hollow army
n.— «“Right now, we have a hollow Army,” responded Gen. E. C. Meyer, Army chief of staff, in what turned out to be the bluntest response. “I don’t believe the current budget responds to the Army’s needs for the 1980s,” said Meyer of Carter’s fiscal 1981 defense budget. “There’s a tremendous shortfall in the ability to modernize quickly” in response to the Soviet threat. » —“Joint Chiefs of Staff Break With Carter On Budget Planning for Defense Needs” by George C. Wilson Washington Post May 30, 1980. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
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Many of us struggled with the Old English poem “Beowulf” in high school. But what if you could actually hear “Beowulf” in the English of today? There’s a new translation by Maria Dahvana Headley that uses contemporary...