Improving PSYOP (and CA as a tangent)

[RTK]

Reed, would you argue that when the #### hits the fan in *your* tactical arena (bullets flying all around) your frontal cortex is fully engaged? I know mine shuts off when dealing with novel fight or flight stimuli.

Depends on how you deal with stress and process information. Can you integrate the 5 aspects of weather, the 5 aspects of terrain, the 7 forms of contact, safe distance zones, backdrops, weapons effects, mitigation of collateral damage, then look at both the pros and cons of each in a split second while, at the same time, weighing the combat multipliers, organic and inorganic to your unit, and bring them all to bear properly in a reasonable amount of time in order to maximize your element's opportunities for success in closing with and destroying your enemy?

Some see that as cerebral. Others see it as instinct after being well trained. Stress innoculation training, that is, to place Soldiers and Marines in those situations in a training environment that best replicate combat conditions. Others call it OODA. Whatever your thoughts are, warfare is cerebral whether you're yelling "gunner, sabot, tank" or dealing with how best to build a school in an impoverished area.

our day to day interactions with non-combatants had secondary and on-going effects, so we constantly had to consider our actions. The hostility towards PSYOPS and occasionally CA is the attitude that PSYOPS is a PSYOPS thing, you grunts wouldn't understand. Try us, we do it day to day.

I worked with 3 TPTs and 2 CA teams over two years. I can speak to the condescension firsthand. I'm fairly competent and well-read in a number of different areas. It astonished the TPT team that I knew their sole purpose wasn't to dump leaflets all over my 54 villages in my AO. They were speechless when I explained I knew their mission was to demoralize the enemy by causing dissension and unrest among his ranks, while at the same time convincing the local population to support American troops and providing me with atmospherics and the attitudes and behaviors of those I was trying to help and those who I was trying to capture or kill.

I think too many CA and PSYOP teams go into a OPCON/TACON relationship expecting to get the shaft. Many more enter into the relationship believing wholeheartedly they're going to get used and abused. Abused children abuse their own children. I think it's become so expected (and I think wrongly so) that it clouds candid and open discussion from the get go.

If anything, that might be the first thing that needs to get ironed out before all else in the CF/PSYOP/CA relationships.