To the editor:

I had the honor of serving my country for 25 years in the military. I spent three years of my military career working in an Army Psychological Operations Battalion. My job as an electronics warrant officer was to maintain our mobile recording studio from which some of our key missions including the following were developed:

Influencing with Information or Disinformation: This involves sharing specific information with foreign audiences to influence the emotions, motives, reasoning, and behavior of foreign governments and citizens. This would be done by using cyber warfare and advanced communication techniques across all forms of media.

Deliberately Deceive: These missions used psychological warfare to mislead the enemy forces deliberately.

We learned through our training that if you bombard a group of people with many forms of misinformation for a long enough period, they will believe it. Our enemies both foreign and domestic now are using these techniques to turn half-truths and even lies into things that people believe in without question.

It was against the law for the American military to use or practice these techniques on American citizens. Yet in 2024 the media and politicians are allowed to use what the military developed to lie and spread false beliefs to Americans.

I say this because I hope that before you believe what you have heard, read, or seen on social media, TV, in person, or by direct mail, you do some research to find out if it is the truth.

As you think about this, remember world history, the Nazis learned how to use psychological warfare on the German people, who then became convinced that it was OK to murder over 6 million people.

The Finnish people have a very appropriate saying:

“You have the right to your own opinion, but you don’t have the right to your own facts.”

Richard Stroner

Webster City