(Series 1 Post 5)
Welcome back readers, and please join me in a huge round of applause for a Soldier who came to her senses when she ditched the Marines, said “no more” to slinging hash and washing underbritches and instead chose to learn Mandarin and become an Army linguist in the Intel field.
I’m Mikie P, and in this edition of Take 5, I talk to Staff Sgt. Tiffany Vance, a Signal Intelligence Voice Interceptor with the 502nd Intelligence Electronic Warfare Battalion out of Joint Base Lewis McChord, Washington. This native New Yorker who was born in Harlem, raised in Brooklyn and joined the military out of Staten Island, has proudly served her country for 12 years now.
“I just wanted to be in the military,” said Vance, “so I joined the Marines and served eight and a half years because I wanted a challenge,” she said, “but, it was so grueling my bones literally ached!”
Anyone who has chosen to wear combat boots knows basic training is tough, but Marines are so tough they put the O in, “Oh my God what have I done?” The Corps also made her realize her talents weren’t utilized to their fullest extent when, on a nine-month deployment aboard a Navy ship, she was pulling dual duty cooking meals for senior non-commissioned officers and doing their laundry.
“I got a visit in the kitchen from a first sergeant who told me his laundry bag was missing,” said Vance. “I told him I’d look for it but forgot about it, and a week later he busted into the kitchen wearing nothing except a trash bag and screaming he had no clean underwear,” she said, laughing.
I don’t know about you guys, but that story was a bit too much information, and I’ll admit I’ll always wonder now if every time I take out the trash, I’m depriving some poor Marine of a new piece for his wardrobe. All interservice joking aside though, a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do, and Tiffany decided she’d had enough with achy bones, ham bones, and boneheads, and decided to leave the Corps behind.
“I got out of the Marines on a Sunday and put my Army uniform on for the first time on Monday,” she said. “The transition was smooth, I didn’t lose any rank, and I was shipped off to Monterey, California, to the Defense Language Institute, to learn a foreign language.
When you’re selected to be an Army linguist, you list the languages you’d like to learn. For Tiffany, her last language choice became the one selected for her, and that was Mandarin, Chinese. She said it was a tough language to learn, but she excelled at it and, in between classes, ended-up meeting someone who changed her life in more ways than she could have imagined.
“This sounds cheesy, but my husband, Macon, (rhymes with bacon,) was and is a role model for me,” she said. “I knew nothing about the Army and my husband opened-up my eyes to so much.”
Something Tiffany said was especially enlightening was the Army’s promotion system.
“Macon asked me how many promotion points I had, and I had absolutely no idea. When he looked up our points, he showed me he had 600+ and me? I only had 20,” she laughed. “Talk about an eye-opener!”
Yes, Tiffany. An accumulated 20 points to compete against every other E-5 in your career field, is pretty dismal if you’re looking to get promoted, but hey! At least you learned how to order Chinese takeout in Mandarin, no problem!
Anyway, Staff Sgt. Vance is someone who proved that the move from the Marine Corps to the Army NCO Corps, was absolutely the best decision she’d ever made (other than marrying her husband.) She loves what she does and when she and her cohorts aren’t using their vehicles in the field to train, they’re either tuning them up on Motorpool Mondays, working in the SCIF or Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, or keeping up with their individual language proficiency.
“I’m a Unit Command Language Program Manager, so not only do I keep-up with my Mandarin, but I also ensure the Soldiers working with me remain proficient in their language capabilities, too,” she said. “The Army got rid of language bonuses so only Soldiers in linguist billets actually receive extra pay for remaining proficient.”
That extra proficiency as a linguist also means the Army will award you a degree for your language studies; either an associates or bachelor’s. Even if you don’t remain up-to-date in your language training though, Vance said deciding to join the Army is something you should talk to others about before making the commitment.
“If you’re in high school and thinking about it, take time to figure out what you want to do,” she said. “If you join, make the Army a career you love because ever since I left the Marines, I’ve loved everything I’ve done. I love getting up and putting the Army uniform on every, single, day,” said Vance.
Thanks for your service to FORSCOM Staff Sgt. Vance. To learn more about serving in Army Intelligence as a linguist, visit an Army recruiting station. For more info on U.S. Army Forces Command, check out our FORSCOM LinkedIn page at https://www.linkedin.com/company/us-army-forces-command-fedeforscom/.
Join me next month for another conversation blog with a FORSCOM team member who loves what they do and encourages you to join the Army family. Till then, take care, Be All You Can Be At FORSCOM, and don’t forget to “Take 5.”
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