Gunzlingr
04-22-2003, 03:07 PM
By Greg Garber
ESPN.com
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The real war room is a nondescript, gray aircraft hanger on a 262-acre compound known as Camp As Sayliya in the desert of Qatar.
U.S. General Tommy Franks presides over the military brain trust in the Central Command's field headquarters. The fall of Baghdad was orchestrated from this room some 700 miles to the south as officials monitored the precise movement of troops, tanks, planes and ships with the aid of computers, fiber optics and six plasma screens.
The conflict in Iraq has changed many things in America. War terminology suddenly sounds trite, heavy-handed and sometimes ironic. The concept of the war room dates back to 1914 and World War I, when generals plotted the progress of troops with pins in a map.
Football, which borrows so many terms from the military, makes its draft-day decisions in the "war room." This year, by broad consensus, the war room will be referred to as the draft room. ESPN, which will televise the draft, has already discussed this in preliminary meetings.
"The draft room," said ESPN's draft host Chris Berman, trying out the sound of it last week. "How about the brain trust? Or the think tank? I think that's appropriate. Our people over there deserve that kind of respect.
"It's 10 hours of live television, so I know I'll probably slip once or twice. But I'll give it my best effort. My God, you know that our soldiers gave us theirs."
more (http://sports.espn.go.com/nfldraft/columnist?id=1541826)
ESPN.com
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The real war room is a nondescript, gray aircraft hanger on a 262-acre compound known as Camp As Sayliya in the desert of Qatar.
U.S. General Tommy Franks presides over the military brain trust in the Central Command's field headquarters. The fall of Baghdad was orchestrated from this room some 700 miles to the south as officials monitored the precise movement of troops, tanks, planes and ships with the aid of computers, fiber optics and six plasma screens.
The conflict in Iraq has changed many things in America. War terminology suddenly sounds trite, heavy-handed and sometimes ironic. The concept of the war room dates back to 1914 and World War I, when generals plotted the progress of troops with pins in a map.
Football, which borrows so many terms from the military, makes its draft-day decisions in the "war room." This year, by broad consensus, the war room will be referred to as the draft room. ESPN, which will televise the draft, has already discussed this in preliminary meetings.
"The draft room," said ESPN's draft host Chris Berman, trying out the sound of it last week. "How about the brain trust? Or the think tank? I think that's appropriate. Our people over there deserve that kind of respect.
"It's 10 hours of live television, so I know I'll probably slip once or twice. But I'll give it my best effort. My God, you know that our soldiers gave us theirs."
more (http://sports.espn.go.com/nfldraft/columnist?id=1541826)