boots on the ground
n.pl.— «Our cooperation with “boots on the ground” helps assure their future military and political cooperation while increasing United States influence worldwide.» —“FY 97 Defense Authorization” by Dennis J. Reimer in Washington, D.C. Congressional Testimony Mar. 13, 1996. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
A California listener shares a couple of pranks from her time in the U.S. Marines, where unsuspecting recruits would be ordered to complete impossible tasks. She remembers that newbies would be sent to retrieve a bucket of frequency grease or a...
Is there such a thing as a “neutral” accent, and if so what does it sound like? And that quirk in the way southern Californians talk about freeways. They’ll say things like take the 405 and get on the 8. Why the definite article...