Pros
The United States Army is a necessary evil in launching a career in the Intelligence realm, it will provide a very rudimentary skill set as an analyst and a top secret clearance. With the luck of a deployment you can become setup for more interesting analytical work in homeland security.
Cons
Intelligence professionals can expect to be treated like combat arms soldiers 24/7. This often prevents the analyst from being able to accomplish his/her job. This causes most intelligence analysts to become seriously dissatisfied with their work early on in their career and 90% of them do not reenlist or return to the army after making the rank of SGT (E5). Because of the large attrition rate the upper ranks of military intelligence is composed of reclassed combat arms soldiers (non-MI). These soldiers often lack the very basics of analytical work which should be learned during their time as lower enlisted. Which builds a work force of frustrated non commissioned officers who have no clue what they are doing and often times no interest in doing, perpetuating an environment of stress which is abrasive to the critical thinking necessary to successfully complete intelligence work. Intelligence officers are often so far removed from what is actually being created as intelligence products that they are often ineffectual as well. Ultimately, what you get is intelligence sweat shops where soldiers with little rank produce 95% of the work while under the scrutiny and time lines of senior leadership who have no real clue on what it takes to produce those products. In addition to an extremely malnourished work environment, senior leadership do not understand nor care what it takes to properly train and encourage career growth in their "underlings." I can't speak for other specialties but the MI world has become a perpetual cesspool which one unfortunately has to take a swim in before being able to move on to bigger and better worlds of opportunity in the Intelligence Community.
