When we lived in Germany in the mid 1990s, my family greatly enjoyed the info-mercials on Armed Forces Network television. Mostly we enjoyed making fun of them. In particular we always seemed to be able to easily poke fun at the ones about Operations Security. There would be some kind of ridiculous person walking around a German market with white sneakers, light blue jeans, a Dallas Cowboys t-shirt and an American flag hat, sticking out like a sore thumb while a cheesy voice-over man reminded us to always be aware of our surrounding and try to blend in. The caricature was just too often proven real. There were many times while we were in public that we played ‘spot the American’ and loved to try to make ourselves appear as European as possible (the license plates that were the wrong size and shape with the letters USA on it, were no help then, but I digress). The commercials reminded us to vary our route home, not to become too predictable and to keep ourselves alert to our surroundings. Mostly I just wished I could be watching a real commercial, but was still glad that it wasn’t one about fraud, waste and abuse. Those were officially the worst. Regardless, I don’t think we learned the lesson. Or at least it didn’t stick…
OpSec from JudandKim on Vimeo.
