Good Morning,
I am pleased and honored to be your graduation speaker today.
I’m hopeful that I wasn’t selected because you figured that an
old guy would be glad to be invited back to Bragg and not afraid to mess up a
long weekend.
I asked your Faculty what I should talk about and they suggested
that I should give you a little insight as to how things were in the ‘old days’
and how they are different today.
Seemed like a reasonable place to start, so here goes.
My first PSYOP assignment was in 1989 when I became the FD
Team Chief at the 7th PSYOP Group at the Presidio of San Francisco.
Don’t bother trying to figure out the acronym, it doesn’t stand for anything.
The FD team was an Intelligence Team assigned to the Group – we were kind of
like the market research department for the Ops people. A mini SSG if you will.
We were mostly on our own and as I recall assembled files,
you know the papers in folders that went into metal cabinets. From there I
served as Group XO, S2 and S3.
The highlight of the S3 experience was working then COL
Altshuler on the quarterly USRs. To put it in historical context for you, the
object of the game was to report the Unit’s Readiness on forms that were
derived from punched cards. This lasted several days each quarter and could be
compared to a long visit to the dentist.
In 1994 I was appointed CDR of the 12th PSYOP BN.
A position I served in for four years including a tour in Sarajevo which I
called my semester abroad. As it turns out my time at the SFOR NATO HQ was very
much of a graduate education in working with senior European Executives.
My last PSYOP assignment before retiring was as an IO at
SOCOM where my main job was to act as a grumpy Colonel and ask really smart ass
questions of 04s and 05s who were going to brief a certain very hostile GO.
I was elected as Honorary Colonel of the PSYOP Regiment in
2003 and served until October 2010.
I started the PSYOP Regimental Blog in 2007. Since that time
I have made 325 posts and received 393 comments and over 100,000 page views.
With that as background –
How was the Regiment back then?
The Regiment, to be candid, was a bit like the North and the
South during the 1860s, admittedly a bit of an exaggeration, but the AC and the
RC just didn’t play well together. Up till that point there just didn’t seem
any way that the two components were going to admit they were in the same
business.
This changed quite a bit during the Command tenure of Colonel
Jeff Jones at the 4th POG, he and my boss, COL Altshuler got along
very well, this filtered down through the staffs and the relationship between the components
flourished. I still remember one trip to Bragg where I was called out of a planning
conference to go to the “Green Ramp”. I was quite surprised to find that it was
neither green nor a ramp and actually looked like a Greyhound bus terminal in
Fresno, CA.
My sister AC BN, the 8th POB was being sent to
Somalia and the CDR, LTC Chris St. John wanted a few words with me and
presented me with his coin. Needless to say my stomach felt a bit queasy as
their plane took off.
Today all y’all need to be very certain that you are one team
and in the same business. When you hit the field you will be judged as a part
of MISO community whether you’re AC or RC so hopefully you can all do the job
up to the same standard.
This is a bit of a commercial for SWC, our proponent. The
doctrinal notion of earmarking one unit for supporting one type of force and
another for a different force is a bunch of crap.
Added this from the DOD ESGR Briefing: 2014: The New Normal:
Bottom line = The new fiscal and security
environment requires the Services to reexamine their AC/RC mix and how they can
best utilize their RC. Given the fiscal and budgetary pressures, it is clear
that the RC will continue to be utilized as an operational force.
The overall force is shrinking, unless of course there’s
another Iraq or Afghanistan, so that assignments will likely be made ‘for the
good of the service’ and each of the serving force will need to be skilled to
do the job without regard to who their original unit of focus may have been.
In 1997 I arrived in Sarajevo on my 51st birthday
with my first active duty ID card since 1970. Working as an American officer in
an alliance is a special calling. I don’t believe everyone is suited for it,
but rest assured many of you will get that opportunity.
Officers in particular have to be more adept at working with
other nations now and beyond. You will find that working with your peers is a
very rewarding experience and you’ll be surprised that you’re more alike than
you thought. A bunch of us 05s would get together over coffee and talk about
how our Colonels all wanted to be generals and how they would suck up to all
the stars they can find.
I’m sure that’s very different today …….
In terms of the profession of MISO, outside of the
technology, I don’t believe all that much has changed.
For confirmation I sought some input from one of the great
PSYOP Historians, Herb Friedman, Curator of PSYWAR.org.
Herb made a few key points that I would like to share with
you:
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It never hurts to tell the truth.
·
You are a force multiplier.
·
Generals as Schwarzkopf have practically said that victory
would be much more difficult without you.
·
Combat commands are suspicious and will want immediate
results.
·
Be sure you level the expectations.
·
PSYOP is like water
dripping on a rock.
·
Targets must be prepared, carefully nurtured and eventually
they can be taken.
·
There are no miracles, just hard work that will eventually
influence both neutrals and enemy targets and save lives.
Let me offer a few more comments.
To coin the common phrase, we are in the era of the strategic
NCO.
Future MISO will mean that NCOs in particular will shoulder
more responsibility and have to function far more independently than ever
before.
You will need to know when to employ technology and when to
use your gut. As the people who get the job done, you have to master both
hard and soft skills. You will need to know how to take and edit video on the
fly then craft the proper words in the right dialect with the right nuance to
reinforce the video to accomplish your MISO mission.
And you may have to pick out which person in the village is
the right one to talk to.
Officers have the unenviable task of managing up. This means
you need to work through your chain of command with a high degree of concern
for your troops and an extra measure of common sense.
You need to determine how to carry out the OpOrder in the most
effective, yet safest way and you need to raise your hand if you think there
are major issues that need to be addressed prior to launch.
The day of easily identifiable enemy forces is over. Influence
operations by their very nature are not all directed against uniformed enemy
forces. Part of the challenge of future MISO is to focus your efforts on
those targets that make sense.
I used to categorize targets for senior officers using their
favorite system: Red, Yellow & Green. Green targets were those
individuals and groups that were already pre-disposed to our efforts.
The Yellow Group was the most important target. They were the
people who either hadn’t made up their mind or who could be influenced to see
things our way.
The Red Group are those targets that would be better served by
UAVs because their minds are made up, they don’t engage rationally and are
totally committed.
Next I would like to broach a topic that is often ignored in
places like SWC and that is the role of women in MISO. I sometimes say that
when I come to Bragg, my IQ goes down, but my testosterone goes up.
It is ridiculous to ignore the obvious and that is women are a
key component of most target audiences and clearly a prominent factor in
today’s battlefield. We need to ensure that our MISO ranks include women who
can relate to target audiences and function effectively as NCOs and officers.
Let me leave you with this thought – today is the 150th
anniversary of Pickett’s charge in the Battle of Gettysburg. Like some of you
I have been to the bottom of that hill and while I’m not an infantry guy, it
was pretty clear to me that charging up that hill was not a really good idea.
How do you think that battle might have turned out if the
defenders on Cemetery Ridge heard the loud noises that artillery fire and rebel
yells from large masses of troops coming up their flanks?
Thank you for your kind attention and best of luck.
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4 comments:
SWCS, nor the Special Operations Community, is ignoring to roles or value that women bring to combat.
IQ's don't drop in Bank Hall, either. You might actually be surprised at the percentile range that Special Operations Soldiers perform at.
@Anon, thanks for your comment. Having worked with Special Ops soldiers for a long time, I know they are high achievers. However, there are many other units on Bragg and there is an undeniable macho flavor to the place - IMHO.
LDD
Hello Sir,
Thank you so much for being the guest speaker at the Graduation ceremony. It was very enlightening to hear all your accomplishments as a Reserve PSYOPer. I was one of those graduates ;)
It was my pleasure, glad to help out any time.
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