Glen “Scott” Sheppard
Glen “Scott” Sheppard: From Draft Notice to Warrant Officer, Then a Second Career in Defense Tech
Glen Scott Sheppard—who goes by Scott—was born in New Jersey, moved early to upstate New York, and then at age six settled in Reading, Massachusetts (outside Boston). That’s where he grew up: Red Sox and Patriots fan, college at UMass Amherst, and then two years as a high school teacher.
Then Vietnam-era reality caught up with him.
He received the letter—“Greetings, you have been selected”—because the war was still going on. He’d had a student deferment in college, but after he graduated and started teaching, the system essentially said: you’re not in school anymore.
So Scott did what a lot of smart people did in that moment: he wanted some choice in how it would happen.
“I want a little choice in this matter.”
He went to the recruiting office. Air Force, Navy, and Marines were closed that day—the Army office was open. He met Sergeant First Class Posege (a name Scott never forgot), and the conversation changed his trajectory.
Posege saw “college grad” and offered something that sounded unreal:
Monterey, California — the Defense Language Institute.
Scott admits languages were his weakest subject—he barely made it through French in high school and at UMass—but he took the shot anyway. He went to DLI and studied Russian.
That single decision pulled him into Military Intelligence.
Turkey: intercepting Russian voice traffic
After DLI, Scott got orders to Turkey, one of only three from his class to go there. He was stationed in Karamürsel (across the Sea of Marmara; he lived in Yalova, about a ferry ride from Istanbul). His job: voice intercept operator—listening to Russians on the radio and doing intelligence work because Turkey borders Russia.
He went in with zero intention of making the Army a career.
That changed fast.
Family responsibilities and the first reenlistment
While in training, he met his first wife. They married in San Antonio, and she had two children. Now Scott wasn’t just thinking about “two years and I’m out”—he had a family to support.
In Turkey, the Army offered roughly $10,000 to reenlist. With responsibilities on his shoulders, that sounded like stability. He reenlisted for five years, with a deal to return to language school for intermediate Russian.
Next stop: Augsburg, Germany.
“Tracer Round”: the project that became his peak challenge
In Germany, Scott was selected for a special project called Tracer Round—a small team (he says only 13 men originally) doing high-end work. He shifted from pure linguist work to traffic analysis and cryptanalysis, exploiting Soviet artillery and surface-to-surface missile communications.
The mission was urgent and technical:
Prove you could detect and interpret their comms before launch
For missiles, you might have ~20 minutes from “launch position” to firing sequence
They pushed for location accuracy tight enough to be actionable—he cites ~50 meters, “targetable” accuracy
The end goal: support divisions/corps with actionable warning and counterfire potential
Scott describes it as his most challenging—intellectually and mentally—and also the most fun. He also notes institutional friction: the NSA wasn’t thrilled because the team improved (and effectively rewrote) NSA working aids, making “higher” organizations look behind the curve. Scott’s view of “tactical” was division and below—not “corps and above.”
In short: his team proved something mattered, even if the larger system didn’t fully embrace it afterward.
Fort Huachuca: instructor, course developer, and technical innovator
After Germany, Scott went to Fort Huachuca (jokingly called “Fort We-got-you”), the Army’s MI center and school at the time. He taught across the pipeline:
Basic and advanced officer classes
Advanced NCO courses
Several enlisted MI MOS courses
Then he took over a project with a title only the Army could love:
Signal Parametric Analysis of Potential Critical Nodes.
In plain terms: analyzing combinations of signals (often radar and communications) to identify units by their equipment “fingerprint,” and helping build the database to support that identification.
During this period he divorced and remarried.
Defense Intelligence College and the Warrant Officer pivot
Scott and his second wife both got selected for the Defense Intelligence College in Washington, DC (Anacostia area). By then he was a Sergeant First Class, selected for Master Sergeant—about 11–12 years into service.
Then came the big fork in the road: warrant officer.
He was offered a jump—skip W1 and start as Chief Warrant Officer 2 (CW2). He evaluated it like a professional: retirement math. A CW3 at 20 years, he learned, retires roughly comparable to a Sergeant Major. He chose the warrant path—because he was committing to a career and warrant aligned with how he worked: technical expertise, training, systems, and operational integration.
Warrant Officer assignments: collection, analysis, and training the force
From there the story becomes a tour through serious units and roles:
Fort Belvoir, Virginia area: Army combat development work, helping develop the All Source Analysis System (ASAS)—early automation of collection, fusion, and reporting that later evolved into more robust intelligence systems.
9th Infantry Division: Division collection manager in the G2, then moved to 109th MI Battalion running technical control and analysis.
Back to Germany: 1st Armored Division in Ansbach—which he calls the best unit he served in. As a warrant officer in the technical control and analysis element, his job was to train enlisted soldiers, ensure technical excellence, and keep the mission functioning. He explains warrant officer identity clearly: the technical experts (from food service techs to aviators).
224th Aerial Exploitation Battalion in Savannah, Georgia, supporting XVIII Airborne Corps: fixed-wing assets, tasking collection, receiving reports, analysis, and reporting back out.
He retired after 22 years as a Chief Warrant Officer 3 (CW3).
His logic for retiring is clean and strategic: he could probably promote further (CW4/CW5 existed by then), but he didn’t want to start civilian life in his early 50s. He chose to pivot while still in his early-to-mid 40s.
Second career: Electrospace → Lockheed Martin → British program
His Army experience translated directly into defense industry work:
Electrospace Systems (Richardson, Texas): hired specifically because engineers needed someone who understood how intelligence/electronic warfare systems are actually used in the field. He worked heavily with software teams, building analytical aids for operators—helping shape the product around real workflows.
Lockheed Martin (Owego, New York): after Lockheed won production, he moved to support the expanded program (Army + Marine Corps). He describes writing concept documents that define what a system must do, while engineers translate that into how it’s done.
A British line of effort emerged: the British Army and Marine Corps became interested, and Scott ended up working on a related system for the UK—another example of operational credibility turning into international defense work.
RV life: Alaska and the long loop
At 55, Scott retired again—this time from Lockheed—because his wife wanted to go RVing. They sold the house, bought an RV, and full-timed nearly three years, including:
East Coast down
West through Texas to California
Up through Canada to Alaska (noting it’s ~2,000 miles from the Vancouver area to Alaska—“nothing but fir trees”)
Back down through North Dakota (visiting Fargo)
Looping back to New York to see friends, staying a month or more in many places
He says bluntly: he wishes they’d never stopped.
The principle he carried forward: “Accomplish the mission.”
When asked what the Army formed in him through decades, his answer is the purest military distillation:
Accomplish the mission.
That becomes the through-line: from choosing a path after a draft notice, to mastering a hard language, to high-end SIGINT/analysis work, to training soldiers, to building systems in industry.
His advice to young people: the military is bigger than combat
Scott’s guidance is practical and modern:
Talk to multiple recruiters, not just one branch
Start with your interests; the military includes nearly every trade and profession (welders, aircraft mechanics, analysts, etc.)
He gives a concrete success example: his nephew learned diesel engine work as a tanker, did one enlistment, got hired by Caterpillar, and was making strong money in his early 20s
He emphasizes travel, maturity, focus—how veterans in college were “more mature” and goal-driven than most 18-year-olds
He’s explicit that women in MI were every bit as capable as the men; upper-body strength limits some roles, but countless jobs don’t require it
Closing message: love, permission to fail forward
At the end, speaking to his family—three stepsons, daughter Tanya, grandkids and great grandkids—his message is simple and human:
I love you
Go for it
Don’t be afraid to make mistakes—you learn from them
God bless you all