7,000-mile screwdriver
n.— «Senior military officers referred to it as “the 7,000-mile screwdriver.” That was their way of describing Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s penchant for micromanaging aspects of the Iraq War that interested him.» —“Iraq claims its most senior casualty” by David Ignatius Daily Star (Lebanon) Nov. Iraq claims its most senior casualty10, 2006. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Loretta in Shreveport, Louisiana, wants to know what lexical and dialectal clues linguists look for when guessing where someone is from. She also wonders: Do people with long careers in the military or who grew up in a military family have a...
A hundred years ago, suffragists lobbied to win women the right to vote. Linguistically speaking, though, suffrage isn’t about “suffering.” It’s from a Latin word that involves voting. Plus: military cadences often include...
PACAF (Pacific Air Command) uses this phrase frequently. Their headquarters is in Hawaii, but the bases are all over the eastern pacific rim. I first heard it used in the mid 80s.