Full Scale Charlie Foxtrot

I am so happy with the producers of Monday Night Football right now. They always do a little sketch or promo before the intro to the show. Last year they took a lot of heat for having a towel-clad desperate housewife undo her wrappings to show T. "Terrell Owens" O. her goodies prior to an Eagles game. The usual gang of family values folks protested the promo and ABC promised to investigate and yadda, yadda, yadda. Long story short, we’re not allowed to enjoy our entertainment anymore.

So as the season opener opens, in comes the promo for the Eagles/Falcons game. The setting is the air traffic control booth at Atlanta’s airport. One controller, looking at his radar screen, starts going nuts saying that Falcon-7 (Michael Vick) has appeared on his radar screen and is moving exceptionally fast. Another controller pipes up saying that Eagle-5 (Donavan McNabb) is approaching as well. General panic ensues as they determine that the two are on a collision course. Then the supervisor says, “We’ve got a full scale Charlie Foxtrot here!”

I think at that moment, in bars, barracks, and homes all across the country, snickers were heard from anyone who’s had military experience. It was a joke everyone else – especially the family values gang – was not supposed to get.

As you know, many letters sound the same – especially over the phone or radio or just a lot of background noise. It is often hard to tell whether someone says C, P, B, D, E, G or whatnot. The military uses words – Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, etc. – to avoid this type of confusion. Remember Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin from back in the Cold War days? That just meant it was the third checkpoint. It connected East and West Berlin through the wall. Checkpoints Alpha and Bravo were at the border between East and West Germany and the outer border between East Germany and West Berlin, respectively.

The military has a phrase to describe a moment when lots of things are going horrifically wrong all at once. In mixed company, one would call it a Charlie Foxtrot. Just amongst the soldiers, though, it’s a Cluster Fu … well, I don’t want to upset the family values gang.