] . . . There is
] a term STRACK or STRAC which was in wide use in the army at that time. It
] referred to an official condition of combat readiness applied to certain
] units identified by the Pentagon to be maintained at a very high degree of
] efficiency and quality - characterized by unblemished service records, high
] readiness of equipment, morale of the soldiery in the unit.
]
] This term then became adopted by the army in general to refer to any single
] soldier or small unit that was considered to be very "together," . . .
John,
Returning to the fundamentals of Philology
let us remember:
STRAC: Strategically Ready All Commands
This was a Gung Ho, A-1, Ready To Go, Fired Up
Command, Element, Unit, Person.
In modern day Dilbertisms one would say
A total quality Market Oriented,
Customer Centric ISO 9000 Compliant
Worker Empowered Focused Mission Oriented
Unit or Person Who Has High Energy For
The Core Corporate Mission, Policy or ReOrg.
Hence, logically, either the Term was Actually
NonSensical to begin with, when used in the Military,
or Dilbert has a DD214 and spent an unpleasant amount
of time at the Pentagon with the War Readiness Command.
ciao
drieux
ps: as you note, there was a Pejorative sense to STRAC
when the intonation indicated that one meant to imply
that the unit/person was 'by-the-book' and hence totally
out of touch with actual operational event sequences.
(2)
Sender: "Paul W. Wright" <pwright@ro.umich.edu>
Subject: Re: Military Terminology
The orginal military meaning was Strategic Army Corps but the acronym
has come to mean "ordered" or "neat".
Paul W. Wright
Assistant University Registrar
University of Michigan
500 S. State Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1382
(313) 764-6280
paul.wright@umich.edu