Content tagged with "military"
“In Soldiers Of Reason: The RAND Corporation And The Rise Of The American Empire: ‘We would become the first aggressors for peace.’ For this opinion, President Truman immediately cashiered [Secretary of the Navy Francis] Matthews. Later in the same book: There were bound to be disappointments along…”
“This is from the literal Latin. It’s related to the ‘just war doctrine,’ meaning it refers to an act in which war is a justified response. I have the photo of a book page in my notes, but I don’t remember where it’s from. It discusses the run-up to the Iraq War: The president…directly [invoked] the…”
“This refers to who has physical control of a vessel at any particular time. To ‘have the conn’ means you are in final control of the navigation of a seagoing vessel. The captain of a ship assigns the conn. They can give it to a junior officer and take it back at their discretion. Command of a ship…”
“The larger concept here is the U.S. Navy’s ‘hull classification system.’ The Navy needs to keep track of its ships, so each one has a ‘hull number.’ This is a code for the type of ship, then a number. No two hull numbers repeat for ships in active service. Some common hull type designations: Note…”
“This term seems to have originated in early baseball or cricket, referring to a ball that travels low across the ground – either a cricket bowl or a baseball hit. Presumeably, the name comes from the idea that the ball was low enough to ‘cut daisies’ as it traveled. From there, it morphed into…”
“Yes, this is still a thing. DEFCON is short for ‘defense condition,’ and it refers to the general state of readiness and alert for the American military. It’s actually in reverse order: DEFCON 5 is the most relaxed, and DEFCON 1 is almost at war. The levels were established in 1959: Most people of…”
“This is military slang meaning ‘all good.’ It comes from how they used to measure radio signal strength and clarity on a scale of 1 to 5. So, a strong signal that was distorted would be ‘five-by-one’ and a weak, clear signal would be ‘one-by-five.’ A strong clear signal would be ‘five-by-five.’ ‘I…”