JOINT EXPEDITIONARY BASE LITTLE CREEK-FORT STORY, Va. - Over a three-day battle assembly weekend, soldiers of the 305th Tactical Psychological Operations Company participated in situational training exercises that replicated real life situations focused on their PSYOP-specific tasks and various small unit tactics.



“Soldiers enjoy challenging training,” said Sgt. 1st Class Kevin Williams, training operations noncommissioned officer for the 305th, based here.



“They don’t like boring battle assembly weekends stuck inside doing classes. Getting outside and doing realistic training really challenges them and motivates them,” added Williams.



Since the STX lanes are conducted over a battle assembly and at the unit’s training location instead of a combat training center complete with role players, all soldiers are able to get involved with training.



For a given scenario, the detachment is broken into two groups, with one group playing the role players in a village while the other group practices their PSYOP skills.



“They’ll come into a town and conduct a scenario, whether it’s a key leader engagement or an area assessment. Once the mission is complete, we start working them on battle drills. They will either be ambushed or they’ll have some kind of contact afterward so we reinforce both the military occupational skill set and also battle drills,” said Williams.



In one such scenario, a PSYOP team was told they would be encountering a village that had possible security and education issues, making them an easy target for an extremist organization. Their job was to assess the village for threats and recommend courses of action to counter the possible threat.



After conducting a foot march to the village the team leader, assistant team leader, and scribe, approached the locals to ask to speak with the village elder. They are told he is in a two-story building but one of the men will escort them to the elder to inquire if he’ll meet with the team.



While the three soldiers talk with the village elder, the rest of the PSYOP team walks around the village to gather usable data, known as atmospherics. They do this by talking to the locals in the area, asking questions and taking mental notes about commerce, essential services, demographic break down, issues or concerns they have. The information gathered will be used in follow-on missions to ensure PSYOP is targeting the right audience with the right message.



From the meeting with the elder the team learned that there were security issues in the area and the elder did not like extremist organizations influencing his people.



“A PSYOP unit can provide several tools to a community or give assistance,” said Spc. Dallas Peele, a PSYOP specialist of Williamston, N.C., who played the part of village elder during the scenario.



“I feel like in this scenario they were trying to give assistance by using some of their tools. One of the tools was using a tip hotline so they can be informed on activity that they may want to stop or monitor,” added Peele.



In the past, there have been documented cases where the use of a tip line furnished actionable intelligence that prompted successful rescue missions as well as providing information about activity of extremist organizations.



With a deployment to the Horn of Africa on the horizon for the 305th, along with regular mission taskings to support the combat training centers, it’s imperative to make time during battle assembly, not just annual training, to develop, maintain and reinforce PSYOP skills for military information support operation missions.



“It’s important to reinforce these PSYOP specific tasks and soldier skill sets during battle assemblies so they don’t atrophy,” said Maj. Paul Creal, 305th TPC commander, who is an information operation instructor for the Marine Corps as his civilian job.



“Not only are they learning how to be a soldier with basic soldier skills but they learn the relevant PSYOP skills and what is important to conducting a successful MISO mission as a PSYOP soldier,” added Creal.



While soldiers attend battle assembly to reinforce their MOS skills and refine their soldier tasks, they also bring their civilian expertise to the mix, which is what makes being a PSYOP soldier in the U.S. Army Reserve the ultimate force multiplier.



“I feel like this training goes parallel to my civilian life because I need to be able to deal with different people who have different backgrounds,” adds Peele, a mental health specialist in his civilian career. “Being able to conform and adjust is a pertinent skill to have as a PSYOPer. You need to know how to address issues when they come up, that skill in itself is something that I like coming to drill to sharpen.”



It’s this type of training that has soldiers like Sgt. Austin Garmon, a prior active duty infantry soldier and current police officer in Rainbow, Ala., driving long distances to attend battle assembly.



“I honestly wish we could do this every time,” said Garmon. “The classes, although they are informative, don’t seem to put what we are learning into perspective. When we come out here, it does.”



Seventy one percent of the Department of Defense’s Military Information Support Operations capabilities rest within the two Psychological Operation Groups assigned to the United States Army Civil Affairs & Psychological Operations Command (Airborne), headquartered at Fort Bragg, N.C., which provides cultural expertise to a combatant commander.

NEWS INFO Date Taken: 06.08.2013 Date Posted: 08.07.2013 15:54 Story ID: 111516 Location: FORT STORY, AL, US Hometown: FORT BRAGG, NC, US Hometown: FORT STORY, VA, US Hometown: RAINBOW, AL, US Hometown: RAINBOW CITY, AL, US Hometown: VIRGINIA BEACH, VA, US Hometown: WILLIAMSTON, NC, US Web Views: 960 Downloads: 1 Podcast Hits: 0 PUBLIC DOMAIN This work, PSYOP: Out of the classroom, in action, by MAJ Saska Ball, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.