37F - Psychological Operations Specialist (Psyop)
My son Tyler joined the Army yesterday so everyone can relax now as the world will soon be a safer place.
He decided he was done with school for right now and wanted something different. Luckily I talked him out of the Marines but couldn't get him interested in the Air Force. He didn't want to sit behind a desk he said. We talked with the recruiter a number of times and he really wanted to go into Special Forces. We soon found out that you have to be 20 to enlist for Special Forces so he began looking at the infantry (interested in being a sniper), cavalry scout, combat engineer and bomb disposal.
He scored highly on the ASVAB (94 out of 99) and was presented with some really great high tech jobs offers. When we were going through the list, Psyop pop up and all of the recruiters in the office became really excited. Apparently Psyop is a really cool job and one of the recruiters had just changed his MOS to Psyop. It doesn't come up often and there were only 13 slots available nationwide. From what I've read it appears he will be spending alot of time with Special Forces teams and it could be a good way to get his foot in the door to Special Forces when he turns 20. He was sworn in yesterday but has to go back to Tampa to take his DLAB which will determine which languages they will offer him.
He leaves May 28th (he'll miss his graduation ceremony) and his current schedule is:
- Basic at Ft. Sill, OK for 9 weeks
- Airborne training at Ft. Benning for 3 weeks
- AIT at Ft. Bragg for 16 weeks
- SERE school at Ft. Bragg for 3 weeks
- Somewhere in California for his language school for 12 - 63 weeks depending on the language. He scored at the top of the test so he basically has pick of the languages that they offer him. We wants to study Arabic.
I just found a GREAT book that describes PSYOP operations in Afghanistan: Villages of the Moon. You should definitely pick up a copy.
This video is outdated but interesting:
