The Leaflet Drop
The Newsletter of the Psychological Operations Veterans Association (POVA)
Founded 1988
1 December 2020
|
|
Fellow Psywarriors,
I hope all had a safe and happy Thanksgiving, even in these trying times. We are certainly facing critical national struggles. We'll come through this, but things will probably be difficult for a while. Take care of family and friends, and STAY SAFE!
As you will have heard by now, the 2021 POVA Reunion has been moved from Fayetteville/Ft. Bragg to Ft. Belvoir, VA. We are working on SPECIFIC plans now, but I can now tell you that the dates for the reunion are set:
19-23 May 2021
(Wednesday thru Sunday)
POVA is fortunate to have several of our Life Members living in the areas near Ft. Belvoir, and several have offered assistance in reunion planning. There are so many outstanding attractions in the greater metro area. Frankly, it will be a problem of "too much to do in such a short space of time." Whatever else it is, that is a good problem to have.
More information on the reunion will follow. As soon as we have hotel information, we'll pass that along in all our communication tools.
POVA is many things, and one of these is a roster of incredibly bright, educated, committed, professional members who have served with great distinction when called. A great example is our "featured" Psywarrior in this issue.....F. Scott Main. As with so many others, his civilian, military, and post-military educational achievements are truly superior examples of commitment to lifelong learning, education, teaching, and leading of others. Whether commissioned, NCO, or soldier, our Psywarrior compatriots are well-trained,
highly educated, and serving at levels of performance and excellence so many non-military organizations should (and often do) envy.
Chad Spawr
President
|
|
Remember Everyone Deployed
Please remember all our fellow Americans deployed around the world. Most of us know what that is like.
|
|
New POVA Life Members
POVA is very pleased to welcome our new Life Member who joined with us. POVA now rosters over 200 Psywarrior soldiers, veterans, and Gold Star Families:
Anthony J. Cosme
You can view our entire Life Member roster on POVA’s website at
www.usapova.org/pova-life-members
|
|
POVA Welcomes Life member Colonel Francis Scott Main
Colonel F. Scott Main is a 1985 graduate of the University of Oregon and was commissioned an Infantry officer in June 1985. He served as an Infantry officer for six years before transferring to Psychological Operations and Civil Affairs.
Capt. Main served as a Detachment Commander, with the 4th Psychological Operations Group (Airborne), and as a Civil Affairs Detachment Commander with the 422nd Civil Affairs Battalion (Airborne). Instructor in Civil Affairs with 1st Special Warfare Group (Airborne) and Detachment Commander, and as Division Chief of Strategic Plans with the U.S. Army Special Operations Command (USASOC) (Airborne), both at Fort Bragg, N.C. from June 1994 to May 2001.
His next assignments included at U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) (Airborne) in the Assessment Directorate, as an Action Officer, Special Operations Requirements Resource (Ground) J8 from May 2001 to April 2005. He commanded the 12th Psychological Operations Battalion, 7th Psychological Operations Group, and U.S. Army Civil Affairs Psychological Operations Command (USACAPOC) in San Jose, Calif., from April 2005 to March 2007, with a tour to Bagram, Afghanistan from January 2006 to April 2007, commanding, the Combined Joint Psychological Task Force for Operation Enduring Freedom Jan 2006 to Feb 2007. This was followed by an assignment as the Psychological Operations Division Chief, Director of Psychological Operations and Civil Affairs, USASOC, Fort Bragg, N.C., from May 2007 to July 2008.
He attended the U.S. Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, Pa., followed by an assignment as Chief of Education and Training, U.S. Army Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute, also at Carlisle Barracks. In September 2010, Col. Main became Deputy Commanding Officer, 7th Civil Support Command in Kaiserslautern, Germany. His last military assignment was with United States Army War College as a Resident Instructor, Reserve Advisor to the Commandant from 2013 to 2015.
During his career, Col. Main has participated in Combat area of Operations ENDURING FREEDOM Afghanistan, IRAQI FREEDOM, SFOR Bosnia Kosovo, SOUTHERN WATCH (Iraq-Saudi Arabia), UNITED SHIELD (Somalia), JUST CAUSE (Panama), and PROMOTE LIBERTY (Panama). He also participated in several Humanitarian De-mining Missions in Cambodia, Ethiopia and Eretria.
Col. Main has Master’s degrees in International Relations from Webster University, St. Louis, Mo., and in Strategic Studies from the U.S. Army War College, he also has a BS in History from the University of Oregon. He is also a graduate of Cottage Grove High School in 1979.
Col. Main has received numerous American and foreign government awards and decorations including Combat Action Badge, Two Legions of Merit; the Bronze Star Medal; the Defense Meritorious Service Medal; five Meritorious Service Medals; the Joint Service Commendation Medal, five Army Commendation Medals, the Joint Service Achievement Medal and five Army Achievement Medals; and numerous other medals and Ribbons, including the NATO and UN medals and the British, Egyptian, German, Greek and Venezuelan parachute badges and the American parachute badge.
Col. Main is married to LTC Teresa Shiels, who is still serving an Army nurse assigned to the 228th Combat Support Hospital in San Antonio Texas, with a 3 year old son.
|
|
Did You Know?
Psychological operations are not creations of modern warfare, and certainly not from wholly "civilized" origins. Strong evidence seems to demonstrate that PSYOP was used and practiced in many human cultures in both the "old" and "new" worlds. Consider, for a moment, the use of PSYOP by the Aztecs of Latin America.
Aztec Death Whistles Sound like Human Screams and May Have Been Used as Psychological Warfare
The Aztec Death Whistles were Not Common Instruments. Two skull-shaped, hollow whistles were found 20 years ago at the temple of the wind god Ehecatl, in the hands of a sacrificed male skeleton. When the whistles were finally blown, the sounds created were described as terrifying. The whistles make the sounds of “humans howling in pain, spooky gusts of whistling wind or the ‘scream of a thousand corpses” writes MailOnline.
Why Did the Aztecs Use the Death Whistles? Some historians believe that the Aztecs used to sound the death whistle in order to help the deceased journey into the underworld. Tribes are said to have used the terrifying sounds as psychological warfare , to frighten enemies at the start of battle,” explains Oddity Central . If the whistles were worn around the necks of Aztec warriors and then used to shock their enemies at the beginning of battles, the psychological effect on an enemy of a hundred death whistles screaming in unison might have been great, unhinging and undermining their resolve.
Some experts think the ancients used the different tones to send the brain into certain states of consciousness, or even to manage or treat illnesses . Some of the replica whistles make sounds and tones reaching the top range of human hearing, almost inaudible to us.
Roberto Velázquez Cabrera notes that although pre-Columbian music has been lost to us in modern times, the sounds of recreated whistles can be used to give us a better understanding of the ancients. He said, “We've been looking at our ancient culture as if they were deaf and mute. But I think all of this is tied closely to what they did, how they thought.” |
|
PSYOP Support of 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment in Viet-Nam
Between May and July of 1967, the 10th Mobile Field Propaganda Team, 246th Psychological Operations Company, conducted 78 psychological operations missions, distributing nearly 7.5 million leaflets. During this time period, the 6th PSYOP Battalion and the 18th ARVN Psychological Operations team supported the 11th Armored Cavalry's civil affairs missions 5 times, .
Editor's Note: the 246th PSYOP Company became the 6th PSYOP Battalion when the 4th PSYOP Group was activated in late 1967. PSYOP soldiers served alongside 11th ACR troops performing combat PSYOP for the entire time the 11th served in Viet-Nam. (Editor Note: The 6th PSYOP Bn team was led by Sp5 H. Duane Yaeger, later becoming POVA's co-founder and first President.)
Source: Operational Report - Lessons Learned, 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, 31 July 1967
|
|
US Marines pivot approach to information warfare at commandant’s direction
Three years after their formation, the U.S. Marine Corps' tactical information warfare forces are at an inflection point, as they make changes to how they operate per directions from the commandant, according to a top official.
The Marine expeditionary force information groups, or MIG, were created in 2017 as a means of modernizing the Corps and keeping pace with adversaries who exploit the information environment via cyberattacks, propaganda and electronic warfare. the MIGs includes tactical cyber operators to conduct defensive cyber operations, electronic warfare, signals intelligence and other information-related capabilities.
As each of the military services reorganize under a banner that’s loosely referred to as information warfare, the Corps' version is dubbed “operations in the information environment,” purposefully eschewing the term “information warfare.”
“Over the past three years we have learned a lot about conducting operations in the information environment through the implementation of the MIGs. As part of the overall Marine Corps Force Design efforts, we are turning our lessons learned into process improvements at the MIG level and continuing to refine our capability requirements at the MIG and tactical level,” Jennifer Edgin, assistant deputy commandant for information, told C4ISRNET. “The improvements are based on ensuring survivability and lethality of our expeditionary forces and ensuring that every Marine has access to information when they need it, how they need it, on demand.”
The commandant of the Marine Corps has directed a force design update and required the service to not only slim down — meaning there will be cuts in units as well as fleets of large platforms such as tanks — but also to better integrate with the Navy by acting as an expeditionary extension of the fleet.
The Navy and Marines want an integrated force for information warfare. Under new guidance, the Marine Corps is working to more seamlessly integrate all its forces, to include information warfare, with the Navy. This integration is taking place from operational and strategic levels all the way down to the more tactical carrier strike group and amphibious ready group/Marine expeditionary unit levels, culminating at the joint maritime level of the combatant commands.
Officials say that based on preliminary force design ideas, the commander of a Marine expeditionary unit in 2030 will likely will need a cyber planner, a psychological operations planner and someone who understands space. This would mean the force must also figure out how to integrate those individuals into the expeditionary strike group.
“If we look at the environment where the MIGs need to operate, they need to be adaptable and flexible to the mission and also being staged to be threat-informed,” she told reporters. “If we look at the operations in the information environment, information doesn’t have a geographic boundary. We need to be able to adapt and flex based on the things that we are seeing and the missions that we need to perform.”
These centers will help commanders better understand the threats and vulnerabilities in the information sphere. As these forces seek to augment traditional units and act as the information advisers for commanders in highly dynamic environments, they must be highly adaptable.
|
|
Free National Park Access for Military and Veterans
Since 2012, entry into national parks has been free for service members and their dependents, a policy built upon the strong ties between the military and the National Park Service going back to the 1872 creation of the first national park, Yellowstone. The U.S. Army did double duty as soldiers and park rangers until the National Park Service was created.
On Veterans Day this 11 November 2020, the National Park Service extended free park admission to include honorably discharged veterans and Gold Star family members. The Interior Department has details on the identification needed for free entrance:
|
|
Viet-Nam Medal of Honor Recipient Honored by POVA Life Member's Company
Recently, Caliber Sales had the opportunity to donate a UVAIRxUx105 Lite air cleaner unit to Colonel (Retired) Roger and Mrs Norma Donlon. COL Donlon is a retired US Army Special Forces Officer and the first recipient of the Medal of Honor for the Vietnam War. He is also the first recipient of this award from US Special Operations Forces(SOF).
During his 30-plus years of active service and beyond, COL Roger and Mrs Norma Donlon have been tireless advocates for Soldiers and their families, and active contributors to their community. They were past recipients of the American Century Award from the Washington Timesfor their contributions in representing their home state of Kansas.
As well, COL and Mrs Donlon were instrumental in the founding of the Nam Dong Special Forces Library Learning Center. This children’s library was built solely with private donations and honors the sacrifices of US Army Special Forces Soldiers and their Montagnard allies at the Battle of Nam Dong in 1964, for which COL Donlon received the Medal of Honor.
Mrs Norma Donlon is also a Gold Star widow and has been awarded the ‘Heroine of the Infantry’ award from the National Infantry Association for her significant contributions to the wellness of Infantry Soldiers and their families. She is also one of only seven women to be inducted as an Honorary Member of the Special Forces Association.
COL and Mrs Donlon have been married for 52 years this month. In recognition of their enormous contributions to the security of the United States and the welfare of its Soldiers and their families, Caliber was honored to present the Donlon’s with a Ux105 Lite air cleaner unit. This unit has been emplaced in their residence to protect their health by continuously cleaning the air and surfaces of their home. Find out more about COL Donlon here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Donlonhttp://www.sfa29.org/library/index.htm
|
|
**POVA CONTACT INFORMATION **
POVA TRUSTEES
POVA’s Website.....www.usapova.org
Ed Rouse’s Psywarrior Website.....www.psywarrior.com
COL-Ret. Larry Dietz PSYOP Blog.....www.psyopregiment.blogspot.com
Howard Patrick’s Blog.....www.howardpatrick.weebly.com/blog
|
|
Errors, etc
Please contact Chad Spawr with information on any errors that may be included above.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
