I know a few people who have done forensics in a war zone, and it's not pleasant - as already been mentioned - the heat, the cramped working conditions, spotty electricity, you are not allowed off base, there are occasional IEDs being thrown over the barriers, and random gunfire. oh and the cases just keep piling up, more than enough to keep you occupied. One of my buddies was heading to lunch with a co-worker who was shot from someone randomly firing into the base.
To work for just about any company working for the US military, a Secret clearance is required (and for forensics, a TS is preferred) - in a lot of the cases you are looking for data spillage, which means potentially compromised classified materials. For example, we once found an unlabeled hard drive in an unsecured location, and had to determine it's clearance level - so you start at the top (TS) and work your way down.
Here is Korea (which is technically a war zone as the Korean war ended with only a cease-fire), we do have some Korean techs who are not US Citizens, however, they only work on the Korean based systems we have on base. It is possible for 3rd nation workers to get jobs - one of our local Dell reps is from the Philippines, but when he has to work on our systems, we remove the hard drives, and supervise the work to make sure he is only doing what he is supposed to…
As for the clearance, yeah, most companies expect you to have it already - cause it you don't just just take the next application who has it. If they really want you, they can apply for the clearance for you, but its a lot of money and time - we were trying to hire one guy, and were willing to spring for the clearance, but after 2 months, we were told he wasn't eligible for a clearance. So we wasted a lot of time, effort and money on this guy. We hired the next guy on the pile who had a clearance, and he started work a few days later.
My dad works for a company called KBR that do lots of work in Afgan, and they employ lots of IT people!! maybe worth a look!!!
I'm currently rated for SECRET, but I don't plan on going for TS unless my current job requires it, and I can't see that happening.
Thanks for all the info. The conditions are sounding pretty poor. The bombs and gunfire don't bother me, but the airo-con and electricity (and internet!) certainly do.
Where would one go to apply for such positions?
Where would one go to apply for such positions?
Mantech hires for these positions and an interim secret clearance is all that is needed, it is sometimes not needed at time of hire….
I saw an email this week that Mantec is hiring for these positions.
Yeah, I see 1 of these positions in Iraq posted on their site. It says the shift is 12hrs/day 7days/week! I wonder what the pay is and how long you are there for. A friend of mine said that contracts like these for KBR it would actually be a 14 month contract and you would work for 3 months and then have 15 days off paid with free transportation to wherever you wanted to spend that time.
I'm seriously considering applying for this. I graduated in August and so far all I can find is a help desk job. All the CF jobs I've seen want experience, clearance, or LE background and I have none of those.
Actually… I did just apply for it. Figure at least I can see if they are interested in me and maybe get more information on it.
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