What are some things you wish you knew before becoming an Army intelligence officer?

Intelligence Corps has been now a combat support arm. Few vacancies are allotted for Int Corps in IMA/OTA, but to fulfill shortfall in vacancies, there is a provision by which officers from all arms and services with 4–5 years of service can get reverted to Intelligence Corps. The officers and other ranks of Int Corps are trained in MITSD, Pune for int courses. Officers are trained in courses like ISOC, BICO, ICO, FICO etc.

For officers of other arms and services getting reverted to Int Corps, there is no basic qualification or experience fixed as criteria by the organisation, only aptitude and flair for int duties, but in reality, majority of officers gets reverted to Int Corps out of frustration, negilgence and harassment they face in their units, especially Infantry and Arty units .

Few attractions of Int Corps. An officer can wear civil dress throughout as per the occasion during his tenure with Int units. But, he must carry his I card always. Manpower and vehicle are very few, not more than 8–10 men and a JCO in a detachment. Only one light vehicle authorised to an Int detachment. The appointment of officers starts from IO (Int Officer) to OC, det, CO unit etc depending on size of units.

There are peace time based units like LU (Liaison Unit), and Field units like IFSU and CIU. In addition, Field formations have their own dedicated int units like I & FS Companies, and other classified units. In overall, an int officer will have shortage of manpower, vehicles and will be performing only Int based duties in Field and Peace unit's and formations. For higher staff, he would be posted in the Int branch like Col(int), Brig (int) etc, but he can forget postings in the Operations, SD & WE, GS and MS branch etc.

I will not be dwelling upon the tasks and duties of an Int Corps officer. I think I have adequately explained in my previous answers. In my short stay with Int Corps, I was an IO, OC unit and a Data Evaluator with WEU ( Sig Int unit). And, I underwent No of Int courses in Pune. I didn't have any flair for int work, but got reverted to Int Corps in 1992. The point is, I didn't get a good Inf unit, although Inf was never my choice, on my commissioning. Then readers will say, no units are good or bad, but officer's make them so. This is very true at least in my case. But, I must say, during the latter part of my career with TA, my experience with Int Corps was of tremendous help , during my assignment of Coy Cdr of H&H Company at Poonch. I was never found wanting, and I produced such a good work that even today, I relish it.