John Joyce writes for the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency (DCSA) about Mark Pszenny, an instructor at the federal polygraph school, the National Center for Credibility Assessment (NCCA), with a focus on his talent as a musician. Excerpt:
The power of a DCSA polygrapher’s music to tell real-life stories is resonating throughout an expanding world-wide audience. His latest album – blending soulful melodies with raw, impassioned lyrics – takes listeners on a journey through themes of love, loss and triumph over personal hardships and challenges. Since Mark Pszenny sang “Smokey Bourbon” – a ballad he wrote out of the depths of his adversity – thousands of people, captivated by the intensity of his passion, identified with its lyrical message.
They are also listening to him sing “Baby Cries,” “Trouble with the Man,” “I Get Lost,” and “Funked Up” – among 18 songs he wrote that are played on radio stations in the U.S., Australia, Germany, France and England and via Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube.
“Smokey Bourbon is about struggle – not whiskey,” said Pszenny, who has been struggling with ongoing health adversities since he responded to an alarm during a 1988 Army exercise, resulting in spinal stress fractures, accelerated degenerative disc disease, and multiple surgeries.
“There were highly classified weapons on site, and we responded as if we were going to battle,” Pszenny recounted. “It wasn’t uncommon for any of us to trip and fall into holes while running in the middle of the night, and that’s what happened when I was injured and put out of commission for a couple of months. It was a tailspin from there.”
The high energy traumatic injury required several operations decades later. A 2011 surgery fused the L5 (fifth lumbar) with the S1 (first sacral) vertebrae. Another operation in 2019 fused his sternoclavicular joints. At this time, he is recuperating from a Feb. 24 surgical procedure on his cervical spine.
Pszenny battled cancer, which is now in remission, and depression. His cancer diagnosis and treatment occurred between his right and left hip replacements in 2021 and 2023 while he taught polygraphy at the National Center for Credibility Assessment (NCCA), Fort Jackson, S.C. He has been teaching polygraph students there since 2018 when NCCA fell under the Defense Intelligence Agency.
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In 2021, Pszenny was scheduled to teach a course on “test data analysis” (polygraph chart reading) at a polygraph convention in Cleveland, Ohio, for which he was described as being “with the NSA.”
In 2020, Pszenny was awarded the American Polygraph Association’s Cleve Backster Award “honoring an individual or group that advances the polygraph profession through tireless dedication to standardization of polygraph principles and practices.”
We wish Mr. Pszenny all success in his musical endeavors—a far more noble pursuit than the pseudoscience of polygraphy. For more about his music, see the website of his band, The Pszenny Project.