POVA Reunion/POA Rendezvous - What Did You Miss?

My wife and I had the pleasure of spending July 19 – 22 in Cleveland along with our brothers and sisters across the PSYOP Community. I thought it appropriate to write this week’s Blog posting on the event for the benefit of those of you who couldn‘t make it.

First of all we learned that the PSYOP Regiment has a Commandant. In ‘the olden days’, we always thought of the Commandant as the Commanding Officer of the training center or school we were attending. Colonel Robert Curris, former 4^th POG CDR is our current Commandant residing at SWC or more properly the US Army Special Operations Center of Excellence.

His role as lead of our Regiment is to shepherd the branch in such a way as to provide the optimal force to support the national defense mission. This includes the critical areas of training and doctrine among others.

It was more than enlightening to learn what was going on in PSYOP today from someone who is making it happen. Make no mistake there are ongoing challenges across the force particularly in recruiting and fighting the cyber influence battle, however, the Regiment continues to move forward.

I was also able to rekindle some old friendships with colleagues from the 2^nd PSYOP Group who I haven’t seen in 20 years (to be kind). As is the case with most military friendships, connections were renewed instantly and it was good to catch up.

We expanded our horizons by learning about PSYOP from the Australian perspective from Derrill de Heer, a life member of POVA. (who you can learn more about at: https://www.unsw.adfa.edu.au/australian-centre-for-the-study-of-armed-conflict-and-society/mr-derrill-de-heer)

POVA’s progress is nothing short of remarkable. We have over 400 active members with almost 150 life members across the US active, reserve and veteran force along with a growing number of international members.

The PSYOP Association (POA) hosted an educational half day program and launched their new Mobile App which you can get at: https://webapp.mobileappco.org/m/POAAPP and checkout their website at: http://psyopassociation.org/

POA also extended an invitation to Cleveland’s Vietnamese community who were very well represented at the event as well.

We also took advantage of seeing some of the sights in Cleveland such as the world famous Rock and Roll Hall of Fame including a tour of Johnny Cash’s bus and a lunch cruise on Lake Erie on the Nautica Queen.

See you at Fort Bragg in 2020!