My two cents: if you feel that you would benefit from having maneuver branch / tactical level experience as a way to gain an understanding to the audience that you will be supplying intelligence to later as an MI officer, then I would encourage you to branch detail so you can gain that experience. If being an infantry grunt doesn’t make your hair stand on end (even if its ‘only for 4 years’), then don’t do it just because you think it might be “in the interest of your career.” If the Intelligence mission knocks your socks off and you can’t wait to dive into the fighting the good fight from the perspective of conducting enemy analysis, pattern recognition, and solving puzzles (i.e. – what is the enemy really doing?), then go ‘pure MI’. That all being said, I’m a believer that you’re product of your choices, so choose what you want to do and invest in it. Any way you choose, you’re still going to have to bust your ass to be competent, much less skilled. It’s going to reading doctrine off hours, staying sharp on operational terms and graphics, reading professional dialogue. I’ve met pure MI guys who can smoke branch detailed MI guys because they just put more effort into their work. So that’s what I’d say is the takeaway: do what others don’t want to do today so you can do what they consider impossible tomorrow. It’s a corny phrase, but I’ve found it to be true.

Also there’s a lot of misconceptions about the differences that exist across different MACOMS, and that is especially true from INSCOM to FORSCOM. The short story is that these two MACOMs have different missions and cultures. While the FORSCOM mission is cyclical and mostly predictable, the INSCOM mission is non-stop and not predictable. Life in FORSCOM revolves around training > recovery > plan for next training (replace training with escalation of training to CTC rotation and / or deployment, as necessary). Yes, there are other requirements that rotate with a Red/Amber/Green tasking cycle, but for the most part life is predictable (epitomized by the fact that there even IS a R/A/G cycle), even though that predictability includes on and off deployments and lots of field time. Likewise, the INSCOM mission is 24 hrs, 365. You will always have Soldiers doing their job every hour and day of the year. For further example, while there will be a leave plan in place, Block Leave to the extent in a FORSCOM unit is laughable in INSCOM. The mission just cannot support it. I’ve worked in both MACOMs, been smoked with OPTEMPO in both, supported deployments in both, and was given far more responsibility that I anticipated in both. Both have their challenges and their frustrations. But again, it comes down to the choices you make, and how you respond to them.