Outside the wire

Marine blogger America's Son needed to work on his translations - from Army acronyms into Marine - on his latest operation outside the wire in Iraq. "I have never attended an Army mission brief before and it was an interesting time. Acronyms are as prevalent in the military as are egos; and both, at times, are equally hard to understand. I have been in the Marines for nearly eight years now and I have yet to master the art of acronym interpretation. Now, in this mission briefing, I was being exposed to a whole new lexicon. I wished more than anything that I had been issued an interpreter like our Iraqi officer counterparts. Many times during the brief, I found myself leaning over to my Army counterpart and humbly asking what this meant, or what that represented on the terrain model. By the end of the mission brief however, I had a clear understanding of our mission, timeline and the NAI's (Don't worry...you will get used to the acronyms after a while). I am not going to go into much detail about the mission out of concerns for operational security, but there were a few interesting and somewhat hair-raising moments during the mission which I would like to share." Go read Operation Arabian for the whole story ... even pics!