets squirrels are.
| Date Taken: | 10.12.2017 |
| Date Posted: | 02.02.2018 11:06 |
| Story ID: | 264446 |
| Location: | NORFOLK, VIRGINIA, US |
| Web Views: | 156 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Decrypting the Secret Squirrels, by PO2 Elizabeth Thompson, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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