Be careful what you say about your soldier, even small details can give the enemy (who is always looking at these forums) a means to kill him or her as well as all those around them.  I want my husband to come home to his family safely, as I believe you do.  Recently I encountered several posts which contained sensitive material.  It's very difficult to know exactly what is classified as 'sensitive,' so I've provided information and a guide for all new/old posts.  Please revise your profile or posts if you feel that you've violated this guide. For any further information, please contact your FRG leader.  I wish you all well, and pray that you'll find this useful.  God bless.

OPSEC (Operational Security)

OPSEC, also known as Operational Security, is the principle that we, as Army wives and Army family members, should all abide by when talking about our soldiers. If you’ve been on any military related message board on the internet, you have more than likely seen a warning to be sure to practice OPSEC. This means protecting the information you know about your soldier and his unit.

Generally, it means that you should not give out the following:

-         Your soldier’s exact location overseas

-         Any information on troop movements – this includes any movement while they are deployed and in transit to/from theater (including R&R). Do not ever give dates or times.

-         Any information on weapons systems, how they train or numbers – for this reason, many pictures from overseas can easily violate OPSEC

If your soldier is in a special operations unit, the OPSEC guidelines can be stricter. You may not be able to say he is deployed at all much less where he is. His unit and/or FRG should provide the OPSEC guidelines for these situations. 

Always abide by the rules set forth by his unit. Just because it is on the news does not mean that you can talk about the issue. By talking about it, you are only verifying the information.

CORRECT:

My soldier is deployed in support of Iraqi Freedom or Enduring Freedom 

INCORRECT:

My soldier is in XYZ Unit and is stationed at ABC Camp in XXX city in Iraq.

Give only general locations IF his unit allows it. The above incorrect statement is entirely too much information.

INCORRECT: My soldier’s unit is returning from deployment and flying into XYZ Airport at 8pm next Thursday.

Never give dates or times for troop movements. Keep in mind that “next Thursday” is a date. This includes R&R dates as well as deployment and redeployment dates. Planes have been delayed for days or weeks because an excited family member made this information public.

When our soldiers are in dangerous situations, it is natural to want to reach out to others. But the above statement puts your soldier and his unit in danger. You could have very well just alerted the enemy about their mission.

It is important to realize that putting together the bits and pieces needed to create the larger picture can be amazingly simple on the internet. Many mistakenly believe that if they don’t talk about it all at once, the information is safe. This is wrong and dangerous to assume.

DEPLOYMENT TICKERS

Many family members like to use deployment tickers to count down their soldier’s deployment. Never have a ticker that shows XX days until he returns. If you must have a ticker, then have one with the amount of time he has been gone. Although it is best to not have this type of ticker at all.

Finally, for your own personal safety, be very aware of what you are putting on the internet or saying in conversations in public. With the internet, it is not difficult to track down an address and phone number. Do not make yourself a target by letting the world know that your husband is deployed.

PERSEC

PERSEC is also known as personal security. Like OPSEC, this involves guarding the information that you know. Do not give out your soldier’s name along with rank. This includes blacking out his name tape and rank in pictures. If he is in a special operations unit, you should also black out any unit affiliation.

Be vague about your personal information as an Army wife or Army family member on the internet. This is plain common sense in just every day life – regardless of if your family member is in the military.

The old saying loose lips sink ships still holds true today. Keep your soldier, your family and his unit safe by keeping the information you know to yourself. You never know who is lurking and gathering information on message boards, myspace pages and profiles. Better safe than sorry!

Thanks, ArmyWife! This is a very, very important issue and one we should all take seriously.

I want to add this list that I've seen in various forms on other military forums. Some of the information is a repeat of what Army Wife has already posted, but it's a 10-point list that's simple and easy to understand.

The Ten OPSEC (Operational Security) Points :

1. Don’t discuss current or future destinations/ ports of call/deployment bases .
2. Don’t discuss current or future operations or missions.
3. Don’t discuss current or future dates and times of exercises or missions.
4. Don’t discuss readiness issues and numbers.
5. Don’t discuss specific training equipment.
6. Don’t discuss people’s names and operations.
7. Don’t speculate about current or future operations.
8. Don’t spread rumors about current, future, or past operations or movements.
9. Don’t assume the enemy is not trying to collect information on you; he is.
10. Be smart, use your head, and always think OPSEC when using email, phone, chat rooms and message boards.

This is very helpful.  Thank you for posting this info!

Appreciate the post, but there is another lesson here...beware of the source of information.

Something as important as Operational Security needs to be referenced from the source, not a self-proclaimed expert.  No clue just what expertise 'Army Mom' has or is, but, isn't that the point?  No doubt her intentions are good and (hopefully) valid, but, isn't that the point?  Not picking on you 'Army Mom', but this is an excellent example of what *could* go wrong.

If posting helpful advice, please state your background/sources/experience/certifications to provide material and guidance.

Try reading these for some help:

http://www.defendamerica.mil/articles/a021202b.html

http://www.ioss.gov/bulletin.html

http://www.army.com/articles/item/3305

Of course, Army Regulation 530-1 is a great source, unfortunately it is classified....(big help, huh?) (it is designated FOUO For Official Use Only, so it isn't supposed to be posted on a web site...sorry)

Thanks for clearing that up, Marty. I appreciate it!

Susie :)

Hey Marty,

Thanks for your input.  Army Mom had me thinking that anything we post, or anything our troops post is putting them in harm's way.   Thank you for clearing this up.

You da man!

Mimi

 Now, seriously, y'all....you actually thought for one millisecond that Marty might allow anything to be posted either by the troops or by us junkies that might put any one of our heroes in danger? SERIOUSLY??? I had an e-mail from one of my Marine contacts saying he'd attempted to post pictures of his family on his profile, and wasn't allowed to post civilian pics - PERSEC for the family, no doubt.  (Although the Marine said his wife would argue the "civilian" tag as she has been "married to the Marines for 10 years." ) Marty knows what he's doing, trust me!!

Indeed, Marty, you da man!!

Marty does know what he is doing.  However, folks need to be aware that when we post on the forum, no one is checking what is written prior to it being posted.  So it is possible for someone to post something inappropriate on the forum.  If the AS team or Marty sees something like that, it can be deleted once it is noted.  But it can be posted.  If anyone sees an unsafe or inappropriate post, it should be brought to Marty's attention through email so that he can check it out.  But he does not always read every post written every day.  So if something requires his attention, it should be requested via his email.  It is true that the soldier's postinngs are cleared by the AS team prior to them being posted.

Kathy

I don't think anyone was questioning Marty or the AS team's ability to do their job.  However, they cannot be on the forum 24/7 and people do sometimes post things that shouldn't be posted in an open forum.  Why anyone would interpret Army Mom's post as everything we post putting a soldier in harm's way is beyond me.  I have no idea who Army Mom is and neither does anybody else...for that matter, we don't really know who anybody on the forum is, but i seriously doubt she was trying to get posting on the forum to come to a grinding halt.

I think Army Mom and Jenifer were simply asking for people to use common sense and think before they post.  I am not familiar with Army Mom but Jenifer is one of the brightest, most level headed people on this forum and should be thanked for all she does to help maintain the standard of quality this forum is known for and hopefully will continue.

People don't read and aren't encouraged to read.  Case in point:  Patriotic Lady said one of her contacts tried to post pics of his family...it clearly states in the info they are given when they sign up that pictures of family members are NOT to be posted.   Had he read, it would have come as no surprise to him when the pics would not go through.

There is another thread that discusses the use of the search tool.  People are actually discouraging the use of the search function until new people are familiar with how to use it.  In this day and age of computers, I know of very few people who do not know how to use a search engine.  Most of them probably used one to find the Any Soldier site in the first place.   There is a wealth of information on the site in general and on the forum.  It is very well planned out.  I would like to see the bar raised instead of people encouraging others to lower it.   Marty et al have done a wonderful job with this site.  Let's use what they have provided.   Most questions concerning OPSEC have been pretty well laid out for us.

Rosemary

ArmyMom or ArmyWife07? Was there another post?

There was only one post by ArmyWife07.

ArmyWife07 made the same post about OPSEC in the Korengal Valley thread, where some people started blasting on one of the soldier's moms with inappropriate pm's.  That is why Marty posted on this thread about the source of information of ArmyWife07's post about Opsec.

In the Korengal Valley thread, Marty said to stop sending blasting PM's to others, he will not tolerate it anymore.

If you have an opinion to share, in the "Missing Thread" thread; Marty mentions that, if you have anything to say to anyone on the forum, do not send them PM's, share it on the forum with everyone-----no matter how dumb you think the information is.

When Marty mentions "Army Mom" in this thread, I think he meant to say, ArmyWife07. 

Mimi

Here's what Marty said on the "Missing Thread?" (link here):

Please consider that if you have an opinion, you are not alone, and likely nobody cares to hear your opinion unless they ask.However, there is a ton of knowledge being shared here, please don't just 'lurk' if you have something of value (even if you are'nt sure it is valuable, SHARE IT.

And here's what he said about scolding people via PMs (link here):

Enough of the scoldings via PMs.
If you get a 'scolding' PM or ANY PM that isn't helpful, please forward to marty@AnySoldier.com
I promise that will be that person's last abuse of this forum.

It's not clear what prompted the PMs to people regarding OpSec, since there were posts about it before ArmyWife07 posted here or on the KOP-July 2008 thread, so I don't think the blame can be placed on anyone but the person who sent the PMs.

In my estimation, there are two messages here: 1) OpSec IS a serious issue and should be treated as such by everyone; and 2) rude comments to other Forum users, whether by PM or on the Forum, are unacceptable.

Jen,

So, I didn't quote him word for word.  It still means the same thing.

And the rude comments made in e-mails in place of PM's to people are just as unacceptable I would think.  And, personally, I don't think he is just talking about the rude PM's sent in the Korengal Valley thread.  My understanding is that he means all PM's that some on this forum send to many others on this forum which happens on a lot of the other threads. 

We are all here on the AnySoldier website and forum with the same goal which is to support the troops. 

Mimi 

Anyone remember seeing Geraldo on TV drawing a map in the sand of where the troops were    I still can't get over seeing that.  I guess he wasn't briefed on OPSEC or maybe he just left his common sense at home!

Vicki