Over at Bill Roggio’s place – The Fourth Rail - contributor and retired US Navy Intelligence Specialist DJ Elliot puts the recent OPSEC kerfuffle into at least a kind of anecdotal perspective. He ranks OPSEC violaters he has personally observed, and no doubt the astute observer will wonder, from 10th (worst) to 1st (best), how did the MilBlogging set perform?
Not so very badly:
Funny how he rates the official PAO guys as “Numbah 10″! Snork.
I try not to write or say anything in public which might get somebody I like hurt or killed.
Maybe those PAO folks don’t like, and are unliked by, anybody else? Surely it ain’t that bad?
Cap’n,
I agree that the higher echelons are frequently our own worst enemy when it comes to OPSEC. I remember when I was deployed on USS LAST SHIP in 2003, our CO would get the crew together and brief us on what was going on with the schedule and always warn us to keep things under our hat. Invariably in the next day or two the MEU commander would be quoted in the Jacksonville, NC, newspaper spilling all the beans.
After that happened a couple of times, it was next to impossible to keep the blue shirts from running right to the e-mail to tell momma what was in the cards.
Well, Yankee, you know what Harry Truman said, “The Marines have a public relations operation second only to that of Joe Stalin” or something like that.
[Ducks, runs away jinking and dodging...]:-)
As the wife of a service member in Iraq and a blogger, the LAST thing I would ever want to do is jeopardize my husband’s safety or that of his unit, his battalion, his brigade, or our military. To suspect otherwise is insulting and ignorant. Mr. Elliott’s article articulates that perfectly.
I ain’t seen any OPSEC in here or abouts Lex, but plenty o’OPDEC!
That’s a tactic where we’all can use….
$0.02- I listened to the conference discussion, I read the new guidelines and I read the comments in the post below you did a couple days ago. While I THINK I know about OPSEC Navy and Aviation wise, as a former flying squid I can only guesstimate about what compromises OPSEC in ground manuever warfare, COIN, etc. AND because I am ignorant about it..I might not recognize it if’n I saw it. Therefore ,I’ll defer to those who know- really know, and shut da-F up. Seems to me ANY information outlining movements of ground troops is T.S. and should be almost be compartmentalized..ambush, IEDs and all. Even commanders intent should be, too. Be careful out there.
This enemy AIN’T stupid–Albanian, Jerseyite pizza delivery men notwithstanding, in fact they ARE cold calculating killers who have the ultimate weapon- homo-suicide bombers. The fact is they ARE successful too many times..and we must also face the fact that they are successful because they exploit their own intelligence gained form a vast array of sources.
b2
“homo-suicide bombers.”
*muffled snickering*
Well Tim you know what I meant- homicidal bombers, but I’m suer 2-8 % are homosexual…tee-He…
b2
that’s a conservative estimate…
Thank you, Lex, for the providing a link to the Fourth Rail. As a civilian, I don’t need to know any sensitive information which could reveal a Soldier/Marine’s position to the enemy. As a human being, I don’t feel that the burdens the families of our Troops are bearing need to be further increased because either the media or arm-chair critics feel that it is a part of their right to know “all”.