PsyOps vital link to information

Published April 14, 2010
By Wayne Cook
ASA-Dix Public Affairs

JOINT BASE MCGUIRE-DIX-LAKEHURST -- While wars are fought largely with weapons and brute strength, Soldiers of the 17th Psychological Operation Battalion are training at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst to pass useful information to Iraqi and Afghani citizens.

Such information packets provided by a psychological unit may range from information about a suspected terrorist to who to contact about reporting the locations of improvised explosive devices.

During peacetime, contingencies and war, psychological operations troops are not used as a means of force, but as force multipliers who use nonviolent means, often in violent environments.

According to Staff Sgt. Bill Capp, the majority of the Soldiers in the battalion, headquartered in Houston, will be employed developing information pamphlets and flyers to be passed out among the citizenry.

"We will go in country and assess the civilian population, and then use the media to spread information about our cause and against the insurgency," said Capp.

The majority of the Soldiers will deploy to Iraq while a smaller contingency will move into Afghanistan.

Sgt. 1st Class Bruce Martin is the acting first sergeant for the battalion and has spent the past five years deploying, one mission after another, including tours to Afghanistan, Iraq and Kosovo.

"It has been an adventure," Martin said. "I have worked many jobs overseas from television and radio to law enforcement. We get to work directly with the people and I find that very exciting and fulfilling."

When these Soldiers are not deployed, they spend a lot of their time backfilling positions stateside within the psychological operations arena.

"We are a pretty tight-knit group of people," said Capp "We stay on top of our skills by staying involved even when we are not mobilized for deployment. We are a relatively small skill set, but we are involved in missions all over the world. That tends to wear us out, but we pick each other up and watch each other's backs."

The mix of experienced Soldiers with younger, less experienced Soldiers in the battalion means those more knowledgeable personnel must mentor and lead the younger troops while in theater.

Martin said the driving force behind his continual deployments is the feeling that he wants to share all he has experienced with the less-practiced troops. He hopes they can learn from what he has been through in the past and maybe save them from making mistakes in the field.

As the information they provide gets out to the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, the psychological operations Soldiers believe the tides will shift, the citizens will stand up for their future and the mission of the United States and its allies will be that much closer to an end.

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