Iver the years, I’ve sat by and watched folks go off on full on rants over use of the term ‘Operator.’ Apparently, I have a high threshold for BS because it never seemed to set me off like it did my friends. I took a ‘whatever’ approach to the issue. But lately it seems like everyone and their brother wants to be an ‘Operator.’ Why, just today I perused a website created by a cabal of ‘tactical operators,’ whatever the hell that is. This isn’t a bash on my brothers in blue but the term has become especially prevalent in the LE community, distastefully so.
On the other hand, I know a whole bunch of real deal ‘Operators” of the SOF kind who earned the title. The funny thing is, they don’t run around using it. In fact, if you ask them if they were an ‘Operator’ they’d probably say refer you to the friendly buck Sergeant depicted in the photo at the top.
So, how about we, as a community, police ourselves up a little bit? And seriously, could someone tell me what a ‘tactical operator’ is?
BTW, I’m a former US Army EW/SIGINT Voice Intercept Operator. How’s that for a lolz?
Tags: rantgasm
I never really considered it a “high-speed” term, but more in the manipulator sense of it’s meaning. I preferred to label someone an “operator” of their firearms rather than a “shooter” due to negative connotations that sends.
But agreed on the “tactical” designations for everything.
I seem to remember reading in one of the Vietnam era SEAL memoirs that the title of “operator” was a legal description created to cover US mil personnel engaged in “operations other than war”. Maybe Beckwith’s book? Can’t remember…
Hey ‘Walter’, you might want to take a gander at Shumate’s bio. http://www.soc.mil/swcS/RegimentalHonors/_pdf/sf_shumate.pdf
He was a founding member of the unit that operator’s come from.
The word “Tactical” has been irritating me lately, too. Everything and its mother is “tactical” these days. Hold on while I go open my bathroom door with high speed tactics and tactically vomit in my tactical throne. Like an operator.
A few in Law enforcement use the term SWAT operator but I suspect that is from a lot of the special ops guys turned cops that disliked the non-special status that swat officers enjoy in their agencies. Didnt change much. While techically you could say they conduct swat operations and there for are an operator of some sort, its useless. Most say Im a swat guy. I ran into an SF guy the other day and called him that. I will never refer to an sof guy as an operator because it takes the human side out of them. As for cops, the only places they get a huge amount of respect from their peers for being a so called swat operator is in bigger agencies where the teams meet more advanced NTOA standards. In reality communications operators and terminal operators have been around forever like that slim lil sergeant pictured above. I also remember reading about the name dilemma in Eric Haneys book Inside Delta Force. They couldnt be agents or special agents or officers by federal law and military rules so operator was picked.
Now a days, Operator and Tactical are just marketing buzzwords to sell the latest and greatest tacticool toy.
Yup – this is the most nauseating misuse / overuse of the term out there. Too many johnny-come-lately “tactical” company use the term to try and make themselves sound-high-speed and becuase they think it will endear them to the real-deal guys. Instead, I think it makes them sound stupid and it certainly puts me off from looking seriously at what they have to offer. Buzzwords and catch-phrases are no substitute for a proper marketing strategy, nor do they sell products – having the features and benefits that are right for the job are what sells products.
I also agree about the over-use of the T word – and its cousin, “warrior”. I also have to disagree a bit with SSD on the subject of the “athlete” word too. Athletics and soldiering both require high standards of physical fitness – but for very different reasons. I’m all in favor of sporting goods companies applying their understanding of human bio-dynamics to designing better gear, but let’s leave the “athlete” bit where it belongs, on the sporting field, not the battlefield. If not, then its a short leap from soldiers-as-athletes to athletes-as-warriors.
The problem is you cannot call all military personnel involved in assault actions “soldiers” as many are from other branches. So if you had to call everyone by their branch and field you would take up a full twitter just listing the names. You need an all around noun for people involved in these rolls. Warrior sounds a bit to dramatic. Operator sounds pretty all encompassing.
Now if you can think of some new terms to use, maybe we can promote those.
Works for me as an all encompassing descriptor.
Anyway, just what does an operator do? Why, he operates if course. Whatever that means! This all sounds just a little bit precious. How does a contractor describe what he does when working in a war zone? Does he say he ‘contracts’? Build a big bridge boys, and then GET OVER IT!
Surely most of you must have better things to debate.
I don’t think any of us are disagreeing with the correct, appropriate, military use of the term “operator” to refer to the tip-of-the-spear professionals in special operations that cross the lines between conventional, unconventional and clandestine operations.
But just becuase a light infantry soldier has learned door-kicker skills, or been deployed on door-kicker operations doesn’t warrant the application of the “operator” label, does it? What’s wrong with just calling people what they are? There’s nothing wrong at all with “Airborne”, “Ranger”, “Paratrooper”, “commando”, “light infantry”, etc.
The problem is the over-use of high-speed, cool, sexy-sounding labels just for the sake of it – in order to make everybody feel “special” – which detracts from the honor that it is supposed to reflect upon the select few.
I for one would never claim to be anything more – or LESS – than what I am/was: airborne light infantry. Hoooaaah! 😉
Sorry – but the term Operator is just a term. It’s never held the meaning many ascribe to it. It was part of calling someone a Tier 1 Operator. Which means that “operator can also be a “tier 27 operator.”
The more you say the more you come off as not knowing what you’re talking about.
While we are getting some long-overdue “policing” done, lets kill “RUN” as a verb for “OPERATORS.”
“I’m an “Operator” who enjoys “running” my tacticool M4…”
I’ll work on that one if we can agree to kill “rock” as in “he rocks a Crye JPC.”
But I cant help it that I run my .22 AR47 while rocking my Arc’Teryx/Crye hybrid uber leet tactical Plate Carrier. Im just that Operator.
And I’ll give that up when the waitress’ at every restaurant stop asking me if I am done “WORKING” on my food. I’m there to eat not to work.
Lets see if we can make skill and actions replace gear and buzz words as a sign of a real warrior, just like in real life.
I am not an operator. Dialing 0 will never reach me unless you ask the operator on the line nicely.
Even though we use tactical in our website name it was more as a category thing guns, gear and war gadgets. However tactical bottle openers, bookmarks, pez dispensers etc are a bit much. Plus if we called ourselves two cent gear or 2 cent military police and outdoor stuff it doesn’t have the same ring and makes us sound like a shitty surplus.
It’s more generic to use ‘Operator.’ Also, it sounds better and more modest than saying ‘warrior.’ It’s an easier word to use to lump a large group of tactical people together. You can say operator in place of most specific job titles and it makes sense.
I would be inclined to agree with that, its kind of a catch all term so you dont need to list all the specific types of individuals conducting an operation. But at the same time, I feel like it is totally over/misused. It shouldnt be used to refer to only teir-one SOF guys and giving them a god-like/hotshot status, but instead be used purely as a practical term (if it should be used at all).
I mean I often hear police snipers being called “operators,” as well as Tacp’s, CIA paramiliary, and sometimes dog handlers. Operator seems to indicate someone activly involved in “operations” whatever that means. I think everyone should just let it go and allow it to take on this new meaning. The top guys know what they are, and don’t need titles outside of their specific job roles. Anyone who is a Delta group or Seal 6 guy would hopefully not care about generic titles.
The very small community of people that the term Operator actually applies to don’t seem to care all that much, but I do my best to use that term only in reference to that small group of people. Other than that, I try not to use it at all.
As to the other buzzwords, they’re going to have to be replaced with something else, because that’s just how it works. There can’t be a term that somebody likes to use that isn’t replaced by something else; there cannot be a void. That’s an accepted principle, going all the way back to “pail” and “bucket”, as in “You’re so pail, you’re so bucket” being replaced by “sphincter”. That being the case, Kel from Gemtech posited replacing the term “tactical” with the new term “ballistic”. I’ve been doing my best to make that happen, but am meeting some resistance because the community is not unified. Yet.
Why is this such a big deal? The only people who should even care are those in units where they actually go through an “operators course”. I’m pretty sure they don’t care because they know who they are and what they do. Quiet frankly, the term SOF guy sounds really stupid as does SWAT guy. I’m sure the FBI was pissed the first time the State Department starting call their guys Special Agents. Do Team 6 operators think other Seals should be called Seal Pups? I don’t know for sure but I doubt it, they are Seals. Remember, Imitation is the greatest form of flatery. Let us not forget that some of our SOF units got their terminolgy from the SAS
What put me in overload was reading the term “Tactical Operator” like it meant something. Please tell me, anyone, what that means.
I’ m starting to notice that the guys who want to be called ‘Operator’ out of ‘convenience’ aren’t.
‘Operator’ in the context of SOF has a very specific meaning that has been explained in a couple of books. The term is also used in other instances outside of SOF. However, the vast majority of folks who are adopting the term these days have zero affiliation with SOF or those specific missions that call for the use of ‘Operators.’ Rather, they want to sound cool.
And no, none of my friends or acquaintances who actually are or have been ‘Operators’ in the SOF sense have ever mentioned this issue. They know who is and who ain’t. It’s the buying public who is at risk of being flim flammed.
I am not sure where thevSOF guys got the term, but I first heard it decides ago as a means to delineate the difference between analysts and those engaged of field operations in military intelligence. The latter were simply described as operators. It had no particular value attached to it as an individual may have both analytical and operational assignments during his, or her, career.
Perhaps the SOF guys borrowed it from the MI operators they were working with at the time and it got a life of its own. Whatever happened, does it really matter after all of this time? As someone from an intel background I know I couldn’t care less.
Having worked with the Australians I can attest to the fact that their Intel guys are referred to as Intel Operators. As I stated earlier, outside of the SOF realm there are numerous uses of the term ‘Operator’ as was the case with my MOS in the Army. However, when I was assigned to SOF as a SIGINTer my job title was ‘Senior Voice Advisor’ and later ‘Team Chief’ or ‘Team Sergeant’ as I progressed.
The domestic chief of staff is the Head of Department for the Operating Theatre in Bastion at the moment. They do operations – rather too many – but I don’t see any move to call them ‘Operators’. Perhaps I’ll suggest it to them. The normal term is ‘practitioners’ but I always hope they practiced before they put it into action.
As well as ‘tactical’ the other buzz words that are often used with ‘operator’ are ‘low profile’. Such as ‘low profile operators baseball caps’.
It always makes me laugh we LEO call driver (or riders) ‘vehicular system operators’.
I suppose that me a keyboard operator. Funny it doesn’t boost my ego.
I’m just impressed someone else remembers what a Buck Sergeant stripe looks like!!!
The female is an Airman First Class/E4.
The star on the Female Airman’s (most likely a WAF based on the uniform) rank is silver. She is a Sergeant, commonly referred to as a Buck Sergeant. You are showing your age, or should I say, lack thereof, by calling her a Senior Airman.
Correction, Senior Airman.
I may be incorrect, I have no problem with that. However, the AF NCO structure has not changed since the late ’40’s. E5 in the AF is a Staff Sergeant, not a buck Sergeant. If she was WAAC she would be wearing Army rank, which she is not. Please post a link if you find proof.
There was a period of time when E4 could be a lower enlisted rank or an NCO rank. Her star is silver meaning she is a Sergeant.
Proof, since my word isn’t good enough.
From AFD-090611-10
30 DECEMBER 1975 The E-2 through E-4 rank chevrons were reviewed in December 1975 during a CORONA TOP meeting which examined a proposed three tier enlisted force organization . A new criteria for advancement to NCO status was decided and announced to the major commands on 30 December 1975 . A key aspect of the new program was a new insignia for Senior Airmen and below. The insignia would sport a blue star instead of a silver star in the center of the chevrons (See Figure 8) . 32
32 = History, Directorate of Personnel Plans Deputy Chief of-Staff, Personnel, 1 Jul-31 Dec 1975, Vol IV, pg 38, K141 .01, AFHRA, MAFB, AL .
Furthermore, I did not say she was a WAC but rather possible a WAF based on the cut of her Blues. It is quite possible that this photo was taken during the or right after the transition from WAFs to regular Air Force.
Awesome! That is what I was looking for and couldn’t find….