Companies nationwide are demanding more retired first sergeants and sergeants major with skills backed by a prestigious online homeland security degree, sources confirmed this morning.

In a move to show how sought-after the skills encompassed in educational backgrounds such as counterterrorism, homeland security, and national defense studies really are, thousands of companies across the U.S. have told reporters they would hire graduates immediately, without even so much as an interview.

"If you have one of these degrees, it is in such high demand right now. We need these skills today, not tomorrow," said Bill Putnam, a hiring manager for McDonalds in Mobile, Alabama.

In particular, sources said, companies are looking not only for veterans with distinguished educational backgrounds, but those who possess appealing skills, like the ability to write and read boring paperwork, interests in meaningless and mundane tasks, and near-psychotic obsession with making sure people don't walk on grass.

"Basically, anyone above E-7 is really a no-brainer," said Paul Easton, a recruiter for Comcast, who went on to clarify 'no-brainer' applied to hiring senior-enlisted service members, and had nothing to do with them being total idiots.

While much of the hiring craze has fallen upon senior-enlisted members, junior troops can also set themselves up for success by joining an online university and copying-and-pasting answers from Wikipedia onto their exams like everyone else, sources said.

"If there's one thing we need here, it's folks who can research and help implement national security strategy through cursory web searches," said Ted Smith, a CIA analyst who found satellite imagery of Iraq's mobile weapons labs on Google Maps in 2001, shortly after Saddam Hussein crashed planes into the Twin Towers. "I would just tell these folks to go and apply on USA Jobs and we'll call you immediately in six to eight months."