Best Defense
Thomas E. Ricks' daily take on national security.

4 Qs for AfPak vets (II): From a former civilian member of the program

This one is, by request, anonymous.

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hrs_100427-A-4702C-001a

 

 

This one is, by request, anonymous.

— Are you glad you did it?

Yes

— Would you do it again?

No

— How do you think it has affected your career? And does that effect matter to you?

No/Yes

As a civilian I think people don’t know how to interpret the service in country so it does not help in job hunting if fact I think it has been a hindrance.

Plus there is no recognition or annotation in my record of the service.

— What else should people remember about this experiment?

Do not have a program like this managed at the Joint Staff level.

U.S. Department of Defense

Thomas E. Ricks covered the U.S. military from 1991 to 2008 for the Wall Street Journal and then the Washington Post. He can be reached at ricksblogcomment@gmail.com. Twitter: @tomricks1

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