Who Picks Military Names?
Posted: Sunday, March 20, 2011
by John Sammon
Sammonsays
Okay, who is it?
Who is it at the Pentagon who picks the titles of U.S. military operations?
Our newest action in Libya is called “Odyssey Dawn.”
Odyssey Dawn?
The dictionary definition for Odyssey is a “long eventful journey.”
Does that mean the new war will be long as Muammar Gaddafi predicted yesterday? Couldn’t the Pentagon author of the title instead have labeled it “Blink-of-an-Eye Dawn,” so at least we could hope it will be a short war?
The war in Iraq is called “Operation Iraqi Freedom.” This is freedom imposed by force, so it isn’t really freedom. It killed a million Iraqis. So it set many Iraqis free from life. The war in Afghanistan is titled “Enduring Freedom.” Since we haven’t won the war, the notion of enduring freedom must be seen at this point as a gross exaggeration.
Maybe the Afghan War should have been titled, “Iffy, Possible Freedom Seventy Years from Now if Everything Goes According to Plan.”
Okay. Who at the Pentagon picks the titles for war? I think it’s probably a little bureaucrat who has a nice secure tax-payer-supported salary and who has excellent PERS insurance who sits in a little office and is a frustrated writer who has the dream job of thinking up titles that all-too-often not only do not make sense, but fly in the face of both intelligence and propriety.
Nevertheless, whoever this person is, and I think we have a right to know who it is, he has his two seconds of immortality.
For example, instead of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the Iraq War would have more appropriately and honestly been called “Operation Killing a Million Iraqis Including a Small Smattering of Terrorists to Topple Former Ally Saddam by Using False Weapons of Mass Destruction as Ruse to Fool American People.”
That’s too long, isn’t it? We could use the above as an acronym. It would be OKMIISSTTFASUFWMDRFAP. You know how the military loves to label everything with nonsensical letters including even the peanut butter in the mess hall.
I’ve come up with a few suggested titles for future wars of my own. As taxpayers who have no rights to decide wars, or end them, we should at least have the miniscule right to hold an election to title them.
- Operation Love Me, Suck My Gun (this substitution of gun for penis as a power force would be loved by the extreme right wing in this country).
- Operation Flying Turbans and Sandals (refers to what happens to Arabs after we drop bombs).
- Operation Enduring, Endless, Ecstasy of Excitement in Executing Energizing Enforcement of American Values.
- Operation Heads I Win, Tails I Kill You (named after a violent Italian Spaghetti western movie. I like it because our enemies will be unsure of the implied outcome of the coin toss).
- Operation Grind Up Your Guts Into Foul Smelling Bits and Then Shove Them Up Your Ass (this one really captures the spirit and intent of a military action).
- Operation I Never Saw a War I Didn’t Love (this will appeal to Republicans who never served in the military as well as career officers).
- Operation Vaporize Not Nice Sand Nig’ers (this appeals to extremists who blame the Muslim religion for all America’s troubles).
- Operation F’ You A-Hole (among the most honest of labels, this will appeal to the great number of minority ethnic American soldiers from low-income inner cities who entered the service to get job training).
- Let me know what your suggestions for other titles are.
Copyright 2011 Sammonsays.
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)Yes John, when I was in Vietnam we had names for every operation we went on. Just how they come out with the names I'll never understand.
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