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(U) Was Shooting for the Moon, But Landed at NSA Instead
FROM:
Language & All Source Knowledge Base Services Branch (S21233)
Run Date: 05/31/2005
(U) I grew up in Huntsville, Alabama, the son of a Boeing engineer working on NASA's Apollo
program to put Americans on the Moon before the Russians got there. As an eight-year-old
living in that environment, I may have known more about microgravity, atmospheric reentry and
auxiliary power units than I did about skateboards and baseball cards. I was probably among
the first people outside NASA who knew that Apollo 8 would send the first astronauts to orbit the
moon, and that Apollo 10 would be a full-scale rehearsal for Armstrong and Aldrin's landing on
Tranquility Base a few months later. With that background, I was fully committed to becoming a
pilot and astronaut.
(U) As is so often the case with dreams, however, they live on quietly within the psyche while
reality takes over. I went on to pursue other endeavors, and ventured into geology. I also
sought to brush up my skills in German and I even learned some Russian along the way -- just
to be different. With a career at NSA lurking in my future, I had no idea at the time how
different "different" would prove to be.
(U) Learning German had laid the groundwork that made picking up Russian a comparative
snap, and I decided to study abroad. I applied to study Russian at a university in Bavaria
(Wuerzburg), not as an exchange student, but as "regular" student from overseas. That's right,
I took on the task of learning Russian with the Germans -- no English allowed. Those 13 months
in Germany were certainly the most challenging, but also the most rewarding, of my several
years of college.
(U) It was during this period that I first learned of the existence of the National Security Agency
(I read about the place in a German periodical) and the smattering of potential truth contained
in that article made me want to learn more. Upon graduation, my interview with a recruiter and
application for a job at NSA comprised the sum of my job search.
(S) Fast-forward 19 years to the present, here I am working as a software developer and
support technician on a foreign-language dictionary project. When "one thing leads to another,"
there's no telling where you will wind up!
(S) But the bulk of my career while working as a linguist was spent in the old Manned Space
Operations Center, adjunct to DEFSMAC, keeping track of activities on the Soviet space station.
So I did, in a manner of speaking, achieve my original dream of a career related to space flight.
And this happened in a way that almost certainly would have been impossible anywhere other
than at NSA.
"(U//FOUO) SIDtoday articles may not be republished or reposted outside NSANet
without the consent of S0121 (DL sid_comms)."
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DERIVED FROM: NSA/CSSM 1-52, DATED 08 JAN 2007 DECLASSIFY ON: 20320108