FORT BRAGG, N.C. — The colors of the 8th Psychological Operations Group (Airborne) were folded and cased on Sept. 29, 2026, ending the unit’s 15 years of service. The ceremony at Fort Bragg’s John F. Kennedy Auditorium marked the official inactivation of the group known as the “Phantom Knights,” the youngest of the Army’s four psychological operations groups.
The group was built for influence work rather than firepower, and it spent its short life being reorganized around that mission. Its end came with the group’s final commander and its senior enlisted leader lowering the guidon in front of the soldiers, veterans and families who had served in it.
The Army’s account of the day, an article by Capt. Rachel Deppen published Sept. 29, describes the ceremony as “the official inactivation of the ‘Phantom Knights,’ ending 15 years of distinguished service at the cutting edge of military information support, psychological warfare, and global influence operations.” Brig. Gen. Joseph W. Wortham, commanding general of 1st Special Forces Command (Airborne), presided, per the article.
Cased by its last commander
“With precise, measured movements, Col. Cusick and Command Sgt. Maj. Montesanto lowered the unit guidon and carefully folded and cased the group colors,” the Army article says. Col. Robert Cusick was, in the article’s words, “the group’s final commanding officer,” and Command Sgt. Maj. Jason Montesanto its senior enlisted leader.
Cusick spoke to the room before the colors came down. “What a great day to celebrate an amazing unit,” he said, according to the article. “I could not be prouder of the men and women that stand before us today and those that came before us to inactivate the unit.” He added: “8th PSYOP Group introduced new concepts that will remain for years to come.”
Youngest of four groups
The 8th POG was the newest of the Army’s psychological operations groups. “Though the youngest of the Army’s four PSYOP groups,” the article says, it stood “alongside the active-duty 4th Psychological Operations Group (Airborne) and the Army Reserve’s 2nd and 7th Psychological Operations Groups.”
Its timeline was short. The group “was provisionally activated on Aug. 26, 2011,” the Army says, “leading to the group’s formal activation on Nov. 16, 2013.” The unit’s lineage record, drawn from the U.S. Army Center of Military History, shows its headquarters company constituted on May 9, 2013, in the Regular Army and activated on Nov. 16, 2013, at Fort Bragg. The 15-year figure counts from the 2011 provisional activation.
The group was new, but its pieces were not. The Army article traces its foundation to three battalions with Korean War-era roots: the 1st PSYOP Battalion, “traced to the 1st Radio Broadcasting and Leaflet Group activated in 1950”; the 5th PSYOP Battalion, “rooted in the 1951 activation of the 5th Loudspeaker and Leaflet (L&L) Company”; and the 9th PSYOP Battalion, “originating as the 9th L&L Company in 1952.”
From MISOC to information warfare
The group began under the Military Information Support Operations Command, part of U.S. Army Special Operations Command. “In 2014, following the deactivation of MISOC, the group became a direct reporting unit under the newly established 1st Special Forces Command (Airborne),” the article says.
Six years later its mission shifted. Per the Army, “the group reorganized in 2020 to spearhead strategic Information Warfare,” and “the Phantom Knights anchored the Army’s cutting-edge Information Warfare Center (IWC) and fielded deployable Information Warfare Task Forces (IWTFs).”
The article lists where that work went. The group provided “critical command and control across U.S. Southern Command, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, and worldwide special operations missions,” it says, “while continuing dedicated tactical support to the 75th Ranger Regiment, joint special operations forces, and humanitarian assistance missions worldwide.” The group served under the motto Veritas et Virtus, Latin for Truth and Virtue.
Where the units go
Inactivation retired the group’s colors, not its people. “As part of this transition, 8th POG transferred command of 1st and 5th POB (A) within the Psychological Operations Regiment while integrating the multimedia capabilities of 3rd Psychological Operations Battalion (Airborne)(Dissemination),” the Army article says. The 1st and 5th Psychological Operations Battalions (Airborne) remain in the regiment.
The article does not give a reason for the inactivation or a count of soldiers affected. It says that “the personnel, capabilities, and heritage of 8th POG remain within the Psychological Operations Regiment,” which carries the group’s history forward now that its colors are cased.
Top image: The distinctive unit insignia of the 8th Psychological Operations Group, motto “Decisive Influence.” Image Credit: U.S. Army Institute of Heraldry — Public domain / Wikimedia Commons