Air Force Vet Lorri Janssen-Anessi | The Recalibrated Podcast | S01E04

Welcome to The Recalibrated.

I'm your host, Meade Kincke,

and I'm here to take us through

the journey of being in the service,

transitioning out,

and what today looks like.

Our guest, Lorri Janssen-Anessi

served over 11 years in the

United States Air Force as a

technical language analyst supporting

high priority missions.

Afterwards, Lorri joined the

National Security Agency

where she defended critical systems

against emerging cyber threats

for over a decade. Today, Lorri is

director of External Cyber

Assessments at BlueVoyant,

where she helps organisations understand

and mitigate real-world cyber risk.

Lorri, welcome to the show.

Thank you. I'm so happy to be here.

I'm glad to have you here.

So let's begin with the why.

Why? What drew you to the Air Force?

Where did that come from?

This is such a funny story.

So I grew up in the Bay Area,

and if you are

familiar with the Bay Area,

people do not join the military,

they join technology companies.

Literally, I'm from Silicon Valley.

So I was my third year at college,

studying pre-med, and my

grandfather had passed away,

and he had served in the military.

But we were not a military family.

My mom, my dad, they were hippies.

So definitely no legacy as

far as this is concerned.

No, not legacy.

So my grandfather had passed away,

and I'm not kidding

you, whatever you think.

Sometimes I think, I

don't sometimes think,

things happen for a reason.

So as I'm doing the

grind, driving in the Bay Area

to work in my part-time job,

I just kept hearing

recruiting commercials,

which I had never ever heard.

So this is about 1995, and my grandmother

just passed away, I was

very close to my grandfather.

And for some reason, I

decided one afternoon

I was gonna go to the recruiting office.

There happened to be an Air Force One.

So the story is not so

amazing, but I went in,

and I'm like, "Hi, I

wanna know everything

to know about the Air Force."

And one thing I will

say is it's very expensive

to live in the Bay Area,

it's been expensive forever.

And so I was like, well,

definitely in these commercials,

they had talked about

loan repayment for school,

they talked about educational programs.

So I was like, "Sign me up. I'm pre-med.

I wanna be a doctor. I wanna be a medic.

I'm coming into the Air Force."

So my recruiter was like,

"Great, I'm so excited."

He's like, "I need your transcripts."

So I sent my transcripts, I spoke French.

So I had taken French since I was 10.

So my family's from Lithuania originally,

so I had spoken Lithuanian when I was little,

I had English, and then

I spoke French fluently,

I was still taking it in college.

And my recruiters eyes went,

"Dollar sign, dollar sign, dollar sign."

Again, I didn't know

any of this at the time.

They looked at you and said,

"Intel," like straight away.

I'm there... first time, he's like,

"Would you like to take this

little test called the DLab?"

I'm like, "Okay, sure, but

I really wanna be a medic,

so that's where we're going, right?

We're gonna be a medic,

we're gonna be a medic."

And he's like, "Yep, but first

I want you to take the DLab."

Ushering you closer to the

slaughterhouse of like,

"Yeah, no, but over here,

there's something

else I want you to see."

Yes, yes, so I took

the DLab, no surprise,

I scored really high on it.

And so, again, dollar sign,

dollar sign, dollar sign.

So Lorri, would you like to be a linguist?

No, no, I would not

I would not like to be a linguist,

I would like to be a medic, thank you.

And he said, "But you could be a spy,

you could travel the world."

I'm like, "No, no."

But, I have a twin sister,

and she was at UC Santa Cruz.

And if you know where Monterey's,

or if you know where the

military language school is,

it's in Monterey.

If you're familiar with

geography in California,

30 minutes from each other.

So, he sold me with that,

and I was gonna be a

spy and travel the world.

So, that is literally how

I came into the Air Force.

So I signed the

paperwork, I went home to my mom,

she said, "You did what?"

I said, "I'm going into the military."

And she said, "No, you're not."

And I said, "Too late, mom. I'm going."

So I went into the DEP program,

the delayed entry program,

and I was scheduled to

leave at Christmas time.

So that is my story, yes.

So safe to say you are an individual

that likes an impulse purchase,

close to the register where you go like,

"Ooh, I do need extra

tires for a truck I don't own."

Yes, I would be those,

that marketing

person's wet dream for that.

I don't, I know this about

myself and I still do it,

and it's true, it's

true today, 30 years later.

Oh, that's so funny.

Well, we kind of, let's say,

blew through a little

bit of humble beginnings.

We can touch on that at the moment.

It also kind of blew through,

well, where did the, I had a question of,

well, did you want to be a linguist?

Did you want to be a

cryptographic linguist?

Oh, you ushered there,

we kind of covered that.

But let's circle back a little bit.

Yeah, yeah.

No, I was gonna say,

it's also interesting

because if you noticed,

I was an Arabic linguist.

So I'm from the Bay Area.

So when you-- And you're Caucasian,

so not exactly an Arab.

Yes, so when you go,

if you're not familiar with the US side,

when you're go to be a linguist,

you're already put in,

couple weeks into basic training,

they send you in to

put this stuff on a card

and you say, "What

languages would you like?"

So, what would you guess?

I would take, I was like,

"I want Japanese, Chinese, or Korean."

I'm from the Bay Area, right?

All my friends growing up.

Yeah, so I'm like, "Of

course, an Asian language, what?"

So I get to, I get, I

leave basic training,

I get to Monterey, and

they tell me I'm Arabic.

And I'm like--

Like that's not on the list.

I was like, this was my

ignorance at the time.

I'm like, where did they speak,

where did they speak that?

Like, what is this?

What do you want me to do?

I'll give you a hint.

It's some place dry and hot

and usually covered in sand.

Yes, well, now I know, now I'm very

intimately familiar.

I would fancy myself

an expert on that region

and that language.

Yeah, so that was another funny thing.

I did not pick Arabic, but I will say,

and maybe you have questions about this,

but it's like, truthfully,

it was like the best thing

that ever happened to me.

I had the most amazing career,

so I'm not, I'm not mad about it,

but it was really a

weird series of events

to get there in the beginning.

A bit of whiplash to start off with.

100%.

100%.

As far as, again, kind of circling back,

humble beginnings, you could say,

oh, I started off as this and

ended as an officer and so on.

So what, your trajectory

seems a little bit different.

How did that landscape look?

It was different, so

that was the other thing.

I had nobody to guide me along

and now, any time I hear

anybody talking about the military,

I'm like, come talk to me first,

especially if they're gonna do Intel.

So I could have come in as an officer.

I had three years of college.

That's all you need.

You need to have such so many credits,

but it was funny--

You it's second

lieutenant straight away.

Yeah, yeah, so I didn't do that.

They didn't tell me that.

They obviously lured

me in with the bonuses,

but I'm such an academic.

I really, truly, I know everybody says

they're a lifelong

learner, but I am very academic.

And so it was really important to me

that I was going to

get education in this.

Air Force didn't end up

paying back any of my loans.

That's another story altogether.

But, what they did offer

is when you go to Monterey,

when you go to the

Defense Language Institute,

you could actually

attend, I could attend,

I could continue to attend

Monterey Peninsula College.

And I actually ended

up finishing my degree

while I was studying Arabic.

That was another enticement

because it is so very bizarre.

But anyway, yes, so whatever--

No, that's all fascinating and wonderful.

It's really weird.

I just thought it was really weird.

Yeah, well, again, the

whole thing about it is,

you know, and I definitely know of the

whole thing of like,

great, we want you, get

you into language school.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah, we can talk Kanji,

and you like Japanese and this.

How about Arabic?

And you go, ah.

Yeah.

That doesn't sound like

noodles, that sounds like sand.

And you go, it kind of is.

Here's your book.

It kinda is.

It was crazy.

Yeah, and if you have a linguist honour,

if you have linguist friends, it is

really, really intense. They,

You're going to language school

40 hours a week.

My school is 63 weeks.

And right out of the

gate, it's the military.

So, you know, I liked, I was a nerd,

so I was all about the studying, but

like, it was intense.

It was like 40 hours with teachers,

we had a team of

teachers, and then at night,

you're in the military,

you don't get a choice.

There's no fun at night.

Like, they give you,

this is to date me,

They give you a tape

recorder machine and tapes.

We had to do our

studying with language tapes

and these books, and

it's like, that was it.

You are now getting, boop boop boop,

programmed to do a language.

And it was so hard, because you're

sitting in Monterey,

and if you've been to

Monterey, or even if you've looked

at Monterey, it is gorgeous.

It's gorgeous.

So, we're looking out

over the Monterey Bay,

sitting in these

classrooms in our uniforms,

a million hours a day, really like,

really, intimately

We could be surfing getting to know all of our--

I could be getting

vitamin D, like, and you go, Yeah, yeah

very much a prison cell of,

like, you don't get to go outside.

It is, and it's like,

learn this language,

learn this language,

and they're so strict.

It's the military, so--

It's regimented, let's

just call it what it is.

You have to test, and

you have to be progressing,

and if you don't

progress, that's it, you know?

So, it was the best of

times and the worst of times.

I made them, which you

were in the military,

but I made friendships.

Oh no, I wasn't in

the military, actually.

Oh, you weren't, oh,

you were a pilot, though.

I am a pilot, but as far as--

Not with the military.

No, I play in both ends of the world,

so it's one of those

long history in technology,

lots of history in security,

so I see both ends of the spectrum.

Got it, okay, that was my bad.

Oh, you're fine.

It's a point of military,

but you work with veterans,

so you know.

I do.

The friendships and

relationships that you make,

and probably the

friendships and relationships

you make with veterans along the way, Definitely.

it's like a different bond that you make.

It's a brotherhood, you know,

it's one of those things

where obviously sex aside,

it's one of those

things where it's a bond.

You know, you talk about,

well, where have you been with?

It's kind of, you know,

like when you look at people

that go through university and otherwise,

if you get in a program

with someone or otherwise

and you chat to students,

they have the same kind of thing

of like, oh, we're

bonded, this is forged in fire.

Right, right.

Well, and this is the funny thing,

so we were broken, it

was 30 students per class,

and you're in three classrooms.

We were all women except for one guy.

It was very weird too.

It was very, very strange.

That's atypical.

So atypical.

We started with three men, so our

classroom was eight people,

and we attritted two people,

and so the one that was standing left,

or the one that was left standing

had to do 63 weeks with five women.

It was so crazy, and if you know,

I mean, this is not a surprise.

The Arab culture is very--

Opposite.

Very opposite, and so

everything about my initial

coming into the military

was so weird and unique.

Yeah, so I-- That's odd.

It was all, and I am still

friends with those women today.

We want to get together and do things

because, like you were mentioning,

that brotherhood,

sisterhood, it was so intense,

and we are just so close still.

Yeah, so I speak to all of them, so.

So just once a year, get together,

make Turkish coffee, and just--

We usually do a girl's trip somewhere,

so we'll go to

Nashville, or we're a little--

Gotcha.

We'll let Lucy, but I don't know.

I'm not talking about that, me.

Let's leave that for another podcast.

I want Turkish coffee, but you know,

you get to go how you like.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, good Turkish coffee.

That's what we do.

Yeah, no liquid

courage or anything involved.

Yeah, none of that,

never in an area drive.

Very lady-like, very lady-like.

Very lady, very.

(both laughing)

So anyway.

Oh, goodness.

So let's ask, during your service,

what's one of those

things where you are so,

so wonderfully glad that smartphones

were not present to record?

Gosh, in the military--

I just watched it happen.

I just watched the

inside of your mind go,

"Oh, gosh." Oh my God, so many times.

So, okay.

So in the military, especially back then,

it was work hard, play hard,

and out of the gate, like I said,

we were very, our

strings were tight at DLI.

Unlike any other technical school,

everybody who's a linguist

is the very, very least amount

of time your technical school would be,

I think it's six months, but

I might even be wrong on that.

It might be like eight

months, and that would be Spanish.

So when you finally didn't

have to be so regimented,

and that's months into this course,

people played very hard.

Monterey is fun, the

weather's beautiful, it's California.

I was not far from my friends,

who were all in

universities throughout the Bay Area.

So I'm glad there was

no cell phones around.

And I do, I'll have to full disclosure,

I was one of those DLI marriages,

so I met my husband there.

Oh wow.

Well, we're divorced now,

so that shows you the success of it.

Maybe we can blame the pressure.

It was just too much pressure.

Too much pressure, yes.

And we were older,

because I was 21, he was 23.

That was old, right,

for a technical school.

We were so worldly and knowledgeable,

and we were right for each other.

So that's all good and fine.

But for all those

reasons, there was a lot of,

not a lot of downtime,

but when there was downtime,

we definitely worked hard, played hard.

So glad there are no cell phones

that could go back to my

commander, or you know.

Anything you were at liberty to say.

(laughing)

One standout story, something fun.

And we were not, oh

gosh, okay, do not do this

if anybody's listening in the military.

(laughing)

Listen, kids, listen, kids.

Listen, kids, and

remember digital cameras

and things like that were not prolific.

So we were in dorms,

even after we got married,

we didn't get to move

off base for a while.

And so we would sneak

into the different barracks.

I was in the Air

Force, he was in the Army.

We would go into each other's rooms.

You were not allowed to do that.

And you would be so,

that would be career ending.

In tech school, that

would be career ending.

Did you get caught though?

No, we did not.

See, listen, this is the thing.

It's easier to ask

forgiveness than permission.

You go like, didn't get caught though.

Definitely, definitely.

And it's been so long, so

what's the rule of time?

Oh, statute of limitations.

I think we've hit it.

I'm not even, yeah, so.

We didn't get any awards there.

So there's nothing to take away.

Yeah.

So nearing the end of your service,

what drove your decision to retire?

This is another interesting story.

Okay, so with enlisted, you

enlist and then you unlist

and then you enlist.

Unlike officers,

which you have like a

basically an open-ended contract

and then you resign or you just retire.

So I enlisted, I came in with four years.

I was gonna do four years and get out.

They convinced me to sign

up for six with a bonus.

So I had six years and then six months

before your 12 years, they come back

and they ask you if you

wanna re-enlist again.

I was going to re-enlist.

However, this is at the

time where we had been in Iraq.

So this was 2006.

Sure.

We had rotated through so

many of our active reserves

and the Department of

Defense came together

with the Department of the

Air Force, Army, Navy, Marines

and said, okay, we can't

rotate anybody else out.

Who can we get?

And they said, go to Intel.

Those people can learn like this.

They're all so smart.

They can do it.

They said, okay, well, let's

go to the Arabic linguists.

So at this time, I was actually

at the National Security Agency.

I was one of five Sudanese linguists

in the entire intelligence community

working a really important mission.

If you remember Darfur

was high with the genocide

at the time.

Terrorists were, it was through Sudan.

I was working for a mission.

My commander called me in,

maybe stand outside his

office for like 45 minutes

at attention waiting

for him to let me in.

And he told me, this is six

months before my reenlistment.

And he said, you're going to Iraq.

And I said, great.

I'd love to go to Iraq.

I'm super happy to go to Iraq.

What am I gonna do?

I'm gonna be a linguist, right?

I'm gonna like a translator.

Like, what are you gonna have me do?

And he said, no.

I'm doing code breaking, of course.

That's what I'm here for.

He said, no, you are

going to be logistics.

And I said,

Never done this in my career.

What is that?

And he said, you know, laying tarmac.

I'm like, no, no, no.

I'm a three-three Arabic linguists.

I'm gonna be doing,

surely you need

translators in Iraq, right?

I know gulf, right?

No, that's not what you're gonna do.

I said, what?

So I went home.

I had three days to make the decision about this.

And I was like,

this was supposed to

be a year deployment,

maybe 18 months with some training.

Okay.

So I had to make a decision then.

And if I didn't take this assignment,

I had to, I would not be able to realist.

It was an honourable discharge,

but I had to make a decision.

And I decided, obviously, I decided,

I'm not gonna do that.

Like I'm knee deep in,

and at that time I was meeting

with the State Department regularly.

I was meeting with

intelligence communities.

We were really trying to work,

foreign relations in that region.

And I was one of the few Arabic linguists

that knew that dialect.

And I'm like, this doesn't feel right.

So I was like, no, I'm not gonna do it.

And so then that was the

choice, but listen to this.

This is the best part.

I do so.

The best part of the story.

So I stayed, I'm not re-enlisting.

And that's all fine, right?

I did my time.

Like there's nothing, I was

obligatory to my contract.

Like I did nothing wrong.

When you work at NSA, you

have two chains of command.

You have your Air Force chain of command.

So I was part of that squadron.

And then you have your

NSA chain of command,

which is still military,

but it's inside the building.

You have to sign out like

all the good military stuff.

Everything is a checklist.

You have to checklist,

checklist, checklist.

So I'm checking out of my last office

with my senior enlisted

person in the building.

And he goes, why are you getting out?

Much like your question.

And I said, well, this

is why I'm getting out.

And he said, are you kidding me?

And I said, no.

And he said, we need a

thousand Arabic linguists.

He's like, we're

losing you because someone

wanted you to mop up.

Right, but he said, how

did this not come to me?

They needed Arabic

linguists to deploy to Iraq.

And I was not opposed to like,

and he tried to stop my

getting out of the military.

It was too late.

It was already too late.

Orders were cut.

It was too late.

So I got out.

But in all honesty, like I

mentioned at the beginning,

everything happens for a reason.

So I, what do most

linguists do that work at NSA?

Come right back in the building.

So I came right back in the building.

But now I'm a contractor.

Ah.

I did.

I came in as a contractor at first

because it takes an

inordinate amount of time

to come back in, even if you are sitting

your butt in a desk.

Clearances, clearances,

clearances, clearances.

Cause we don't do, we only

do the counter-intel poly.

We don't do the lifestyle poly for that.

And so there's a whole process.

So I came in as a contractor.

That's another real story too.

I was supposed to be a, hang on.

My life is just a series

of weird things that happen.

And mostly I'm not-

You're just a pinball where you,

you're just a pinball.

You get knocked from

one thing to the other

and you like, say

hello to the change thing.

The process has been good for me.

I trust the process.

So I was supposed to, I was

supposed, this is so funny.

So my contractor job was at the Pentagon.

That is what I was gonna do.

But I was still on a contract.

So contracts, they just

fill you in sometimes.

So I was filling in on a contract

for counter-terrorism at NSA.

Gotcha.

And after a couple of months,

so I was working

actually two contract jobs.

So the contract, the second contract

that I was working in the

meantime came to me and he said,

"I really know that you are so excited

about your Pentagon job

that's starting any day.

But, what if I brought you

on to do this job full-time?"

And I was like, "Okay."

And honestly, in my mind, I'm thinking,

"Months have gone by, this

Pentagon thing has not started.

I don't know when it's gonna start

because contracts are weird."

And that was the beginning of the year.

And so I ended up switching contract jobs

to work counter-terrorism at NSA.

So that was my little weird thing.

So again, it wasn't really,

I thought I would,

oh, also, break, break.

I was trying to go back

to the original thing.

I was applying to USUs.

So I still wanted to be a doctor.

So, there's a school in Bethesda

that is the Uniform

Services Unified Health System.

And you can go be a doctor.

So I was actually in the process of,

that was what I was going to do.

I was gonna stay in,

but not stay enlisted.

I was gonna switch over, be a doctor.

But that whole thing

changed my entire course.

And then I'm like, I'm not staying in.

Sure. And, you know, so.

So funny. Yeah, it's so weird.

Oh my goodness. I don't know.

So we've kind of bridged a few gaps here,

but in the transition,

let's ask it this way.

Yes. When, like,

what was the first moment that you

realized civilian life

would be a little bit different?

So it really, I was very fortunate.

Had I done a different job,

it would have been vastly different.

Sure. It wasn't grossly different

because I came back in

to work counter-terrorism.

But what I will tell

you is a couple of things

were very, very hard.

So not wearing the uniform every day.

The hierarchy was still there

because it's government, public sector.

Sure. But it wasn't as clear.

And when you're in your uniform,

everybody already knows what you do.

They see what your job

is, they see your rank.

It's understood. It's understood.

And it's not understood as a civilian.

We don't wear our grades on our shoulder.

And so, you know, I also

tend to look younger than I am,

which is great, I'm

sure, from an ego perspective,

but from a professional

perspective, it was challenging.

So I was like, people

didn't really know what I was.

Who was the toddler?

Do we trust the toddler?

Right, I was like a toddler.

She's cute and all, but...

Yes, but I had such a big career

and I had worked such important missions

and I had done such important things,

but all of that, I wore inside.

I didn't wear it in my civilian space.

And so, I felt like you were

constantly having to prove,

I had to constantly prove myself again

and again and again.

And so, it was very hard to do that.

And then also, not having,

it's weird because, you know,

like I said, there's a lot of

transition from your friends,

from the military to civilian in NSA.

If they work at NSA,

they're coming back to NSA.

But it's a different friendship.

Like, we didn't bond the same way.

We used to have to PT

together and I was a PTL,

which is, I don't even

know what it stands for,

but I led the PT sessions.

And so, you know,

three, four times a week

we were getting together.

There was just different

things and all of that was gone.

Like the next day it's just gone.

And you're like, oh, I

wanna go PT with my friends.

I wanna go to the chow hall.

I wanna take a class.

Oh, can I go to that

language training with my friends?

No, you can't.

It's all over, it's done.

So finding your, like, even,

and I know I didn't do

20, but I did almost 12.

My entire identity was

wrapped up in the military

at that point, like everything.

And then it was gone.

Like you walk in, then you

come back and you're like,

who am I and what am I doing?

I've talked about this a lot

and it's the way I describe it.

I'll say it for your benefit as well.

It's like a miniature death.

Like you just kind of go

and you go like, what is this?

I had, people understood who I was

and this and everything else.

And exactly like you said,

needing to explain yourself,

I'd say is like a joke that doesn't work.

If you need to explain the

joke, it's not a good joke.

It's not gonna work.

And you have to mourn, you

mourn that, you mourn it.

And even to this day, like it's funny.

I'm not even gonna lie.

Like a couple, maybe six

months ago or something,

I was looking up like,

can I still do reserves?

I was like.

You just need the taste.

You just need a little taste.

I just want to wear the uniform again.

Like it's such a weird thing.

And like, no, do I want

to be back in the military?

No, did I love the grind?

Did I love the weight?

Like they weigh you and they tape you

and they make you exercise.

And did I hate all of that?

Yes, but also you love it.

I don't know.

It's like such a weird thing.

And I'm not kidding you.

I'm like, I guess I'm too

old, but you know, being part,

and again, I was in the

public sector up until 2020.

Being in the public sector

and being in the military

is like a little diaspora of that.

And you miss, it's like, I still miss it.

I mean, I think I'll miss it forever.

I'm so jealous when I watch

people doing parades and stuff.

I'm like, oh, that was such

a horrible, but great time.

Well, see, that's the

thing is like with me,

I've seen and done a

good amount more than,

I've taken people's

share, I'll say it that way.

And when you talk about

exactly like you're talking

about doing parades

and things that are fun,

spinning an M1 wearing

chrome domes and things like that.

And you go like, this is an experience

that not everyone gets to have.

And when you've done those things,

it's just either you get it or you don't.

And you go like, what's a wrist breaker?

And you're like, I'll show you later.

Yeah, yeah.

It's different stuff.

It's so true.

And even, especially now,

like I'm hearing

friends retiring and moving on

and things like that.

And that's the other thing I'm sad about.

I never got to do the

military retirement.

I never got to do some of that stuff.

And I'm like, should I have done it?

Would that have been a better idea?

But hindsight,

although I wouldn't change it.

I don't know, that's the thing.

It's like, I also was very

lucky when our first engagement,

you asked me about some

of this transition stuff.

And I had an amazing military career.

I had an amazing

civilian civil servant career.

So I wouldn't change it, but I miss it.

No, I get it. I get it.

Yeah, you're one of the kind

of few that kind of made it out

clean and made it out unscathed.

The majority of

individuals that depart the military,

it's much, much more raw.

Yeah, it's definitely

consider yourself fortunate that way.

Yeah, I don't envy them.

It would be very hard

to go back to my hometown

and have none of it.

At least I had this

transition into the civil servitude.

So yeah.

It's definitely not always polite.

I'll say it that way.

I know it, I know it, I know it.

So we've kind of come up with,

you've touched on some things that I

already have to ask you

with about identity crisis,

because there's definitely that thing of,

well, I had an insignia on a lapel.

People knew what this meant and I don't.

So we've kind of touched on that.

Were there any things that

didn't translate so well,

or like things that

you needed to unlearn?

Things I needed to unlearn.

The hat thing.

The hat?

Yes, your cover.

Indoor, outdoors, who were wearing it?

It was so good.

I'm telling you, it was

like a phantom hat on your head

for years.

I'm not, Meade,

I'm not talking like months.

I'm talking years, because again,

I think it's because I went in

and out of the same buildings

that instant, it was so weird.

You already know you take it off.

You tuck it in the belt, you go in, you

go in about your day.

And I know.

Weird, so weird.

And then sometimes I

found myself saluting people.

So again, remember, I'm

walking the same halls.

I'm going in the same entries.

I'm parking in the same parking lot.

And so you're so, that

stuff is so ingrained into you.

It's literally muscle movement.

And you're like, oh my God,

I'm not wearing a uniform.

Why am I trying to salute this person?

Like, hands down, hey.

This is sort of the same kind of thing

of talking like different branches,

but like I've talked

to lots of individuals

in the same sort of

experience with, you know,

sir and ma'am.

And we've said this and

listen, you call an NCO, sir or ma'am.

Yeah, it's very frowned upon, yes.

You will find out very

quickly, don't do that.

I work for a living!

Yeah, it's true though.

And all of those things,

it's like old habits die hard.

The same kind of thing, like

we've talked about, you know,

being a physician and

otherwise, and you go, well,

what is it to wear a stethoscope?

18 hours a day.

And you go, how many times

you go to a shop and you go,

hey doc, you, oh,

thank you, cheers for that.

And you forget, you

forget the stethoscope on,

you forget all of that stuff

because it becomes part

of the persona, you know,

just is.

So one other thing that's worth noting,

that was very weird.

And it kind of is the reverse

of what I was talking

about earlier, is that people,

leaders are not always the experts.

And you're ingrained in

the military to believe

that the rank

automatically makes you the expert.

And unlearning that was very challenging

because my automatic

response to any leader in the room,

even if they're one grade above me,

was to be so deferent.

And you can't be deferent sometimes,

you have to manage up.

And that was

something that was very hard.

I'm very good at it now,

but it was very hard to

allow yourself to do that.

It was very, that was another very

interesting transition

and very, very necessary for me to learn.

Well, yeah, the hierarchy

thing, again, as you've said,

just because you're

quote unquote, the boss,

doesn't mean that you're good at it.

It just means that

maybe you have seniority,

maybe you've been there,

maybe you are good at, you know,

a handshake and you

talked your way into it.

Right, right.

But the thing is that, you know,

like you get in a room,

like a boardroom with a CEO,

you can put me in and we can chat.

That doesn't mean that

I won't tear you apart.

It doesn't mean that I will.

But the thing is you get to come

and if the expertise is there, great.

The thing that I always find works best

is I treat everyone like

they always know nothing

if they know a tonne.

If we have a

conversation and it goes past that,

we can always fast forward.

Right.

But on my end, I always

feel like it's a failure

if you presume that people know things.

Right.

Because then you can

miss big gaps, you know,

and you go like, oh yeah,

I thought you knew that.

That's a horrible play.

Right, right, right,

it's a horrible play.

So yeah, it's another thing.

There's that.

Well, I will say to the audience,

if you all are loving what

we're doing as much as we are,

be sure to smash that subscribe button.

And here's onto the now.

What is the mission now?

So the mission now is cybersecurity.

I talked a lot about counterterrorism.

I didn't.

With NSA, obviously

communications are at the crux

of everything they do.

And so understanding technology

and how communications

happen, you are automatically, know.

But I was not a cybersecurity person,

but I was an Arabic linguist.

So what happened is,

when I was a civilian

for this transition,

but again, in the public sector,

so you're a civil

servant, that servitude is there.

They were like, you know

Arabic, so you can work Iran.

I was like, except they

speak Persian, not Arabic.

They were much like me in the beginning.

Where do they speak

this foreign language?

So I actually, because

of national priorities,

transitioned to that.

So that's how I got into cybersecurity.

But I told you I'm an academic.

So I went back to school, got my master's

in electrical and computer engineering.

I was really, really

interested in cyber warfare.

So I got a master's

certificate in cyber warfare.

I loved this field, which

totally goes full circle,

because I came from the Bay Area.

So I don't know why I

wasn't, I love cybersecurity

and I didn't know about

it back when I lived there.

Because again. Timing is a thing.

Timing is a thing. It's a thing.

Let's call it. It's a thing.

And it's like, youth

is a weird thing too.

And you think you like something.

So once I was moved over to

cybersecurity, I loved it.

And then I continued

until 2020, like I mentioned.

And then, how do I transition this story?

So I'm gonna be very abridged about it.

That's fine. Because I am very anxious.

But for a long time, I felt

like I was kind of getting

to the end of my career

with regards to cybersecurity.

So 25 years is kind of a point.

30 years is really the magic number.

You wanna be 57, I was nowhere near 57.

But there was this point during COVID,

and I think we all kind of stepped back

and reevaluated things.

I decided to explore

options outside of the government.

Let's put it like that.

Some personal things had happened.

My dad had gotten sick and

I'm just gonna leave it at that.

So I needed to address some family issues

and it really came to

light. Work-life balance

in the public sector.

And how. Gave you that pause.

Yes, and how as long as

you're in the public sector,

military or civil servant,

somebody still controls your life.

And that was the point

where I had decided, okay,

and I had been thinking for a while.

So I'm not saying COVID,

I'm not saying anybody

specifically around that,

but I was like, I'm gonna explore this.

I had a life event like so many of us do,

and it made me take pause,

and I was like, I'm gonna evaluate this.

So I applied.

I had no idea what the

private sector was for hiring.

Holy heck.

It's like they want

you to start yesterday.

Once they decide they want you,

the government is not like that.

It takes forever to

come back in and get a job.

And they were like, within a week,

they wanted me to start

when I made a decision.

Sure.

And I was like, I'm a leader.

I had moved down to

Georgia for this position.

I'm like, I can't just come off of leave

and tell them I'm leaving.

So I did come back from leaving.

I did tell them I was leaving,

and I technically retired early,

so I would deferred retirement.

And, I told them I

would give them 30 days.

And it was the scariest thing

second to leaving the military.

You're like, I've never moved this fast.

These are breakneck speeds.

I don't know what to do here.

And it's funny, but I will tell you,

the military

definitely helps you for this.

It's like, you kind of just

have to make these decisions

on instance in your gut.

And you're just like, okay,

what is my gut telling me?

Is this right?

Is this right?

And then you just do it.

And then you hope and pray.

It was the right decision.

And for me, it was the right decision.

So now I'm

cybersecurity in the private sector.

However, we acquired a

public sector company.

And so I do work a lot

still with the public sector

because I can't stop myself.

It's kind of the mob for you.

Like, you're like, I'm in, it's fine.

We just want you back in there.

So I love my company.

I love cybersecurity.

I do a lot of outreach regarding

cybersecurity for STEM.

It's so important to me,

like next gen

recruitment and next gen interest,

getting bright eyed, bushy tailed people

in the cybersecurity field.

So I'm sure you saw that.

In my resume.

So I continue to do that.

And yeah, so I went to cybersecurity.

I've never looked back.

I don't see myself

changing out of this field.

I think there's a lot

of work to be done here.

And really the public

private partnering is so important.

And I'm trying to like

get that actually working.

We've talked about it for years.

So, yes.

Sure.

So safe to presume

you're going to be next year's

Black Hat Def Con at Lockpick Village

and playing with the kids.

All the companies are so

strict about it though.

So like the only let a couple of people

and because I've done these before,

they don't let you if they go,

if I could pay on my own pocket, I would.

Maybe I will, I don't know.

Well, it all depends on

what you want out of it.

You know, like Black Hat, it's corporate.

It is what it is.

It's party.

The way I describe Def Con though,

it's like, it's keeping up with the kids.

You have the oddballs in

this and everything else,

but they're definitely stories that,

Like I've done private events at both.

And it's different.

Let's just say it that way.

It's definitely like the event.

Those are the two events

you, everybody wants to go to.

Well, here's the wild

thing I'll tell you about me.

It's always, it's the stupidest thing.

And it's always during my birthday.

And it's the hottest time.

I'm dead serious.

Like it's always that.

Yeah.

You're like, where should we go?

And you go, Paradise, Las

Vegas, middle of August.

That sound good to you?

And you're like, no, that

sounds like hell on earth.

And you go, we're going.

Yeah.

And you're like, great, great.

It is, it is,

Everything is sticking to everything.

Everything, yeah.

And it's just hot.

It is.

Yeah.

It's a different spot.

Oh goodness.

So you kind of touched on it,

but like as far as leaving service,

how is your identity,

how you see yourself in the mind's eye,

how has that shifted?

I think that you never stop seeing,

like I'm very proud

to be an American, yes.

But I'm very proud to be a veteran.

I'm still like, I don't know.

I still get sappy and weird about

when they play the

Air Force song or like,

I don't know.

So weird.

And I'm telling you, I do not

come from a military family.

This is not

Sure.

This is something that is a

byproduct of my experience.

I love it.

So I definitely, I'm a proud veteran.

I'm a proud, like, and

my family's so proud.

My mom did not want me to do it,

but oh boy, does she echo my praises,

like anytime she can.

And I think it's because it really did,

I needed the military as

much as it needed me, right?

So they definitely knew they needed me,

they needed linguists,

but I took a lot too.

And so, it is who I am.

I definitely am proud to

share that anytime I can,

which I feel very

fortunate because I do talk to

Vietnam vets who did not

have the same experience.

So I am very grateful for

the way that we are accepted.

And then I've been very fortunate

because my first duty

station was in Texas,

very veteran forward,

Maryland, very veteran forward,

Georgia, very veteran forward.

So I've only ever had

positive experiences,

which again, nothing

but gratitude for that.

And it is who I am.

So I would say I wouldn't be

the same person, obviously,

for all the crazy routes that I took here.

I wouldn't be who I am,

and I wouldn't be the

professional that I am.

And I definitely know for sure

that the military and

the intelligence community

make you a certain kind of worker.

Cause I've even had bosses who are like,

any of your friends, like you want to

come and work for us?

We love your work.

It's great.

So yeah, that's, I mean, it is who I am,

military intelligence.

It is just who I am, yeah.

I love it.

So what, let's say

strengths from service,

do you feel like today

still serve you well?

So definitely working under pressure

without a lot of information.

I think that's why I'm

successful in cybersecurity,

because we never have

all the information,

we have to make decisions.

That is something that it didn't matter

what mission I was working,

that was always, always front of line,

but they teach you again to rely on the

things that you know.

So the information that you have-

Well, you already said instinct,

and like that's

something I teach constantly.

You go, does it feel correct?

Because it does.

Think about it a second time,

step back and think

about it a third time.

And I will tell you, I

think the second part of that

is that there are real world consequences

for decisions that you

make in the military.

Real lives, real people,

real effects for a long time.

So you don't, you are a

more thoughtful person

you are more deliberate.

And I think you can't change that,

that becomes calibrated into your system

to use your calibration.

Hey, I'll take it.

Yeah, and I don't think

you can ever recalibrate that

in people who have had this long,

for instance, my long career.

I don't think you can change it,

like it's just baked

into who I am, so yeah.

Gotcha.

So what advice would you have on offer

for those that are in transition

or are kind of dealing with that world?

Yes, yes.

So trust yourself and

your decisions that you made.

Know that you will be successful.

You just have to go through the journey.

And again, I

definitely totally understand

that I've had it easier than many

because my transition was so similar,

like my environment was so similar,

but I definitely know

that the feelings that I had

are probably similar if

not on different scales.

So I would say, trust the process, go

through the process.

You know who you are,

you will find your space,

remember the things

that you're strong at,

remember your passions,

and you can translate those

into a civil life, a civilian life.

So if you were

passionate about certain things,

just figure out where those are reflected

in civilian life and then find those

and then continue to find your tribe.

Like I said, I meet with my friends

that we went to DLI with, find

that group of similar people,

even if you're totally far

from all of that, and connect.

Like continue to

connect, keep those connections.

And I think that that

really helps with the transition.

Those are my suggestions.

I understand, all great points.

Now I'll ask, what,

for the general populace,

for the civilians, for

those not in service,

what would you like them

to know about veterans?

I'd like them to know

that's a great question.

I would say, really understand the value

of who you're getting

because we really do

give so much of ourselves

and we really do change.

We change on a cellular level.

It's like, so really do

appreciate the sacrifices

that we made, no matter

what that veteran's job was

or what they did.

Understand that it is, you

really truly are giving yourself

for their freedom.

And don't forget that

and just have a little bit

of gratitude, have a

little bit of gratitude

that we were maybe

working on Thanksgiving

while you were enjoying your family

or maybe give a little gratitude.

I'm not asking for like gross praise,

but know that with

veterans lives come sacrifice

and it doesn't matter what

veteran you're talking to,

whether whatever job they

had, there was a sacrifice

that they gave, a sacrifice of

themselves, number one,

a sacrifice to their family, number two

and a sacrifice to their

country and just don't forget that.

I know it can be easy and

to forget as you're talking

to them or as they become a civilian

or maybe they've really adapted to life,

but they still at the end

of the day did something

to ensure your freedom and that's it.

I think just a little gratitude.

Small drum to bang, a to bang on,

I think is a good one to hit.

So let's ask, what is a telly show

or a film that you think,

wow, it's so painfully accurate

that I can taste it or

it's so just ridiculous,

but it just makes you feel something.

What's something like

that that you go like,

oh no, I get this one, that

one works with the military.

Okay, so this is gonna be

so cliche when I say it.

You're gonna be like, what?

But I can't help myself

because it really did resonate with me.

So Homeland, I'm not gonna lie.

I am an intelligence girly

and I work those missions.

And so what am I

gonna say about Homeland?

It was dramatized, 100%.

Not, yes, but what I'm gonna tell you

that resonated with me

were a couple things.

Number one, that

isolationist feeling that she had,

like how her relationships

continued to be affected.

When you work Intel,

and especially when you

work counterterrorism,

you cannot share these

stories with your family.

So there's this sentiment of isolation.

Even if you are surrounded

by tonnes of friends and family,

you still feel very secluded.

Number two was just the grand enormity

of what she was doing.

Every day that I was

working that particular mission,

just the moral

ambiguity and the criticality

of consequences of what you were doing

and the importance of

not only lives saved,

but lives potentially lost,

were all things that resonate in this.

And they did get that right.

They got that

sentimentality really, really accurate.

The part where you

have to make decisions,

again, on instinct in your gut,

when you don't have all the information,

that was the daily grind for me.

Things they got wrong,

which maybe you were gonna ask.

Oh, I, look, this is your show, dear.

Oh my gosh. You get to tell

how you like. So,

nothing is ever a solo flyer.

There's no singular

person that can ever do that.

And everything that we

do is based on teamwork.

And team is... They always do this.

You know that, like where they go,

when they say non-official cover,

and like, "Oh, what

does a NOC look like?"

And you go, "Not what you really think."

Right, right, correct.

So, they got that wrong.

There's no beautiful blonde girl who--

It just doesn't happen like that.

And again, the other

thing that cracked me up,

some of it they got right, some they got wrong,

the government does not move fast

in any capacity on anything.

So, this stuff where you're like,

"No, that's not gonna happen."

Have you heard of our

good friend Paperwork?

Let me introduce you. Yes, yes.

Let me introduce you to Paperwork.

Let me introduce you to the lawyers.

Let me introduce you to ethics.

So, there wasn't, that cracked me up.

I wish we could move at

that speed of Homeland.

That was awesome.

But we didn't have a plot, devised.

And we, at the end of the day,

what we were trying to

do is save human lives

and Americans and allies.

But I did love it.

I was so, I did not,

I'm gonna fully disclose,

I did not watch it for a long time.

I did not watch it until I deployed.

And then I had downloaded

a bunch of it on my iPad

and I was like, "Oh my God."

I was just like so hungry for that show.

It was so crazy.

You just binge watched the whole thing.

You're like, "This is me."

I know, it's so funny.

And I actually was at an

embassy in a foreign country,

the Middle East one.

And there was a girl there.

I swear she was her.

I'm like, "You are the Homeland girl.

"Like, that is you."

So Homeland, I know, so cheesy.

So cheesy, but it's so

cliche for me to say it,

but I loved it.

I loved it.

No, no, that works great.

Oh goodness.

Well, Lorri, thank

you so much for coming.

And finally, for

those looking to connect,

where is best to find you?

I'm really on LinkedIn a lot.

And can I just say a

little plug for LinkedIn?

Oh, can I talk about one tiny transition?

Coming out of the clear world.

Yeah, coming out of having a clearance.

When I transitioned

to the private sector,

it was like the world opened up to me.

Because I couldn't,

we were not allowed to

post on social media.

La, la, la, la, you can't do anything.

Now I love LinkedIn.

I love LinkedIn.

So I'm on LinkedIn, I love to write.

Like I told you, I am an academic.

I'm always reading and

I always have something

to say about something.

And so I love to, I love LinkedIn.

I don't know.

It's like the greatest thing

that was ever invented for

Well, you've been in

a bottle for 20 years

and you're like, I get to

say hello to people now.

I do.

So, and the other thing,

the other way I use that

platform is to connect to students

and to connect to next gen.

And I tell them every

single event that I'm at,

like connect with me here.

Like don't be afraid.

I know it really tells you to connect.

Your biggest asset in your career

is gonna be your networking circle.

So connect.

Reach out to people, cold call them.

I think that's how we connected.

Like it's so people who are passionate

and love their career,

especially those of us who

can now like talk and share it

are like, come, come into my world.

I will share what I

can and I will do that.

So LinkedIn is probably the easiest way

to get a hold of me.

All day every day.

All day every day.

I'm always on it.

Well, to all of you,

thank you so much for

coming on the journey.

We have lots of new stories coming soon.

And for those of you that would like to

support the channels,

oh, well, the effort,

if you will, directly,

be sure to join The Tribe on Patreon.

Cheers all.