ghost soldier
n.— «The phrase “ghost soldiers” has a negative connotation in Army parlance—a reference to the administrative practice of filling units with names on paper, but not actual able-bodied soldiers.» —“Troops bask in Bush’s praise” by Michael Gilbert News Tribune (Tacoma, Wash.) June 19, 2004. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
It was a dark and stormy night. So begins the long and increasingly convoluted prose of Edwards Bulwer-Lytton’s best-known novel. Today the annual Bulwer-Lytton Contest asks contestants for fanciful first sentences that are similarly...
Enthusiastic book recommendations! Martha’s savoring the biography of Alexander von Humboldt, the 19th-century explorer, polymath, and naturalist who revolutionized our understanding of nature and predicted the effects of human activity on...