[mashshare]

Editor’s Note: All of the pieces in our “Confessions Series” are anonymous.

OPSEC, sigh… it’s all we ever hear about these days and it’s all we have heard about for the past 10 years. What is OPSEC you ask? Well, for those who may not know, OPSEC stands for Operational Security. OPSEC keeps our potential adversaries from gaining access to our critical information. From the spouse side of the house, this is the info we may have about our service member’s movements, locations, special skills, etc. But it also helps with how to stay safe at home.

Some spouses use the term PERSEC (or Personal Security) as a way to distinguish between things that directly affect the service members security (OPSEC) and those things that might affect the spouse or family. For my purposes, as former military myself, I use the term OPSEC for both.

You may already practice OPSEC in many ways that have become like second nature to you; especially when your spouse is gone. For instance, when you go to Walmart at night and you park right under the street lamp or in a highly visible area, or when you leave your porch lights on at night while home. Whatever it takes to be safe, right?! Regardless, we mostly practice OPSEC by keeping close hold of sensitive information and by being careful about what we post on social media.

Have you bought into OPSEC as a military spouse yet? Think your service member’s 9-5 in an office is exempt? What happens when after years of practicing OPSEC, you get lax and make the teeny, tiny mistake? Let me tell you, because it happened to me…