Looking to re-class on the enlisted side (Army) from communications to Civil Affairs. Curious if we have any Aggies who have any experience in this MOS and their thoughts about it. Sounds pretty interesting to me.

Stay away from the reserve side. Active duty CA until very recently are purely to support Special Operations missions, which means you would support Special Forces, SEALs, AFSOC, etc. Deployments with USASOC are worldwide and the missions vary greatly.

You would receive a base of training that includes several months of language at the Special Warfare Center and School (SWCS), SERE C, airborne if you haven't already gone, and get access to a lot of other SOF-specific training.

If interested, you will need to check out the board dates (there should be a MILPER message somewhere) and get in shape. CA conducts its own selection and assessment at Fort Bragg now, so if you come, come committed.

I currently work in one of the SF Groups and I'm very familiar with the procedure and some of the personalities at the selection committee. PM me or get my email address from texags and I'll try to answer any questions you might have.

hi if you need anything additional, i can forward any questions you have to my husband, he is deployed now but may be able to answer your questions, as the previous poster said, there is a qualification course which you will need to be in shape for and before you would even be assigned to a team, there is LOTS of schooling, long process but if you like the kind of stuff CA does, then it is worth it;
CA is very, very reserve heavy so the only active duty people are in Bragg so hopefully you like north carolina, they work in small teams and usually get attached to other units, usually longer deployments (but that changes all the time and by the time you even finish and get put on a team, ho knows what war we will be in) get to work with the locals when you go down range and knowing the language is very important

In addition to Infantry, Armor, and Public Affairs, I did the CA advanced course. I never wanted to do CA work - don't like the idea of feeding Hajji one day so he can have the strength to bury an IED the next...

Some people don't understand CA work. These guys tend to be the old guard, conventional minded guys who use words like "Hajji" to describe entire host nation populations without a good grasp of modern UW and COIN docrines.

Don't worry about them though, there aren't too many left.

Newsflash. MOST people don't understand CA work, and MOST people are still on the stabilator when it comes to COIN/UW doctrine. Get to ILE and see for yourself. Experience is only half the equation.

[This message has been edited by Fly Army 97 (edited 1/17/2012 11:27p).]

Don't know any CA Aggies, but know plenty of CA types I can get you in touch with. I rode out on over 50 CA missions with Army CA and Marines in Iraq over six years.

It's shoe-giver-outer-dude!

He works very closely with to aircraft-bringer-inner-dude. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nx6TiegRL4

I'm kidding of course, when CA is integrated and on their game they can have a good effect.

When they get caught up in "operating" and grooming their beards or setting up photo ops they fail. Unfortunately my experience was with the later.

Thanks for all the responses. Going to shoot out a few PM's to a couple of ya'll.

Ok, can't PM everyone unless we're subscribers, so here we go!

Prior active duty communications and will be doing this re-class as a reservist. It might only be for a short time as now that I have finally graduated from A&M I've got a commissioning packet in the works also, but due to the current climate it looks like it'll be slow getting it through the pipe.

My background is International Studies major in college, currently also a student at the Bush School in their Advanced International Affairs program, emphasis on Intelligence. Weighing either going Intel or C.A. to re-class to from Radio Operator/Maintainer. I do already have a T.S. clearance. Limiting factors are finding a unit in Central/South Texas that has a slot for me to re-class into.

Just curious what your impressions of the job? I understand like most units it will depend on the quality of the people you're working with. Have you seen that generally the people you worked with from the Reserve side of the house have been a bit lacking in terms of competency, etc? Having gone from active duty to Reserves I know all about the difference in mindset for each side, but you've got highly professional soldiers on the AD and Reserve side.

Sorry, forgot you can't PM on this site unless you pay. If you still need info after you PM'd the other guys, email me at carolina.blue12@yahoo.com and I would be more than happy to try and help.

Appreciate the responses, but looks like I'm going intelligence in a Civil Affairs unit. Worked out better than I expected. (I say that now.)