Thursday, October 02, 2014

Operation Awesome Righteous Kick-Ass May The Force Be With You And I'm All Out of Bubblegum MegaDeath

These cinematic names for military operations bug me.
It sounds like advertising/propaganda. The military analog of selling legislation by naming it--see e.g. the inaptly-named "PATRIOT" Act...
This stuff is too serious to be handed over to the boys in the marketing division.
Though OTOH several years back I read an account of one general explaining that some of this is because, according to him, nobody wants to say that they were deployed in "Operation Blue Spoon"... I mean...'Operation Overlord' and 'Operation Cobra' do have a certain flair... But 'Market Garden' is totally straight, and hardly uncool. Consider also 'The Manhattan Project.'
Probably not worth worrying about...but maybe worth a thought...

4 Comments:

Blogger Pete Mack said...

My favorite is still Operation Iraqi Liberation*


-- Pete Mack

* Or was it freedom? No, pretty sure that's supposed to be an L.

3:08 PM  
Blogger Winston Smith said...

I'm partial to Operation Just 'Cause

3:42 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Is it just me or does it seem like Israel employs the same dude to come up with these names. Their recent invasion of Gaza: Operation Protective Edge. Classic!

5:00 PM  
Blogger Winston Smith said...

Right...like they hire the same marketing firm...

5:05 PM  

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