[78thASA] For the _Ditty-Boppers_

[Dave Wilton]

The British "Special Operations Executive" or "SOE" was formed in 1940 to run espionage, reconnaissance, sabotage, and resistance operations in occupied Europe.

I wouldn't be terribly surprised to find it dated to WWI.


-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Wilson Gray
Sent: Saturday, January 19, 2013 11:44 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Fwd: [78thASA] For the _Ditty-Boppers_

Posted merely as an example of the continuing use of _ditty-bopper_ "telegraph-intercept operator" among old boys of the former Army Security Agency, "78thASA" being the "alumni association" of the 78th US ASA Special Operations Unit. The 78th was "special ops" only because it was independent of the command of the US Army Berlin Brigade, being under the direct command of the US ASA E[urope], itself under the command of the NSA.

I occasionally wonder when "Special Ops" got the bellicose connotation that it has today. Back then, "special" in "special operations" had the same cachet as the "special" in "special troops" - cooks, firemen (of furnaces), facilities managers, painters, etc. - "special education," "special borrower," etc.

--
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: <PaulB4178 at aol.com>
Date: Sat, Jan 19, 2013 at 8:36 AM
Subject: [78thASA] For the

_Ditty-Boppers_

To: 78thasa at yahoogroups.com

Bound and Gagged by Dana Summers

[An unreproducible cartoon of "Mr. & Mrs. Samuel B. Morse and their two children, Dot and Dash"


Paul B '62-'64


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