One that I keep coming back to again and again is “Imitation Game” (2014). http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2084970/?ref_=nv_sr_1

I saw this film after an assignment in INSCOM and it really resonated with me just how much dialogue strikes the nitty-gritty of intelligence work. I think most people focus on the cool guy persona with having a higher security clearance, but with power comes responsibility, and that is true for intelligence ops, too.

Two scenes of note:
“Keeping it a secret” – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qdfp5Za0XVg
— In this scene, the team has cracked enigma and finds out that if they take immediate action to protect lives, then they will actually cause greater harm to the British in the long run. These scene reminds me of the importance of rotating your frame of reference between macro & micro. There are times when you have to make decisions based on an individual’s needs, and other times it is detrimental to do so.

“Wonderful War Together”

— A British Intel Agent tricks the protagonist into telling a secret, which the agent then uses as leverage against the protagonist. The agent says, “I know a lot of spies. You’ve got more secrets than the best of them”. When I saw this in theaters, most people laughed that the character got punked; I was shocked! This was violation of trust, manipulation…was it for good causes? ‘Good enough’ causes? Maybe you’d say it was for the best cause? It’s another dirty side of war that is usually given a sexy spin and not a human(e) spin. Also, the quote about secrets really hits me, having spent a lot of time as an S1. As an S1, you learn so many secrets, so much about so many people, why leaders want to do certain things and not others (or not) and why. You see how someone is in their office vs. in front of troops vs. in front of peers vs. with their family. You have to grapple with the idea if this is healthy or practical (or both?), or this is a good example or a bad example? How do you stay as a good Follower when you see the tricks of the Leader and maybe have moral issues with them? And among all of this, you will work with people who know you have these secrets and will try to charm, bride, or beat them out of you with rank. How do you handle that? Do you have a choice? Does it really even matter if no-one finds out and everyone has PCS’d? What if it helps someone get a job for career progression? But at the cost of someone else’s job?