Photo By Sharilyn Wells | Spc. Erik Lorenz, 312th Psychological Operations Company, talks with a role-player,...... read more read more
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BRANDYWINE, Md. - Spc. Erik Lorenz, psychological operations specialist with the 312th Psychological Operations Company, walked up to an older gentleman sitting next to a broken down shed.
Lorenz took off his hat and sunglasses and offered a friendly greeting. The gentleman returned the greeting and offered Lorenz and his team a seat next to him.
The gentleman then proceeded to tell the small team about a group of American soldiers who destroyed his vegetable stand and wanted the Americans to fix it. Using his training and communication skills, Lorenz was able to get information about the incident and reassure the gentleman that he would report the incident to people who could possibly help out.
Lorenz and the rest of the company participated in a two-day field exercise that combined soldiering skills with military information support operations in Brandywine, Md., June 8 and 9.
The Marlboro-based unit coordinated with airmen from Andrews Air Force Base to use a small airfield outside the city to strengthen their skills to better perform their jobs overseas. The young and mostly new to MISO soldiers were trained on first aide, basic tactical movement, radio communication, how to react to enemy contact as well as face-to-face communication, information gathering and dispersing.
“Since we are a tactical PSYOP unit and we support infantry, tactical units, we have to make sure our soldiers train to that standard. At the same time, their [MISO] skills are their main bread and butter of what they do,” Staff Sgt. Timothy Olson, lead training noncommissioned officer for the exercise. “We have to focus on in-class training as well as hands-on field exercises to really challenge them and force them to use both sides of their brains to be both PSYOPers and Soldiers at the same time and to understand that their job covers that full spectrum of operations.”
Tactical PSYOP teams are used in country to carry out military information support operations. Often, their activities are used to spread information about ongoing U.S., allied or coalition programs from local key communicators to the local populace. They also gather key information to pass to the commanders that each team supports to better build rapport and accomplish the mission in non-violent ways.
“Because originally I was tasked for security, I kind of had to go with the flow when my team leader assigned me to talk with one of the men during our mission. This was basically our first contact upon getting into country, for the exercise, so we were just trying to build rapport,” explained Lorenz, who just became a PSYOP soldier around four months prior to the exercise. “This exercise definitely has training value and gave me a real look into what PSYOP does overseas.”
Lorenz may be new to military information support operations, but not to the Army.
Lorenz has prior deployment experience as an infantryman. He deployed to Afghanistan and worked with the Afghan National Army.
“I knew I could communicate [with a stranger] since I’ve done it many times before but it also helps to get feedback from guys who have done this overseas as PSYOP. Wish I could go through it again today to get even more feedback,” Lorenz smiled.
Leaders of the company were able to assess where each soldier was in their training and will hone in on what soldiering tasks as well as MISO tasks need t be improved on. Lorenz and his fellow soldiers will get the chance to practice all the skills that were jam packed into a two-day battle assembly again and again.
“This serves as an assessment for us as well. It allows us to see their strengths and weaknesses, allows us to know the tasks we need to focus more on,” explained Olson. “It’s an opportunity to get these young soldiers’ feet wet and experience what [MISO] is all about.”
| Date Taken: | 06.09.2013 |
| Date Posted: | 07.26.2013 14:03 |
| Story ID: | 110888 |
| Location: | BRANDYWINE, MARYLAND, US |
| Web Views: | 331 |
| Downloads: | 2 |
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