Inteldump has some interesting comments on the naming of military operations, includiong the one just finished by the 4th Infantry Division; it was called Operation Ivy Lighting. "The Roman numeral ’IV’ was used for the division a long time ago, and the division picked up the moniker ’the Ivy division’ during WWI. Today, 4ID soldiers wear a patch with 4 ivy leaves pointing north/south/east/west on their shoulder.

Today’s 4th Infantry Division (Mechanized) also calls itself the ’Ironhorse’ division, in a not-too-subtle reference to the armored vehicles it rides on into battle. The division plans team names every operations plan using a convention that incorporates either Ivy or Ironhorse into the name -- e.g. Operation Ironhorse Venture or Operation Ivy Lightning. Unfortunately, this means that every 4ID operation that ends in ’L’ will result in the acronym ’OIL’." On a larger side note, we ended up calling the Iraq war "Operation Iraqi Freedom" rather than "Operation Iraqi Liberation" because the acronym of the latter would have been "OIL." This is an interesting (and long) aricle on the naming of military operations from Parameters a few years back; interesting and sometimes very amusing.