I thought I might write a brief history of my journey through my CCIE adventure. I decided to break it up into 2 parts. My planning, and testing through the Professional level exams on the first part and my actual testing and trials once I decided to take the CCIE Written exam.
Based on 3 years of experience in the USMC, in early 2001 I decided to start getting certified for my eventual End of Active Service (EAS) about 1 year away. I laid out my path and my plan and set forth towards my eventual goal of getting my zip code.
At this point I was part of a Communications Company that ran operational exercises. When I was personally not on these military operations, I had a good amount of free time prepping my these operations. In addition, without and operation, there was equipment to be used as well. I spent this time stacking Cisco 2501 routers on my desk, (yes I was one of the few that had a desk) interconnecting them and began to experiment, test and run through all the labs that I could while having online and book resources with me.
I had heard that the VA would reimburse certification exams through the GI Bill, so I looked into covering the Cisco exams in this manner. When I started my exam path they had not approved Cisco exams, but instead had mostly Microsoft exams on the approved list. I decided that an email campaign was in order. I created an email template and saved it to my desktop stating my argument for Cisco exam inclusion to the approved list. Over the next 4 months, every morning when I came into work, I would open the email template and send it to the VA.
First up on the certification block was the CCNA. I studied and on April 26 2001 I passed the CCNA exam. I moved from the CCNA to the CCDA exam and took that roughly 1 month later. Based on my studies and experience I remember thinking that this was the easy part, and I certainly expected to pass both of these tests without much trouble. Now I was ready to get to work on the 4 CCNP exams.
Since I knew I was schedule to leave September 15th for Egypt on an joint exercise, I planned to take what I could in August of 2001. That coupled with the fact of being a reasonably poor individual with 2 kids, I decided to take my stab at the triple threat, since it was cheaper. 200 for the combined test versus a total of 300 for each test individually. This was the Foundations bundled test set that you could take at the time that included Routing, Switching, and Remote Access exams of the CCNP series. Not much was available at that time about the test. In the end it turned out to be like testing all 3 tests separately just at the same time than 1 bundled test. It had 3 sections of questions, 1 for each exam, and you received a separate score for each section. A failing score on any of the 3 sections failed the test. This is information I only found out once I sat down and read the instructions of the test itself, so I was a little surprised. I did however pass all 3 sections which left me only 1 test left to achieve CCNP status. It was shortly after this that I actually received a reply to one of my VA emails stating that the Cisco exams were in the process of being added, and that once I saw them added I should submit all Cisco exams I had taken so far in addition to future exams.
We started a workup exercise a week or so before we were supposed to leave for Egypt. This is a time where the different units meet out in a field with tents, and simulate the exercise. We connected all of the IT systems to make sure everything worked before deployment. On of these days was a very late day for me getting everything to work, so I decided to lay down in one of the tents about 3am to get some sleep. I was actually awoken by some other Marines watching TV screaming about planes crashing into buildings and that we had been attacked. I didn't believe it at first, but groggily walkedd over to check it out. Of course this was September 11th, 2001 and the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. The rumor had it, that we may be shifting our immediate exercise to Afghanistan and be the first military force on the ground there. This did not happen and we executed our joint exercise as planned while the powers that be planned their Afghanistan deployment. We were in Egypt from mid Setptember through mid November, which is a another interesting story all by itself, and I will post it here at some point.
Upon returning from Egypt I spent an amazing weekend in Las Vegas with soem friends. Again another story that will have to be posted here at some point. Then the Sunday after Thanksgiving we immediately left for 29 Palms for more military exercises. Once things are set up in the field exercises, the networkers job is fairly relaxed. The first 2 or 3 days of any deployment, forward jump, or operational movement are extremely hectic, but after that it provides a lot of time for study. Knowing this; even before going to Egypt I scheduled my 4th and final CCNP exam for just after my return from 29 Palms on December 21, 2001. I passed the Support test, and had achieved my CCNP goal.
Since, I figured I would not be able to take my CCIE Written or Lab before my EAS, I turned my attention towards the CCDP. The fact that only 1 other test, CID, was different from the CCNP exam track, and the fact that the VA finally approved Cisco exams for the GI Bill reimbursement certainly contributed to this decision. I ended up passing the Design exam in March of 2002, a couple months before my End of Active Service.
I always found the best combination for me to study and learn, was hands on equipment doing labs, while reading about the technologies, and having the experience that comes from both aspects working toegther. Tomorrow I will write about the remainder of the journey from CCIE written to CCIE lab completion and being assigned CCIE# 16921
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