http://washingtonexaminer.com/whats-a-war-without-a-code-name/article/2554017What's a war without a code name?
By Charles Hoskinson | September 26, 2014 | 1:58 pm
When the U.S. military strikes, its leaders often choose colorful code names for the operation that sometimes stick in history, like Operation Overlord or Rolling Thunder or Desert Storm.
Not this time. The U.S.-led air campaign against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria doesn't have a name.
"I know of no plans at this point to name it," Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby said Thursday.
Since World War II, almost every U.S. military operation, large and small, has had a code name. And that name usually sticks when veterans talk about the conflicts in which they participated, such as Operation Enduring Freedom, which most civilians know as the war in Afghanistan.
Some become so well-known they even become part of the historical lexicon, such as Desert Storm (the 1991 Gulf War) or Rolling Thunder (the 1965-68 bombing campaign against North Vietnam) or Overlord (which is better known as D-Day).
Others remain more obscure — who remembers that the 1983 invasion of Grenada was Operation Urgent Fury?
The need to name operations in military culture is so strong that it has spawned naming contests on social media.
On Twitter, a Kirby parody account is calling the anti-Islamic State strikes "Operation That's My Humvee," in reference to the group's capturing of tons of U.S.-made military equipment from the Iraqi army.
Fake Admiral Kirby @zorching
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We have now formally given a name to military operations in Iraq and Syria: Operation That's My Humvee! OTMH I is well underway.
12:58 PM - 12 Sep 2014
Other Twitter users have offered their own preferences under the hashtag #NameObamaISISOperation. The process became so politicized that talk show host and Navy veteran Montel Williams chimed in, saying: "How about having some respect for the men and women who will have to fight? What is wrong with U people?"
