Photo By Sharilyn Wells | Soldiers from 324th Psychological Operatons company, stationed in Aurora, Colo.,...... read more read more
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CAMP HALE, Colo. -- Almost 10,000 feet on top of a mountain, Soldiers trudged through the snow to test the limits of their strength and equipment. Armed with one loudspeaker, these psychological operations specialists climbed to different locations to test the range and effectiveness of their broadcast system in a less than favorable environment.
The 324th Psychological Operations Company, an Army Reserve unit stationed out of Aurora, Colo., convoyed into the Rocky Mountains for high altitude, cold weather training, March 5 — 7. Camp Hale, the former home of the 10th Mountain Division, closely resembles many of the conditions U.S. Army Soldiers are facing while deployed to Afghanistan.
A psychological operations Soldier is an information and media specialist who assesses the needs of a target audience, then develops and delivers the right message at the right time and place to create an intended result. PSYOP Soldiers use different types of media to get their message across their intended audiences, including handbills, leaflets, radio broadcasts, loudspeaker announcements, billboards, television commercials and face-to-face interaction.
According to 324th's commander, Capt. Brian Taylor, the intent of the weekend's training was to familiarize the Soldiers with cold weather, high altitude conditions and the effects the environment would have on their missions, whether it was moving through the snow, keeping warm or maintaining their equipment. Weather and terrain can impact how far and clearly a loudspeaker message can carry over a distance. The Soldiers needed to assess the area and test different locations to discover the effectiveness of a loudspeaker.
"We don't get a lot of chances to train in a snowy environment, so we wanted to see how the snow would impact our equipment and our broadcast," said Staff Sgt. Brent Goodlet, a PSYOP tactical detachment sergeant with the 324th. "Once we reached the top of the ridge, we set up our loudspeaker and transmitted various broadcast messages back down to the camp. We then radioed headquarters to verify if they could hear our transmissions, if they didn't, we'd move down the ridge and broadcast again."
Goodlet led a group of about 10 Soldiers on a three-hour trek through the snow on a sunny, but chilly, Saturday morning.
"The trek up there is always harder than the trek back down. The snow is pretty deep and the Soldiers had a decent amount of fun blazing their own trail down the mountain," he said. "You'd get stuck halfway down and you'd have to pull yourself out of the snow and keep on trucking down.
"Overall, this was pretty good training," Goodlet said.
"I got a lot of positive feedback; [the Soldiers] loved the training. I thought they were going to be upset about carrying a loudspeaker up a mountain in snowshoes, but they loved it. And doing it two weeks in a row to see their motivation, knowing what was coming up, they were pretty excited," Taylor said. As an Army Reserve unit, the 324th is required to conduct one weekend of training each month. Taylor chose to have his Soldiers train on the last weekend in February and again on the first weekend in March, to get the most out of this cold weather training opportunity.
The 324th leadership also considered how fast and long each Soldier was able to move up and down the mountain without becoming sick or injured due to the elements. Precautions were taken before and during the exercise. The company brought medics and snowmobiles to the field for emergencies, and arranged their training to occur within minutes of a local hospital trained especially to treat cold weather injuries. Before heading out into the mountains, the company also completed cold weather, high altitude injury and illness classes so that each Soldier would know how to prevent and treat these injuries.
"For me, [the high altitude] wasn't that big of a deal since I snowboard a lot, so I didn't notice a difference in elevation, but I know other people actually had high altitude sickness," said Spc. Angela VanBroekhuizen, a PSYOP specialist with the 324th. "Plus, the cold weather training we received before we came out here helped us understand and recognize cold weather injuries.
"We were really well prepared; we had what we needed to wear out here," VanBroekhuizen said. "This is the first time I didn't get cold doing this training."
Building community relations in the nearby town of Leadville, Colo., a small mining town, was also part of the weekend's training. During the same weekend, Leadville hosted the Crystal Carnival in which the main event was a sport called skijoring. Hundred of locals were gathered downtown for the event, where daring skiers are pulled by horses running at full speed, a quarter mile down the snow-covered street, complete with several ski jumps.
The Soldiers' mission was to talk with the locals on the street to learn about the history of the town, festival and skijoring, how and where the locals received most of their news and information from, and communicate face-to-face while passively gathering information from the locals.
"We're interviewing locals here for specific information on skijoring, some of the history about the event itself, as well as the history of the carnival," said Staff Sgt. David Chase, PSYOP team leader for the 324th. "This is training in preparation for upcoming missions."
As Soldiers spoke with spectators on the skijoring sidelines, a skier tethered to a horse collected as many neon orange rings hanging along the course as possible. Cheering, onlookers encouraged the Soldiers of the 324th to put a team together for next year's Crystal Carnival.
"Mainly what we're looking for today is where [the locals] get their information from: what their carrier is, what channels they look at, and what they watch," Chase added. Passively gathering information through small talk and participating in the community's traditions, are the keys to effectively accomplishing a PSYOP mission.
Even though the Soldiers conducted no actual psychological warfare on the town of Leadville, they were able to envision what it would be like walking in an unfamiliar town communicating and relating with the locals. The week prior to this mission, Soldiers had handed out handbills around town notifying the community of their presence, explaining their training and thanking them for their support.
As the sun began to sink behind the Rocky Mountains, the Soldiers of the 324th were preparing for the temperature to quickly drop below 10 degrees. Neither darkness nor freezing temperatures would stop the 324th from completing nighttime driver's training in the snow before turning in for the night.
"Our unit tries to do some cold weather training annually. This cold weather is something we try to take advantage of, being from Colorado," Goodlet said between the day's training missions. "Being a highly deployed unit, we like to stay up on all of our tasks to make sure we're always ready to deploy."
| Date Taken: | 03.06.2010 |
| Date Posted: | 03.29.2010 11:48 |
| Story ID: | 47390 |
| Location: | CAMP HALE, COLORADO, US |
| Web Views: | 1,382 |
| Downloads: | 196 |
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