name the invasion

Written By Neil Offen

Apparently, we don’t go to war without checking first with the PR folks in the Pentagon’s Official Naming Division who have to come up with something sufficiently punchy before we drop the first bombs or land the first soldier.

Sometimes the names are supposed to impress those we’re attacking; sometimes they are designed to convince those we’re supposedly fighting for. Sometimes they’re just supposed to look good on T-shirts. Almost all the time, they are designed to obfuscate, which they do remarkably well. (FYI: There is no official Operation Obfuscate.)

Here then are a dozen code names of military interventions that the U.S. has undertaken during the last 75 years. How well do you know your unprovoked attacks? Can you match the name with the military intervention?

Oh, and just so you know, there’s one I’ve added to the dozen that is probably more likely the name of a Nintendo game and doesn’t belong here at all, at least until we use it, which is probably soon. Can you guess which one?

The answers are below.

Incursion Designation

1. Operation Blue Bat

2. Operation Uphold Democracy

3. Operation Shock and Awe

4. Operation Freedom’s Sentinel

5. Operation Restore Hope

6. Operation Just Cause

7. Operation Urgent Fury (do not confuse with Operation Epic Fury, which is the code-name for the current assault on Iran)

8. Operation Crimson Dagger

9. Operation Absolute Resolve

10. Operation Zapata

11. Operation Enduring Freedom

12. Operation Menu

13. Operation Power Pack

Attack Location

a. Panama, 1989

b. Dominican Republic, 1965

c. Bay of Pigs, Cuba, 1961

d. Afghanistan, 2001–14

e. Cambodia, 1969–70

f. Grenada, 1983

g. Somalia, 1992–93

h. Haiti, 1994

i. Afghanistan, 2015–21

j. Lebanon, 1958

k. Venezuela, 2026

l. Iraq, 2003

m. Completely made up

Answers: 1-j, 2-h, 3-l, 4-i, 5-g, 6-a, 7-f, 8-m, 9-k, 10-c, 11-d, 12-e, 13-b

Neil Offen

Neil Offen, one of the editors of this site, is the author of Building a Better Boomer, a hilarious guide to how baby boomers can better see, hear, exercise, eat, sleep and retire better. He has been a humor columnist for four decades and on two continents. A longtime journalist, he’s also been a sports reporter, a newspaper and magazine editor, a radio newsman, written a nationally syndicated funny comic strip and been published in a variety of formats, including pen, crayon, chalk and, once, under duress, his wife’s eyebrow pencil. The author or co-author of more than a dozen books, he is, as well, the man behind several critically acclaimed supermarket shopping lists. He lives in Carrboro, North Carolina.

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