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Operational Names

What is it with the snazzy operational names and when did this start. I was watching a news show and the FBI was investigating credit card theft in hotels. They called it, �Operation Sleep Over�.
Now, from an OPSEC point of view that�s about stupid.
Desert Storm? Where do you think that�s going to go off?
Even stupider is �Operation (insert oppressed people here) Freedom�.
It�s a really good idea to keep the operational name random; therefore operation �Market Garden� involves neither markets nor gardens.
Sure I know, the troop FRAGS aren�t going to be obvious to the enemy, I�m just saying�..

Or one might ask...why do they feel as though what they are doing needs to be �named� at all? Sound bite PR perhaps?

I guess it makes it a bit easier for the clerks in the rear-with-the-gear to file all the paper work...but what the hell do the people actually conducting the operation care what it�s called or not called?

I cared, and thought at the time "Operation Desert Storm" was stupid. Nobody asked me either.
Not only that it sort of lets the cat out of the bag, gee I wonder where operation dDesert Storm is going to take place?

You could have called it �Operation Kick Iraq out of Kuwait� or �Operation North Pole� and it wouldn�t have made any difference.

Everyone on the planet had been watching the UN security council meetings, the resolutions that were passed, and also had been watching the troop build up for months every night on their TV�s. It wasn�t like it was some big secret about where they were or what they were going to do.

After it started the name changed from Operation Desert Shield to Operation Desert Storm...and having fought in a war myself I can�t for the life of me see how any of that stupid stuff makes a damn bit of difference to the troops doing the fighting (on either side.)

As for asking the troops for their input on such things...the military defends democracy, it doesn�t practice it. I was a 17 year old high school drop out when I joined the Marine Corps 44 years ago and I had no illusions that I was going to be consulted about decisions or to get to vote on much of anything I was told to do.

I know I'm picking nits.
As to why it really bothers me, I guess the silly names trivialize a military operation, people are going to get killed yet some staff weinie is tasked with coming up with a really cool name, almost a Monty Python skit.
"Major Snotnose, it's your job to come up with a reaaaaaaalllllly smarpy name for the operation".
"Smarpy sir".
"Yes smarpy, smarpy, be about it then".

And that�s pretty much how the military has been ever since its been around.

I fought in Operation Hue City during 68 Tet...how�s that for a �creative� and �secretive� name? Not that it mattered much to any of us since by the time they decided to name it we had been fighting for two or three days and the NVA sort of already knew we were there and what our intentions were.

They didn't name it, "Operation Hue City, 0400, Perfume River Bridge, we will be on 167.025Mhz, using codegroup charly"

My dad was in Da Nang.

If they had it wouldn�t have made much difference.

After 26 days of almost non-stop shooting-and-scooting around those filty streets, alleys, [bleep] filled yards and buildings in the �Paris of the Orient� I could have cared less what some office puke in Da Nang decided to name that Operation. I was just real glad it was over and that most of us made it out reasonably intact.

Yet it never surrendered. Paris is quite the insult.

Never been to the real one...but if Hue City reminded the Frenchmen of Paris then Paris must REALLY suck.

Where I work now we use a codeword database. When you need one you go a web page and it spits out a word or two. I don't care much what they are but a couple times I've rejected them as a name for something I had no interest in spending the next two years of life working on. The one that pops to mind is "Windy Oven" We all looked at each other and said WTF?

We instead picked some of our own. They included HatWizard and WhiteWizard, Garnet and LongRifle. Try and keep them inocious but they are also projects that will never be on the news (we hope)

See, just from the operational names I surmise that you are making hats for Saruman.

Well, you can never discount the urinalysis program "Operation Golden Flow"

Well there was Operation Uranus or Youranus depending on how twisted you are. That again it was a Big Deal for the Russians. This sort of stuff, while entertaining, is more for the after action reports and the history books. I mean its nicer to say Operation Cobra, rather than" We are going to murder you and use your guts to grease the tracks on our tanks, Summer- Fall France 1944"

IIRC the word OVERLORD in a NYT crossword puzzle scared the intel types for no reason.

Actually, it scared them for a very good reason as Operation Overlord was about to happen, but it did turn out to be just a coincidence.

I remember the part about Overlord, but didn't other code names from the Normandy invasion such as "Juno" also appear in crossword puzzles fairly soon before the event? Could be misremembering about this, though.

Supposedly the Normandy invasion was intentionally leaked to the Germans by a double agent we were using...but it was described as a only a diversion and that the �real invasion� would take place at Calais where most of the German high command had always thought it would be and where Rommel had almost all his Panzer divisions stationed.

It�s pretty difficult (read that as impossible) to hide that amount of men, ships and equipment so it was obvious that the Germans were going to know that an invasion was planned. They just weren�t sure exactly when and where it would take place.

Yes, it was Garbo. The whole Operation Fortitude is fascinating, I have a book Bodyguard of Lies , I think, but my library is in boxes lining the hall, awaiting a trip to the country.
Garbo sent the message before the landings yet late enough to make the info un-actionable.
Churchil said, "Sometimes the truth is so precious it must be accompanied by a bodyguard of lies." ...
Smart feller.

Important to not it wasn't Rommel who had the panzers at Calais but OKH that put then there. Rommel wanted them in Normandy and he was right. We should be thankful the OKH was what it was.

Absolutly, the whole point of "Fortitude" was to keep the Krats focused on Calais. Worked damn well.