This is a request to our service men and women on the board, both past and present. And to history buffs, I suppose. I'm writing a memoir about my experience in Nebraska politics some years ago, and as part of that effort, I stumbled upon the phrase "seeing the elephant." I plan to use it as the title/anchoring theme of one chapter. It dates, so far as I can tell, to the nineteenth century. It was a popular phrase at that time, associated with both the exploration west and the Civil War. Green soldiers seeing battle in the Civil War for the first time were said to have "seen the elephant." This got me thinking about military phrases. I've heard "embrace the suck" from the Iraq War. I thought it would be interesting to solicit more of these kinds of phrases, both old and contemporary, from the Scrolls.
