HW | West Coast

What do you do?

I work in nuclear command and control at STRATCOM, NC2. We track missions, operations, and status of the US arsenal.

How did you find your way into federal service? Did you always want to join up?

I came from a military family. It goes back generations, so getting my GI Bill after serving was an expected path. It was just seen as a likely path, not really remarkable at the time. I remember when we told my grandfather, he just kind of grunted, and supposedly told my grandmother in private that he was proud. Civil service was a fluke. After college, I was contacted about a job by a former shipmate and applied on a whim. I had planned to go work in Silicon Valley. It came up at a time when I was looking around, but I also felt alone and looked forward to working with my former shipmates. I also missed having a mission and being a part of an organization I dearly love to this day. Military environments can be demanding but feel very special.

What does this work mean to you? Why is it important to you, personally?

Working in a normal office for several years was depressing. Here, I’m part of something big and important. I feel tremendous pride in doing a job that most people don’t know exists but, on a very real level, is a key to our national security. It’s frustrating, and hard at times, and I’m the type of person who thrives in and environment of constantly being on your toes. Maybe it’s the long-tail of PTSD, who knows? I’ve worked on mission planning and operations teams that have executed missions all over the world.

What should be important about this work to Americans? Why does it matter?

The core, largely unspoken truth about our national security is that our state adversaries know that we have tremendous military power and the experience and knowledge to bring it to bear. I sit in a room with a group of people with utterly irreplaceable skills and training to carry out our mission. Without that group of people, and the knowledge they have, American safety is compromised. It takes many years of training to get there, and it’s something we all treat with deadly seriousness. The weapons are not a deterent without the people behind them.

What does all of this mean for you? Do you know what’s next?

I worry. Partly for my job, but largely for the next generation taking the reins. We need that pipeline of motivated, sharp young people. People who used to look at government work as a viable path. Our pay and benefits have shrunk. Politicians vilify us as lazy and overpaid. We’ve lost so many just starting out. Government work as a stable place to build a career was about all we had to attract those people. Look at the crisis many states are having hiring good teachers. The work is important, but that can’t be all there is. It’s worth noting that the older Millenials who served in Iraq and Afghanistan and transitioned to government are a finite resource. They’re now middle-aged and having to make hard choices about careers going forward. They were a little DoD baby boom in Federal work. The vast majority of the 789K DoD civilians are vets. We all speak DoD and come from a certain place professionally that’s very hard for non-military folks to learn.