remember euphemisms?

from one of my poetry lists this morning, when we learn of Operation Swarmer:


"operation swarmer" does not bode well as a name for this new little
project of our government. from TIME Magazine, May 1, 1950:

"This week, 32,000 U.S. troops will begin dropping in parachutes or
landing in troop-carrier planes on the green hills around Fort Bragg and
Camp Mackall, N.C. Jet fighters will whisk overhead, giving them air
cover. Cargo planes will fly in with all their supplies, for "Operation
Swarmer" is designed to prove that a combat area, e.g., an island base
for strategic bombers, can be taken and held by airborne troops entirely
supplied by air. Operation Swarmer will also demonstrate something more
important: the nation's unpreparedness."

also: "Operation SWARMER at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, during April and
May 1950, highlighted many of the inefficiencies and shortcomings of
improvised supplied by parachute-dropped and air-landed supplies." (LT.
COL. ROBERT C. McKECHNIE, QM-USAR
Quartermaster Review September-October 1950.)

t.