Despite what I wrote in my book, here’s what actually happened to me from 2011-2014
In my book, Get After It: Seven Inspirational Stories to Find Your Inner Strength When It Matters Most, I shared seven of the most important stories of my life. Some of them were based on my time at the Central Intelligence Agency, where I worked from 2007 to 2020.
If you follow my book, you’ll notice that in the seventh story/chapter, entitled Finding My Fit: My Nine-Year Journey to Find the Right Place at the CIA, discusses my employment record from 2011 to 2013:
“From 2011 to 2013, I worked in a few different positions in the government and military, including working for the State Department at the U.S. Embassy in Iraq and my deployment to the Middle East with the U.S. Navy. In 2014, with no other place to go after my deployment, I resigned from the State Department, rejoined the CIA, and returned to analysis.”
Seems reasonable, right?
It’s not. It’s bullshit.
But it’s bullshit for a good reason. At the time, I was with the CIA while “working for the State Department.” While this probably isn’t a surprise to some, it might be a surprise to many who aren’t involved in intelligence or military work.
I couldn’t reveal this until I left the CIA entirely. So here is the true story of what really happened (and didn’t happen) during those years.
Things that didn’t actually happen:
- I was never employed by the State Department.
- I didn’t leave CIA in 2011 to join the State Department.
- I never took A-100, the class for new diplomats.
- Because I never left, I never had to “resign from the State Department” and return to CIA.
Now that those clarifications are out of the way, here’s what actually happened.
In 2010, about a month after my seven-month assignment to the CIA’s Operations Center, I returned to the Office of Iraq Analysis as a military analyst. My managers approached me about serving a joint-duty assignment in Iraq. I knew the position existed, but I had actually never thought they would approach me about it. I was excited, but nervous, so I agreed to do six months, and that I would agree to a full year if I could go to Iraq and test the waters, so to speak.
That happened a few months later in March 2011, when I spent a month traveling around with a few other analysts to different parts of the world to meet with various liaison intelligence services. The last two weeks of that month was spent in Iraq where I helped collect information from Americans who had close contact with Iraqi military and security officials.
As I had survived two weeks in a warzone, I figured I could survive a whole year, so I reported back to my managers that I would do a “Permanent Change of Station” to Baghdad. That initiated a process which led to me becoming a “foreign service officer” with the State Department.
In August 2011, I went to Baghdad and worked for the State Department. Yes, that part is true. My assignment was a joint duty position to literally work for the State Department’s Political-Military Affairs section. Every part of that is true. While I still was “owned” by CIA and reported to the Baghdad Station on occasion, I spent 95% of my time working diplomatic issues.
And it was seriously the best year I had working for the U.S. Government.
But here’s where the story gets a little weird.
Because I had told my friends and family that I was now a “foreign service officer” many were asking me about my next assignment, one I did not have. Most of the time, foreign service officers do their first assignment working in a consular section of an embassy performing visa interviews. Because I had not done that, I said that my next assignment would be a consular one.
To go along with that, I decided I actually wanted to spend my career overseas, so I decided to pursue two different career choices: CIA operations officer or actual foreign service officer.
I initiated both applications while I was still in Baghdad, submitting my initial internal application for CIA to join the operations career service and get an opportunity to attend the training to be an official “spy,” and taking the written exam portion of the Foreign Service Officer Test at the embassy in Baghdad.
Shortly after my assignments were over, I was invited to the next steps for both. I completed an interview and simulation for the CIA position and submitted my written narratives for the foreign service application.
While waiting for CIA’s response, I was notified that I passed the narrative portion of the foreign service test and was invited to the final step: the oral assessment.
On Thursday, November 8, 2012, I went downtown to a State Department Annex, and after eight hours, was informed that I passed the oral assessment and would be put on the “register” for a spot in an A-100 diplomat training class.
When I reported to work the next day, I had an email from CIA’s Clandestine Service Hiring Division. The message said that they decided I was not fit for a position in the clandestine service, but that I could apply again in a year. “No reason for how we’ve reached our decision will be given.”
I was dejected, and thought it was really confusing that I had a recommendation for the clandestine service from the former Baghdad Station Chief (whose next assignment was serving as the head of all clandestine training).
Nevertheless, with at least one option, I decided to pursue the foreign service. I worked to get my CIA security clearance transferred to the State Department and completed the necessary medical tests. I was officially “on” the register.
At this point in late 2012, I was working at CIA Headquarters as an analyst (as I was before I left). And I continued this through the first half of 2013.
In mid-2013, I was deployed with the U.S. Navy to Bahrain and Jordan, and everything I’ve written about that is true. (Funny aside: One of my fellow servicemembers in Jordan had a brother who worked at CIA and she thought that I was actually there for CIA but in military uniform. Not true…I was actually deployed with the Navy, like anyone else.)
When I returned from my deployment, I contacted the State Department to have them add my new “veterans preference” to my oral assessment score. This would give me a higher score and hopefully the opportunity to join State.
I also tried taking the State Department’s Arabic language test, having studied my ass of for the first half of 2013. I failed it, so I didn’t get the language bonus.
I also had impeccably bad timing. This is the time when the U.S. Government was going through sequestration, thanks to a number of Congressional bills limited government spending. That meant that the State Department was only hiring one new diplomat for every two who left.
That meant that, even with my military service bonus, I’d have a really hard time getting a spot in an A-100 class. And it never came.
So when I returned from my deployment and returned to analysis (something I had no desire to do ever again), I was looking for new positions within CIA. As I wrote above, I never “resigned” from State, I was always internal to CIA, always “owned” by the analysis department.
The following pages of the book remain true: a friend of mine emailed me an internal vacancy for a position in the CIA’s Office of Public Affairs. I applied, was offered the position, and started a new life in communications.
Above, I listed the things that didn’t happen and told the story of what did.
Here’s a summary of what did happen:
- I worked for the State Department in Iraq, while still being “owned” by CIA.
- I tried to join the CIA’s clandestine service but was rejected.
- I tried to actually join the foreign service, but never had a high enough register position.
As I mentioned above, I couldn’t share this until I officially rolled back my cover when I resigned from CIA in 2020.
Now the record is straight.
