Word: brasses
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...most famous of the pre-Islamic Persian kings. Khomeini's image is everywhere, painted in oils and hung in heavy frames in hotel lobbies and government buildings and vacant lots, and festooned in glossy photographs over thousands of martyrs' graves. Even his sayings are etched in brass and copper and hung in frames or daubed in paint on the sides of buildings. WHOEVER FIGHTS AGAINST THE TRUTH SHALL BE DEFEATED is one such framed homily, hanging in the baggage hall at Tehran's airport. A short distance away, a blunter sign, painted on the side of a hangar, reads DEATH...
...young protagonist of The Coffin on the Hill climbs aboard a houseboat on the Yangtze River (Welch was born in Shanghai, where his father was a partner in a firm that managed rubber plantations): "Leaning forward and putting out my tongue I licked the brass rim of one of the portholes, in order to realize the ship with all my senses. Then I curled up in a corner of the fitted seat and felt like a mole, or some other perfectly happy blind animal, burrowing deeper and deeper, coming at last to its true home...
...military command, however, has been a good deal less enthusiastic about this new breed of warrior. Special Forces are often regarded by the brass as unworthy of precious defense dollars and a bit too independent to boot. Disclosures last November that members of the supersecret Delta Force had been charged with skimming covert intelligence funds only heightened Pentagon suspicions that the Special Forces are a bunch of freebooters. Shrugged retired Army Brigadier General Donald Blackburn, an expert on unconventional warfare: "Special Forces have always been the bastards of the Army...
Reaganauts in the Defense Department accuse the uniformed brass of paying only lip service to the need to build up U.S. Special Forces. In early December, for example, the Air Force canceled an annual inspection of the First Special Operations Wing, at Hurlburt Field, Fla. Officially, bad weather was blamed for the cancellation. The real reason, according to the monthly Armed Forces Journal: all eleven helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft were down for repairs...
...weekly “rumbles” in Tercentenary Theater between two departments randomly picked out of a hat by the provost. Departments will begin to tenure ringers based on their teaching skills, their reputation in their respective fields, and their ability to wield a two by four in brass knuckles...