Over 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.
Recently, a new trend has started that makes fun of the term ‘Operator.’ How can you not laugh when someone says, “Do you even operate bro?”
So, how about we, as a community, police ourselves up a little bit? It’s gets a little intense sometimes. 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?
