WWII-era OPSEC poster

Loose lips sink ships, and so can oversharing on the Internet.  Not everyone who sits his behind down in front of a computer is friendly —  to me personally, to Americans, to Jews, to servicemen and -women, or to their families.  Do not doubt for an instant that there are people out there actively seeking information they can exploit to do real, physical harm to servicemembers like my husband and so many of our friends.  The very idea that my blog could become a source of sensitive information for those who would desire to hurt us and ours makes me feel ill, so I do my best to practice OPSEC.

“That’s all well and good, Miz Military Lingo,” you say, “But what is OPSEC?”  OPSEC is militarese for Operational Security, a set of practices the goal of which is to deny our enemies the information they need to do Bad Things.  This Operational Security primer is a worthwhile and practical introduction to OPSEC in general, so I will just list a few policies to which I will be adhering at To the Nth.

• I do not use full real names. The nicknames I use for myself, my husband, and some other key players aren’t just witty and oh-so-charming: they add another layer of anonymity between us and people we don’t want reading, like terrorists and hinges.  (Just kidding about the hinges… I think.)
• If you know us in real life, I ask that you also do not use our real names when leaving comments to my posts.  You probably don’t want your names connected with our craziness, anyway.
• I do not post precise dates for things like deployments, homecomings, port calls, and other movements.  In any case, all of you in the military community know that even “firm, absolute, set-in-stone” dates are subject to multiple last-minute changes, so it’s not like I know for sure in the first place.  Please don’t ask for specific information, because I will still feel like a jerk/flake/meanie-head when I can’t tell you.
• I do not divulge precise locations of detachments, upcoming ports of call, or really anything at all interesting. As cool as it might be to look up where my husband is on Google Maps, it’s not super-cool to think of shadowy strangers doing the same thing.

Thank you very much for reading the guidelines, and I appreciate your help in keeping to them.