Its well settled that about the only thing cooler than being an astronaut-lawyer is being a secret-agent-astronaut-lawyer. I could sue the moon for espionage... or something. In any case, in the course of my daily news readings this past week, it became clear to me that being a spy is, well, kind of freaking easy. I'm just saying, when CNN sarcastically puts "deep cover" in semi-quotes in your headline, you've probably made more than a few mistakes.
For me, seeing this story was just one more in a series of headlines that made me think I could do a professional's job better than they could. The last one was a story about a gymnast. That... didn't work out quite as well for me.
The NATO Phonetic Alphabet, for those who don't know, is the thing that makes all spy movies awesome. You know that moment in all spy movies where the good guy needs to relay information to their contact person or the entire universe will implode on itself, the villain will get laid by the heroine and Russia will take over the United States in tanks wearing fur coats? You know that moment? That's the moment when the only way the hero of the story can properly relay the information (conveniently filled with Bs, Ds, Ms, Ns and other easily confusable consonants) is by breaking out the NATO Phonetic Alphabet. Bravo. Delta. Mike. November to the rescue!
Wait. November? Next you'll be telling me they used place names and famous romantic leads from Shakespeare plays. No, that couldn't be. That would be ridiculous.
Only as ridiculous as their love.
Apparently, the NATO Phonetic Alphabet decided to throw cool out the window around the letter H. Hotel is the word for H, by the way. Don't get me wrong, hotels are badass, I guess. When there's a mini-bar and free cable. But there has to be a better word than hotel. Off the top of my head I'm going to say... Harley, Hoover, Hype, Hip, Honor. All of those would work. Realistically, I would've also been happy with Hopscotch (though that doesn't entirely inspire fear in the hearts of man). I mean, good Lord, even Holla would've worked. But not Hella. I draw the line at Hella.
The other letters are just as hit or miss. Ever wonder why James Bond never diffused a bomb with the serial number BMDQ149? Because it would've sounded awesome awesome awesome, wait what? Bravo. Ok, still cool. Mike. Nice. Delta. Workin' it, Mr. Bond. Quebec. Freaking seriously?
Yup. Seriously.
For the most part, learning the alphabet was just straightforward memorization. I did enjoy exposing myself to an aspect of military training that I hadn't learned about before and it was a good experience to slow down and try to understand why this code is important. The fact is, while it isn't needed every time a message is communicated, it is invaluable when the message absolutely must be correct. Also, it made me retroactively appreciate the new A-Team movie even more. So, there's that.
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