Honest, I didn't: Blackwater is now Xe. (Or U.S. Training Center, or a couple of other names, depending on the task. Xe is the boots-on-the-ground division. Still the same fine folk). And I never even got my "Blackwater Airships" T-shirt, either. Hey, the Pro Shop is still open!
...I'm tryin' to picture the high-level meeting: "Hey, let's rename ourselves after Xenon, a noble gas!" 'Cos, you know, it could not possibly be a mildly-snarky reference to Xenophon, right? Guy that marched home outta Persia with ten thousand of his buddies and wrote the report, Anabasis? Not him.
Riiiiiight.
Maybe this is the reference they have in mind.
ReplyDeleteWord verification: Slytoka. Sounds like a Russian insult.
Xenophon's "after-action report," heh. I always thought of him as the founder of the VFW. After all, he planted that Grove, and all.
ReplyDeleteThe Strategos job was elected. Xenophon was mightily pist that, having led his buds back to "The Sea! The Sea!," they ignominiously voted him out just as they were about to force the Dardanelles. No doubt about it, military history was founded by pissed-off, out-of-work Greek generals (or admirals, cf. Thucydides). This has an effect on our politics as well, and you have to face East and thank the Lord of Battles that Robt.E.Lee was above all that.
OTOH, Comrade, if it's Xena, yeah, Ecks did that--backache and all.
I think they're gonna have a bit of confusion with the best known currency converter online: xe.com
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