There actually is policy guidance on the selection of names for operations, though I don't remember many of the specifics. They are not supposed to be particularly blood-curdling or undignified. There was an article about this subject in one of the professional military journals about 20-25 years ago that cited a column my Dad wrote in the Washington Post local news section in 1983. Dad said the Grenada invasion should have been called "Reluctant Endeavor" rather than what it was. The article in the professional journal concluded that my old man was anti-war; that wasn't the case at all, he was a World War II combat veteran whose frame of reference was Normandy and the Bulge, not some p*ssant little operation.
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