Squeaky’s Blog

I have seen a lot of things over the years on advertising and OPSEC.  OPSEC is heard nonstop when you are military but more overseas.  It gets pounded into your head every day.  Its basic definition as I know it is Operation Security.  Meaning you don’t take the same route when you go anywhere, you don’t advertise that you are military, that your husband is deployed or any information about it.  There are so many things involved in the definition/meaning of it and I am sure I am missing a lot of it.  My thing is though we spent so many years overseas that it’s still a big part of the way I think.  Then I am a mom and it means even more because now it’s not just me and my husband we are protecting but our children also.  That being said we have been back in the states for 2 years now and it amazes me sometimes the things people still do.  I can walk through the local stores off base and can point out almost every soldier.  Then our cars have stickers to get on base.  So, I and everyone else know who can easily grant access to the base as well.  Though that is at every place there is a base.  But I have been seeing these cars lately with decals on them showing the whole family.  Some of the cars just have the family members then some have the names of everyone too.  Now being military that I would think is bad OPSEC.  As a parent I think its bad parenting.  I mean it’s like hey there Mr. Child molester/kidnapper whoever I have this many kids and here are their names.  So, hey there feel free to walk up to them use their name their brothers/sisters names and mine too.  Would you like to take their picture while you’re at it?  That way when you get home you can plot your next move.  Because hey, now my kids have met you once and you’re not a strange.  How could you be you knew their names.   Hello!  Have people just lost their minds?  I mean that’s as bad as writing their names on their clothes and the outside of their backpacks.  My son has one shirt with his name on it and he doesn’t get to where it a lot.  It was a gift though and not something I bought him.  I think a lot of my opinions and feelings on it come from being military and constantly moving to new towns.  Our lives our different my husband says. Then there’s that old saying different strokes for different folks.  I don’t know though, to me it’s like they are playing with fire.  It’s like I told my husband the other day if he deploys again, I am not putting anything up for him.  There will be no yellow ribbons, no magnet decals on the car, or anything that will advertise he is gone.  I told him I love him and am proud of him and all he does.  But when it comes to my safety and the kids, I won’t be advertising to the dumb asses in the world that there is no man in my house at the moment.  It would be different if I lived on base.  Then I would think about it a little more.  When he was gone last time we lived overseas and in military housing in a stairwell.  So, yes everyone already knew he was gone.  So, I did have the yellow ribbons and the car decals.  Though if I left the base they were removed and the dirt spot that showed the decal of the ribbon was wiped off all in the name of OPSEC.  If you had driven down our street you would see half the cars had decals and that was it.  We were in a stairwell.  The front door was hidden from on lookers.  The only people that saw it were the other 5 families in the building and their guests.  So, as much as I think the decals are nice and some cute, this family we will be avoiding anything that advertises any extra information to the world.