U.S. Special Operations: Personal Opinions

[Culpeper]

That was part of Kerry's platform when he ran for president. Much more SOF and SF. First thought that came to my mind was lowering the bar.

[Bill Moore]

Voodoun, much of what you cite is simply a by product of mass production. As you have discovered, we do mass produce SOF in response to a crisis, and you pointed out mass production equates to numerous production errors. That said, we’ll still get the same good folks we would have assessed anyway, but unfortunately there will be a quite a few marginal performers in that crowd also.

The mass production issue is an unfortunate reality based on the world situation, so we're just going to have to live with it to some extent. Moving past that pint, just what is it we want more of? Defense states that it “needs” more Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Soldiers so we can effectively employ soft/smart power to help shape the "new complex" environment we’re fighting in. Then on the other hand many have argued that SOF and General Purpose Forces (GPF) supposedly do not think highly of these CA and PSYOP Soldiers and their skills, so they are not employed correctly, and then on top of that these CA and PSYOP Soldiers are poorly trained, so who are we fooling? Why do we want more?

First, I agree we're operating in a complex environment where the "correct" application of CMO and PYSOP is essential, but this isn't new. All the noise your hearing is simply a loud Baptist like revival movement within DoD where everyone is shouting hallelujahs anytime the preacher says anything about irregular warfare, yet when we step outside the church it is business as usual.

Second, "good" leaders in SOF and GPF care very much about their CA and PSYOP Soldiers and what they bring to the fight. I worked for one Bde Cdr who made his CA Soldiers his center of gravity, and everyone else in the BDE was task organized to support them, which was appropriate in this situation. Just like the inconvenient truth of mass production, another inconvenient truth is not all leaders are "good" leaders. Get used to it; that is the world you're really going to work in. Just remember that you have a responsibility to make it work when you’re down range, you have to tactfully educate your chain of command on how you should be employed, and that means you need to understand their mission and where you can help. Don’t expect the Cdr or S3 to automatically know how to employ you.

Third, "if" CA and PSYOP Soldiers are poorly trained, who reached that conclusion and why? What is it that we want CMO and PYSOP to accomplish downrange? Can the Soldiers do it? If not, why not? Inadequate training in some skill areas? Unrealistic expectations? Bottom line is that we to identify the “specific” problems (if there are any), then figure out how to fix them.

I don't mind young Soldiers complaining, but I hear the same type of complaints from senior CA and PSYOP officers, so if there is an issue or issues take the emotion out of it, tell the force what it is, and tell us what we need to do to fix it at the training and the operational level.

Right now all I hear is we need more CA and PSYOP, and then right after that I hear that CA and PYSOP are broken. Both arguments may be true, but I would think we would want to fix what is broken before we produce more of the same.

Thoughts?

[Surferbeetle]

...you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.

Welcome to the Army

Know your basic soldiering skills, know your mos, know your assigned language, know your part of the world, if you go reserves find a civilian job which allows you to expand your knowledge in your specialty, and work your ass off to be the best you can be. The rest will fall into place.

[Voodoun]

In response to Bill Moore:

Let me first note that I was primarily commenting on how while the article in question discussed its implications on CA and PSYOP, the discussion was heavily focused on SF. This is reflective of the attitude I perceive throughout the community, although I've already been happily made aware that some of my perceptions are wrong.

I essentially agree with everything in Bill Moore's post. Mass production results in production errors. It is something I'm going to have to live with, and all I really have control over is my team, and how we perform on deployment.

I'm glad to know that senior CA and PSYOP officers are making the same sort of comments I did, because that means I've accurately assessed the situation, to some degree at least. Absolutely I agree that the emotion should be taken out of the discussion. I'm not sure if I seemed particularly emotionally invested in the matter (nor am I sure that it was implied that I was), but if I did, let me assure you that I simply don't have the emotional resources to be diverted in that direction.

As far as tactfully educating my command on how to employ us, I'm all over that one - My team chief wants me to have our team's CAPEs brief ready to go a month before we deploy.

Anyway, I think the questions you raised are absolutely critical to the future of this country's military hegemony.

I think we need to rephrase the sentiment though - 'we need more properly trained and effective PSYOP and CA' is a more comprehensive way of expressing the conventional wisdom. Can I get a hallelujah?

As far as answering this bit:


<Third, "if" CA and PSYOP Soldiers are poorly trained, who reached that conclusion and why? What is it that we want CMO and PYSOP to accomplish downrange? Can the Soldiers do it? If not, why not? Inadequate training in some skill areas? Unrealistic expectations? Bottom line is that we to identify the “specific” problems (if there are any), then figure out how to fix them. >

I could not agree more, and if I thought I could do it, and anyone would care, I'd scrap my current thesis (an examination of how the rejection of Aristotelian reason in response to al Mamum's mihna, and the decline of Mutazalite influence in Sunni Islam in the 9th c. CE has directly contributed to the intransigence of the Arab-Israeli conflict) and all the research I've done, in order to try to answer those exact questions so that people smarter than me could develop solutions.

I've got my ideas concerning those answers, but as a social scientist I don't like to draw conclusions based solely on my own observations, no matter how common sense they may appear to be.

I could postulate all night over what ifs, and engage in thought experiments and grandiose proposals for selection boards, Personality Inventories, 6 month long AITs, continuing MOS specific training, ad nauseum (nauseating for you, at least!) but I do think there are some no brainers worth addressing.

PSYOP is a confusing job. It's ill defined, and rather than try to better define it, we need to give soldiers a better chance to wrap their heads around it. Some of the concepts are collegiate level issues that need that sort of attention. Creating cognitive dissonance is one example. Collegiate Cognitive Psych classes spend a week on just *understanding* what cognitive dissonance it, much less creating it.

The 18x program hasn't seen any lack of interest, has it? That's because SF is perceived to be bad-ass. People are attracted to bad-asserey. Create the perception (and work to make it an undeniable reality) that CA and PSYOP are elite units, and I suspect interest will skyrocket. Get a MIST involved on the next season of 24, sex up a TPT and CAT-A by including them in the GI Joe movie sequel, and watch what happens. :-)

Reservists changing their MOS get the shaft. They may need more time than AIT students to 'get it' because we're asking them to make a fundamental change in the way they approach missions. How can we expect an MP or an Infantryman to just reject the mindset that they've developed over years of training and practice, with a 3 week test-memorizing course?

Cadre should be drawn from the best and brightest, and held to an almost impossibly high ethical standard.

Aside from that, I would love to see more integration between the Reserve and AD. We're talking about a TINY community on the tactical side, less than 1500 soldiers, from what I understand? Send AD soldiers with great evals back from deployment to spend a weekend every month with Reserve units gearing up to deploy. Send Reserve soldiers to 4th POG to boost capacity for short missions. The animosity between the reserve side and the AD side goes beyond friendly rivalry (from what I've seen) and we're too small of a community to tolerate that sort of thing.

Like I said, I could go on forever just brainstorming solutions, but I've got zero insight into the feasibility of those suggestions, nor do I understand the political dynamics or tensions operating WAY above my paygrade, although I'm fairly confident in my comprehension ability.

Good night! I've got boring homework to get back to :-)

[82redleg]

Should CA and PYSOP remain SOF? Except for the active BDEs, I don't believe they are part of USASOC any more, but USACAPOC.

We've determined that every BCT needs them in theater (something we haven't done with ODAs, Rangers, 160th, etc)?

CA & PSYOP have a dichotomy, in that thier AC units exist to support SOF, while their RC units exist to support the rest of the Army. Despite all the expansion, my BCT will only ever see 1 PSYOP NCO, 1 CA NCO and CA officer from the AC- a COA which automatically creates tension between us and our CA/PSYOP support. I'm not saying its right, I'm saying thats the way it is.

Heck, since we've made everything else organic to the BCTs, maybe a combined CA/PSYOP company in the BSTB?

[Voodoun]

CA and PSYOP have been part of USACAPOC for years now, which was once known as the US Army Reserve Special Operations Command. In 1990 USACAPOC was created and aligned under USASOC according to functional lines (instead of component).

A couple years ago USACAPOC moved from USASOC to USAR, but "USASOC was to retain proponency for Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations -- including doctrine, combat development and institutional training."

http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...y/ca-psyop.htm

I don't think you're playing Devil's Advocate, actually, I think there's a significant degree of pressure to continue to divest CA and PSYOP from its SOF roots. From my limited understanding, the AD components are supposed to be supporting only the SOF units, but the reality is the manpower simply isnt there yet.

I just personally don't see how this divorce with weekend custody can continue. If there's tension between your BCT and its CA and PSYOP element, and there's tension between the AD and RC of CA and PSYOP, and tension between CA and PSYOP itself, not to mention tensions between the reservists who went through reclass school and those who went through AIT at the unit level, there's just WAY too much tension and not enough love.

If you're with the 82nd, I suspect 'tension' is a kind way of putting it. I think there's a mutual disdain that hampers mission readiness. I hope I'm wrong, that's just the impression I've gotten in my limited experience.

Should CA and PSYOP be completely separated from SOF? I think if you polled CA and PSYOP, you'd get a resounding 'hells to the no'. If you asked big Army and USAR, the answers might range from 'absolutely' to 'who cares' to 'why do we even need those guys'?

As far as combining CA and PSYOP into a single company, I'm not sure thats a good move - there's a distinction between the two objectives that needs to be maintained. CA has a very specific function, whereas PSYOP has to be as flexible as a Ukrainian gymnast in order to maximize its potential contribution.

The Army needs to hire a bunch of relationship counselors so we can all explore and resolve our feelings. Group hug anyone?

This board is rapidly becoming my new procrastination excuse! Bad mojo.

[Voodoun]

So unreliable inside sources tell me the decision has already been made for USASOC to re-absorb CAPOC, and that it could happen as early as within the next 6 months. I never realized how much the Army was like high school, full of cliques and rumors. oh. my. god! can you believe, like, totally.

[Ken White]

Believe me. Can be even more fun than High School, though...

[Schmedlap]

Now, to revisit my point, what happened in this thread is exactly what seems to be happening at SWTG, USASOC, and now USAR - two primary components of SOF, CA and PSYOP, go from being heavily discussed in the article, to virtually ignored in the discussion. Why is that? Is CA not sexy enough? Is PSYOP too much of an unknown commodity?

Or is it that SF is really the only thing people care about?

For what it's worth, I know of at least two JSOTF commanders and two Group Commanders who considered "IO" - largely to include PSYOP, CA, and a few related capabilities - to be their main effort in Iraq and Afghanistan. And their deeds backed up their words.

The remarkable thing about this is that those "IO" assets were poorly integrated until just prior to - or in some cases after - deployment. Yet they were still seen as tremendous assets and leveraged very well. The greatest shortcoming was not integrating them during training. The perception seemed to be that a commander could just say, "hey PSYOP guy, this looks like a job for something non-lethal. Throw some PSYOP at this."

Elsewhere in this thread, you mentioned something about developing a CAPEs brief. If that brief is to be of any value, it needs to be given to the commander while they are planning their collective training, way prior to deployment. Otherwise, it's too much information, too late. There is a growing consensus out there in the SOF community that the (IO/non-lethal/insert term) assets are valuable. The speed with which they've learned to leverage those assets has been, in my opinion, very slow.

[Surferbeetle]

Elsewhere in this thread, you mentioned something about developing a CAPEs brief. If that brief is to be of any value, it needs to be given to the commander while they are planning their collective training, way prior to deployment. Otherwise, it's too much information, too late. There is a growing consensus out there in the SOF community that the (IO/non-lethal/insert term) assets are valuable. The speed with which they've learned to leverage those assets has been, in my opinion, very slow.

Supported units are getting better at understanding how CAPOC works:

Typically it goes something like this on the reserve side of the house...late night call: "Hey teamleader we need you to time off from work and go to location X. We have rustled up the following troops for you who also have taken time off from work, make it happen".

The correct response is "No problem".

You can only say this when you & your team-members have the benefit of:

Good training on soldiering skills and your AOR; a number of years spent in the same unit with the same people; a civilian job which both exercises your skill set and supports your service to the nation; active duty folk who understand that their CA & PSYOP requests will be answered just before go time with minimally materially resourced (computers, etc.) folks; a solid team capabilities briefing for all key supported unit players on what you can do and what you need in order to be successful as soon as you hit the ground.

Amazingly CAPOC has a bunch of dedicated folks who are willing to play by these rules. The 'divorce' has complicated things since GPF does not understand this well as SF does (and they don't really care for it much of the time). GWOT has been good in that everybody GPF and SOF has had to play together and get used to things as they are. Hopefully things will continue to improve...

[max161]

The remarkable thing about this is that those "IO" assets were poorly integrated until just prior to - or in some cases after - deployment. Yet they were still seen as tremendous assets and leveraged very well. The greatest shortcoming was not integrating them during training. The perception seemed to be that a commander could just say, "hey PSYOP guy, this looks like a job for something non-lethal. Throw some PSYOP at this."

Good points all. The good news is we are now getting the deployment cycles synched so that the CA and PSYOP units can conduct PMT with the JSOTFs. The problem has always been high demand low density for CA and PSYOP. During the "Surge" active duty CA and PSYOP had to support the GPF as well as SOF because the reserve components could not surge enough forces and many reserve component units were used initially during OIF and had dwell issues. Active duty CA and PSYOP units will not have fully recovered from the Iraqi "surge: until this summer but we are now able to get the deployment cycles in line so they can train together before they deploy. Remember though that the JSOTFs are deploying every 6 months which means 7 months in the box and 5 months home.

[reed11b]

So unreliable inside sources tell me the decision has already been made for USASOC to re-absorb CAPOC, and that it could happen as early as within the next 6 months. I never realized how much the Army was like high school, full of cliques and rumors. oh. my. god! can you believe, like, totally.

Umm, for us dumb knuckle dragger eleven bang bangs could you explain what that means? pictures help too.
Reed
P.S. I think that even spreading out the CA teams to co-exist w/ the SF groups would help to expand there utility and knowledge base. Same for Psyops, though I know even less about them.

[Voodoun]

Umm, for us dumb knuckle dragger eleven bang bangs could you explain what that means? pictures help too.
Reed
P.S. I think that even spreading out the CA teams to co-exist w/ the SF groups would help to expand there utility and knowledge base. Same for Psyops, though I know even less about them.

Reed, you think I know what that means? I really have no idea, when it comes down to the nitty gritty. I HOPE it means world peace will break out and the sun will rise over a Pax Americana that lasts until the martians arrive, but I think I might be setting my expectations a little high on that one.

maybe.

[Schmedlap]

I HOPE it means world peace will break out and the sun will rise over a Pax Americana that lasts until the martians arrive...

Based on the news reports that I've been seeing over the past week, that should be occurring today at around noon. At least the world peace thing.

[82redleg]

1- CAT-As need to be beefed up to the point that they are self-mobile (meaning 4 vehicle crews). Otherwise, they take combat power out of the fight to execute their missions, or their missions will always be second fiddle to combat operations.

2- We acknowledge that we need CA and PSYOP, but only have enough active for the SOF community. WRONG ANSWER. If we need the capability, we need the capability. There is enough issues integrating "non-lethal" because it is NOT (generally) what the Army does. Having your "non-lethal" guy being an overweight, out-of-shape reservist with an attitude ("I'm special so I don't have to comply with your standards") who shows up at the last minute, without resources or collective training, makes integration almost impossible. Yes, I've thrown out every stereotype there is, but believe me, I've seen most of them.

3- If everyone needs CA and PSYOP all the time (or even most of the time), they aren't SOF, and can't remain only in the SOF community. That means that the BCT CA officers, and CA & PSYOP NCOs can't be the cast offs (those that aren't "good enough" to hang with the SOF guys), and that the active BCTs need their own assets, all the time. The best solution I see for this a CO in the BSTB. Yes, CA & PSYOP are different, but they are often focused in the same areas, and alot of their indiividual training requirements (language, culture, etc) are the same. Plus, neither element is large enough to justify a company of its own- a CA CO (even augmented as in 1- above) and a TPD combined would still be among the smaller COs in the BCT.

4- If what surferbeetle is describing is the norm, than there is something completely disfunctional somewhere. If we can have a LAD before we even redeploy, we should be able to align a team at LEAST to meet our ITC, MRE and deployment. And rotating them based on a different deployment schedule is ridiculous. Same as the JTACs, an enabler like that should task organize, deploy with, and redeploy with the BCT- I don't care what service or component.

[Voodoun]

Based on the news reports that I've been seeing over the past week, that should be occurring today at around noon. At least the world peace thing.

Goodness gracious! You're absolutely right! in fact, I think I'm going to book my vacation to the Sudan right now - I hear they've got wonderful beaches there.

[Voodoun]

1- CAT-As need to be beefed up to the point that they are self-mobile (meaning 4 vehicle crews). Otherwise, they take combat power out of the fight to execute their missions, or their missions will always be second fiddle to combat operations.

2- We acknowledge that we need CA and PSYOP, but only have enough active for the SOF community. WRONG ANSWER. If we need the capability, we need the capability. There is enough issues integrating "non-lethal" because it is NOT (generally) what the Army does. Having your "non-lethal" guy being an overweight, out-of-shape reservist with an attitude ("I'm special so I don't have to comply with your standards") who shows up at the last minute, without resources or collective training, makes integration almost impossible. Yes, I've thrown out every stereotype there is, but believe me, I've seen most of them.

3- If everyone needs CA and PSYOP all the time (or even most of the time), they aren't SOF, and can't remain only in the SOF community. That means that the BCT CA officers, and CA & PSYOP NCOs can't be the cast offs (those that aren't "good enough" to hang with the SOF guys), and that the active BCTs need their own assets, all the time. The best solution I see for this a CO in the BSTB. Yes, CA & PSYOP are different, but they are often focused in the same areas, and alot of their indiividual training requirements (language, culture, etc) are the same. Plus, neither element is large enough to justify a company of its own- a CA CO (even augmented as in 1- above) and a TPD combined would still be among the smaller COs in the BCT.

4- If what surferbeetle is describing is the norm, than there is something completely disfunctional somewhere. If we can have a LAD before we even redeploy, we should be able to align a team at LEAST to meet our ITC, MRE and deployment. And rotating them based on a different deployment schedule is ridiculous. Same as the JTACs, an enabler like that should task organize, deploy with, and redeploy with the BCT- I don't care what service or component.

Jeez. I understood about a 2/3 of that.

But yeah, fat out of shape reservists? Big problem (no pun intended). Fat out of shape soldiers in general? Big problem (pun intended this time).

Seriously, there should simply not be uniforms made to fit certain body types.

[120mm]

I admit to being "out of the loop" with current CA issues, but I've lived some in the past.

First, circa the '90s, they didn't want anyone else to play their special reindeer games. The only way to hold down a CA slot was to be school-trained, but the only way to get the school was to be in a CA slot. And now they're screaming for more people. Guess what, CA-guy; you guys created your own problems.

Second, CA guys tend to come in two flavors: Broken SF dude who is too "special" to play nice, and "dud". So units end up leaning on some combat-arms reservist who holds a CA-relevant job in the US, during deployment.

Third, currently they are trying to stand up a CA Brigade in Europe. While they are willing to export a 38-series enlisted school to Europe, they are forcing officers to come back to the US for school. The "so-what" of this, is that most Army Reservists serving in Europe would make terrific CA officers, but by attending the stateside school, these people will lose their tax-exempt status, so basically it will cost around $20,000 to attend the school.

And CA refuses to budge on their school requirement. Frankly, I doubt their school is "all that and a bag of chips."

I have my doubts as to whether CA should continue to be allowed to exist as a branch.

[Surferbeetle]

1- CAT-As need to be beefed up to the point that they are self-mobile (meaning 4 vehicle crews). Otherwise, they take combat power out of the fight to execute their missions, or their missions will always be second fiddle to combat operations.

2- We acknowledge that we need CA and PSYOP, but only have enough active for the SOF community. WRONG ANSWER. If we need the capability, we need the capability. There is enough issues integrating "non-lethal" because it is NOT (generally) what the Army does. Having your "non-lethal" guy being an overweight, out-of-shape reservist with an attitude ("I'm special so I don't have to comply with your standards") who shows up at the last minute, without resources or collective training, makes integration almost impossible. Yes, I've thrown out every stereotype there is, but believe me, I've seen most of them.

3- If everyone needs CA and PSYOP all the time (or even most of the time), they aren't SOF, and can't remain only in the SOF community. That means that the BCT CA officers, and CA & PSYOP NCOs can't be the cast offs (those that aren't "good enough" to hang with the SOF guys), and that the active BCTs need their own assets, all the time. The best solution I see for this a CO in the BSTB. Yes, CA & PSYOP are different, but they are often focused in the same areas, and alot of their indiividual training requirements (language, culture, etc) are the same. Plus, neither element is large enough to justify a company of its own- a CA CO (even augmented as in 1- above) and a TPD combined would still be among the smaller COs in the BCT.

4- If what surferbeetle is describing is the norm, than there is something completely disfunctional somewhere. If we can have a LAD before we even redeploy, we should be able to align a team at LEAST to meet our ITC, MRE and deployment. And rotating them based on a different deployment schedule is ridiculous. Same as the JTACs, an enabler like that should task organize, deploy with, and redeploy with the BCT- I don't care what service or component.

82nd Redleg has some good points. Keep in mind that I have spent time in all of our Army's arena's: Active, Guard, Reserve, and Civil Service. My observation is that most of the Army has not been resourced and trained like the tier one units such as the 82nd, 101st, and SF; however GWOT has changed many things.

Many of the issues mentioned, imho, can be boiled down to prioritizing and resourcing. Head count for both active and reserve CA and PSYOP types is low, our allocated budgets track with our headcounts, and the majority of active training (from AIT to OBC and onwards) has not addressed the use of CA and PSYOP. Before GWOT the majority of units that I have supported did not know that CA existed. This of course impacted the integration and budgeting process then and it still does to an extent (1610's were not funded, requests for CA support were an afterthought, etc.)

IMHO a civilian Assistant DA, City Planner, City Manager, Civil Engineer, Doctor, a Nurse, a Policeman, and a Teacher is a practicing specialist who brings needed skills to COIN work that are not found on active duty. Most of these folks do not fit the 18-25 year-old demographic (it takes time to acquire mastery in these employment fields). Despite this we need to integrate these types of folks into the COIN fight, others may disagree.

As an aside how many active duty folk also hold a 'part-time-job' in addition to 'active-duty-job' and sometimes risk their 'active-duty-job' in order to serve their nation in their 'part-time-job'? Few do.

Increasing the number of Active Duty CA and PSYOP, training the force on CA and PSYOP, and resourcing CA and PYSOP are certainly answers to some of these issues, in particular if a generalist in this arena can get things done. My observation is that sometimes you need a specialist and it is for this reason that CA and PSYOP reserve types are still around. Your mileage may vary.

As for 120mm's observations, some are valid and some not so. We in the CA community are looking for good, smart soldiers...send me a PM and I will get you linked up with someone who can help you sign up and then you can straighten things out.

[Ken White]

82nd Redleg has some good points. Keep in mind that I have spent time in all of our Army's arena's: Active, Guard, Reserve, and Civil Service. My observation is that most of the Army has not been resourced and trained like the tier one units such as the 82nd, 101st, and SF; however GWOT has changed many things.

True on the training and resourcing -- and there's also an intangible difference. Can't speak for the 101 today but knowing folks in the other two organizations there is an attitudinal difference --and an arrogance -- that can be problematic and annoying to some.

That attitudinal difference makes it hard for the Airborne and SF communities to accept the sometimes seemingly casual attitude of other communities. Having spent a great many years in both communities, my take is that the arrogance is okay but it should not blind one to the value of other organizations and it must not take the form of bigoted disdain -- nobody will work well if they sense that attitude coming from the people with whom they're supposed to cooperate...

The SOF / conventional force divide is stupid and counterproductive; the AC / RC divide is even more so. Both need to disappear.

IMHO a civilian Assistant DA, City Planner, City Manager, Civil Engineer, Doctor, a Nurse, a Policeman, and a Teacher is a practicing specialist who brings needed skills to COIN work that are not found on active duty. Most of these folks do not fit the 18-25 year-old demographic (it takes time to acquire mastery in these employment fields). Despite this we need to integrate these types of folks into the COIN fight, others may disagree.

This is a critical point -- those civilian skills ARE necessary and the likelihood of any AC CA type ever acquiring and enhancing them to the point a civilian practitioner who is a Reservist is microscopic. Those skills are hard to obtain, are critical and the fact that the City Manager is overweight and doesn't look like a recruiting poster is immaterial.

As an aside how many active duty folk also hold a 'part-time-job' in addition to 'active-duty-job' and sometimes risk their 'active-duty-job' in order to serve their nation in their 'part-time-job'? Few do.

True and some things all the active folks need to contemplate are:

- Navy and DoD studies show conclusively that reservists excel at the non-operational skills and will invariably outperform their active counterparts. In the operational arena, that is reversed. The point is that for many things, the reservist or guardsman brings a lot to the table.

- Many dislike the money spent on the reserve, contending it would be better spent on the active forces and they justify this by saying that when reserve units are called up, they still need additional training. That ignores the fact that a Guard Brigade taking 90 days to train up to deploy is far less time than it would take to recruit, fill and train a Brigade from scratch.

- The guardsman and reservist put in a lot of kitchen table time for no pay in doing their military jobs. Also, due to the dispersed nature of reserve units, the reserve leader is more independent and resourceful than his Active counterpart. Due to the nature of many reserve units, he or she will generally be a better troop leader than most active compatriots (Before you flame, realize that leading and commanding are different things. Also consider the reserve company commander may be 150 miles from his Bn CO, a situation many an active company commander has often wished for ).

Increasing the number of Active Duty CA and PSYOP, training the force on CA and PSYOP, and resourcing CA and PYSOP are certainly answers to some of these issues, in particular if a generalist in this arena can get things done. My observation is that sometimes you need a specialist and it is for this reason that CA and PSYOP reserve types are still around. Your mileage may vary.

There is no doubt that more CA and PSYOP folks are needed, both active and reserve -- though the best CA assets will always be reservists due to the daily skill practice -- and there's no doubt that some AC assets need to be in position to accompany the General Purpose forces, not all should be SOF.