Indiana Jane: OPSEC & PERSEC

Ever wonder why I don’t have my actual name on my About Me page? Curious why I edit out identifying roads on the MapMyRun images? Or why I refer to my husband only as “C”? PERSEC and OPSEC – or Personal Security and Operations Security, respectively. The former is something everyone on the internet should practice and the latter is something every future/current significant other or military member should know.

Since my husband is a current active duty soldier, I have left out his name for his safety. And because I’m hoping to become an active duty soldier myself, I’ve left out mine for my own safety. Pictures of my husband in uniform (or possibly myself in the future) will have name tapes blurred out. Travel dates will not be mentioned unless already completed.

As author of this blog, I reserve the right to edit comments with OPSEC violations.

OPSEC Rules:

Do not post exact deployment dates or redeployment dates
Do not reveal camp locations, including nearby cities. After the deployment is officially announced by Military officials, you may discuss locations that have been released, normally on the Country level.
Do not discuss convoy routes (“we travelled through Takrit on our way to X”)
Detailed information on the mission, capabilities or morale of a unit
Specific names or actual nicknames
Personnel transactions that occur in large numbers (Example: pay information, powers of attorney, wills, etc)
Details concerning security procedures, response times, tactics
Don’t discuss equipment or lack thereof, to include training equipment
Don’t speculate about future operations
If posting pictures, don’t post anything that could be misconstrued or used for propaganda purposes. A good rule of thumb is to look at your picture without your caption or explanation and consider if it could be re-captioned to reflect poorly on coalition forces. For example, your image might show your Soldier rescuing a child from a blast site, but could be re-captioned to insinuate that the child being captured or harmed. (it’s happened!)
Avoid the use of count-up or count-down tickers for the same reason as rule #1
be very careful if posting pictures of your loved one. Avoid images that show significant landmarks near their base of operations, and black out last names and unit affiliations
Do not, ever, post information about casualties (coalition or enemy) before the official release of the information.
Do not pass on rumors (“I heard they’re coming home early”, etc)