My primary position in the Navy was as a cryptologist. This job focused on analyzing communications intercepts for intelligence value and forwarding my analyses to the National Security Agency (NSA). This position not only gave me a strong familiarity with the internal workings of the intelligence community but also allowed me to become very familiar with the relationships that the US has with countries like Iran, China, Pakistan, and others. Furthermore, through this job I was fortunate enough to be able to support special forces operators in Afghanistan. This experience means that I not only have familiarity with this kind of warfare but that I am also familiar with how branches other than the Navy operate as well. I have also had experience with piracy in the vicinity of the Horn of Africa as well as human smuggling and trafficking.

My work with the intelligence community and the NSA can be invaluable when working with any number of classified documents or intelligence community sources that have come to dominate coverage as men like Edward Snowden become household names. And while it may seem like much of my more general military knowledge can be easily acquired through some basic online searches, the real value of my experiences is in my familiarity with the military culture. Since I am conversant in many of the euphemisms, acronyms, and insider lingo of this very tight knit community I am able to not only get grasp and parse military-related stories faster and more accurately but I am also able to give more in-depth analysis, provide better context to events, and ask better questions of interview subjects or sources.

Finally, I was also fortunate enough to work as a Command Photographer for several years. This position, a blend of a photojournalism and PR, allowed me to take more than a thousand pictures of the various activities the USS Lake Champlain was involved in. The results can be seen in some Navy publications as well as on the Photography page of this site. I also shot video and created several promotional and “spirit” videos as well as more somber works, like the capturing of a burial at sea ceremony for nine different families.