lily pad
n.— «We are already “reconfiguring our footprint”—that is, reviewing deployment of our troops globally to make us capable of applying mobile force anywhere rather than to sit in place to meet any specific threat. That’s part of the “lily pad concept,” on the analogy of frogs hopping around a number of forward bases.…Saudi threats to restrict our use of bases there caused us to build a Qatar lily pad. Would Germany also prove unreliable as a jumping-off point in a crisis?» —“Germany no longer necessary” by William Safire in Washington, D.C. Times Union (Albany, N.Y.) Sept. 19, 2002. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
In 1971, when a new public library opened in Troy, Michigan, famous authors and artists were invited to write letters to the city’s youngest readers, extolling the many benefits of libraries. One of the loveliest was from E.B. White, author of...
Michael from Jones, Michigan, says he was stationed on a U.S. Army base in Germany in the early 1960s. If there was a gust of cold wind, a fellow soldier would say the hawk’s out. This expression is largely associated with Chicago, Illinois...