When I arrived home I sat down to have a glass of iced tea and picked up the latest issue of Time Magazine and was presented with:
Bush and his entourage must like these two phrases because they have been using them a lot lately. Perhaps they think they have the ring of in-the-military-know, no-nonsense-tough-person language.<2006 “But the country's slide toward an all-out civil war in recent months had begun to convince them that a DRAWDOWN anytime soon would not be feasible. . . . Aides say the White House still wants to preserve the option of eventually saying the Iraqis are prepared to assume greater responsibility, allowing the U.S. to ‘STAND DOWN,’ as Bush puts it in speeches. . . . For the moment, Bush advisers say, a DRAWDOWN of U.S. forces isn't imminent. . . . Evaluating when the U.S. might be able to DRAW DOWN its forces may hinge on the answer to another question: What will the absence of al-Zarqawi mean on the ground?”—‘Time Magazine,’ 19 June, pages 30-32>
In my two years in the Army, I never heard of either of these phrases and I suspect Bush probably saw them in a movie or comic book he read while avoiding active duty and immediately felt a kinship to them – not quite the bravado, the swagger factor, and the hubris of ‘wanted dead or alive’ and ‘bring it on’ (which unfortunately they did), but good ones nevertheless to make one sound ‘virile’ and militarily ‘with it.’ And I suppose in Bush’s (or his speechwriter's) mind, DRAWDOWN sounds sexier than simply what it means – ‘reduce’ for the verb and ‘reduction’ for the noun, and both DRAWDOWN and STAND DOWN sound a hell of a lot more powerful than “Let’s run off with our tail between our legs and get our asses out of this mess!”
STAND DOWN (1916 - see quote below) first appeared in the early 20th century British military and its origin probably involved all of the following: 1) the countermand of STAND TO (see below) from the older STAND, to take up an offensive or defensive position against an enemy; to present a firm front; to await an onset and keep one's ground without budging; to be drawn up in battle array. STAND was/is used in several expressions including ‘stand under arms’ (1876), to be ready for action, ‘stand upon one’s guard,’ ‘stand guard,’ ‘stand duty.’ 2) also said by some to have derived during WWI from the act of stepping down from the parapet of a trench.
STAND TO [WWI]: A special time in the morning and in the evening. The term is discussed by H. R. Peat in Private Peat (1917): “The name given to the sunrise hour, and again that hour at night when every man stands to the parapet in full equipment and with fixed bayonet. After morning STAND-TO bayonets are unfixed, for if the sun should glint upon the polished steel, our position would be disclosed to some sniper.” (War Slang by Paul Dickson)
STAND DOWN Military (now especially Air Force), the action or state of coming or remaining off duty or of relaxing from a period of vigilance; the end of a spell of duty. (Oxford English Dictionary)
STAND DOWN: 1) [British and then U.S. in WWI] To leave only a few men on watch by having most troops step down from the parapet of a trench; to take a brief rest from duty; to be at ease. 2) [U.S.A. (1960s)] A brief rest for troops on the march that left only a few men for security. (Swear Like a Trooper by William Priest)
STAND DOWN [Vietnam War era]: To rest. A military unit STANDS DOWN when it ceases all operations except security. (War Slang by Paul Dickson)
DRAWDOWN is a bit of a different story. It did not originally have a military sense and referred to finances and bodies of water. And even today it did not appear in any military lingo dictionaries that I checked. Also interesting is the fact that the word does not appear as a headword in the OED and the two sentences it does appear in refer to water levels. The word seems to have first appeared in the military sense during the Vietnam War and the earliest example I could find was from 1966 (could be why I hadn't seen it while in the serivce – I got out in 1966).<1916 “Our last orders were as follows.—From Stand to 5.30. STAND DOWN, clean rifles . . . Stand to 5-5.30. STAND DOWN.”—“Letters,’ I. Gurney, 25 October, in PN Review, 29 (1982), page 32/1>
<1918 “s.v. Stand to. STAND DOWN is the order countermanding ‘stand-to.’”—‘Dictionary of Military Terms’ by E. S. Farrow>
<1919 “STAND-DOWN, the order by which the period of intense armed vigilance is ended at daybreak, nightfall, or after the alarm of a threatened enemy attack has passed over.”—‘Digger Dialects’ by W. H. Downing, page 47>
<1931 “They religiously stood~to and STOOD-DOWN every dawn and dusk.”—‘Other Ranks’ by F. Tilsley, page 108>
<1973 “Pres. Nixon ordered . . . troops in Europe..to remain on the alert..but elsewhere round the world American forces were STOOD DOWN.”—‘Daily Telegraph,’ 29 October, page 30/3>
<1983 “Acas officials were fighting to keep alive the proposal for a third-party intervention to settle the water workers' strike. But a lull in the peace process is expected over the weekend after the Acas conciliation team was STOOD DOWN.”—‘Times,’ 12 February, page 1/1>
<1992 “If Bush and Clinton both satisfy him -- an unlikely prospect -- Perot would STAND DOWN. If only one does, he might endorse that candidate. If they both fail his test, he implied, he might heed the calls from remaining fans to compete.”—‘Time Magazine,’ 21 September>
<2005 “Our strategy can be summed up this way: As the Iraqis stand up, we will STAND DOWN."— in nationally televised speech at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, 28 June>
DRAWDOWN (noun) / DRAW DOWN (verb): 1) A lowering of water surface level, as in a well, reservoir, or other body of water. 2) A reduction or depletion. <“a drawdown of weapons in an arms-limitation plan”>, <“the drawdown of oil supplies:>, <“a drawdown of investment capital”>, <“decided to draw down their holdings in gold”>
Ken G – June 15, 2006<1894 “Many Connecticut savings banks have given notice to depositors having more than $10,000 to DRAW DOWN their deposits to relieve the banks from operation of the income tax law.”—‘Chicago Daily Tribune,’ 25 October, page 1>
<1912 “Steady depositors DRAW DOWN part of their savings and do not redeposit the interest paid to them.”—‘New York Times,’ 3 November, page XX7>
<1921 “A pump similar to the one anticipated was placed in the well and operated continuously until the water became clear: then the depth to water, the DRAWN-DOWN, the quantity of water, and the rate of recovery were obtained,”—‘Los Angeles Times,’ 10 July, page IX11>
<1940 “At the time the cutting occurred the plants were standing in water twelve inches deep. However, three days later the soil surface was exposed following a ‘DRAWDOWN,’ . . .”—‘American Midland Naturalist, Vol. 24, No. 1, July, page 259>
< 1943 “Ingenious new methods of temporary DRAWN-DOWN of water-level.”—‘TVA’ [[Tennessee Valley Authority]] by J. S. Huxley, ix. page 55>
<1966 “Under pressures from the Vietnam war, the Pentagon has already ordered a ‘DRAWDOWN’ of 30,000 officers and specialists from Europe', may yet have to withdraw whole combat contingents. ‘Time Magazine,’ 3 June.>
<1972 “Furthermore, he asserts that the Russians are as anxious s we to make savings by demobilizing a substantial part of their forces in Europe, and so a unilateral American DRAWDOWN should induce the Russians to reduce their troops committed to the Warsaw Pact.”—‘Polity,’ Vol. 4, No. 4. Summer, page 543>
<1974 “But shortages should ease quickly; the Federal Energy Office will permit an immediate 11 million bbl. DRAWDOWN from refiners' inventories, the fourth so far this year.”—‘Time Magazine, 1 April>
<1988 “The DRAWDOWNS of both sides' intermediate-range missiles will continue through May 1991. ‘Time Magazine,’ 20 June>
<2006 “Despite an assertion by the new Iraqi prime minister that Iraq may be able to manage its own security by the end of 2007, neither [Bush] nor [Tony Blair] gave any indication of a time frame for the DRAWDOWN of military forces.”—‘Chicago Tribune,’ 26 May, page 18
<2006 “With U.S. support for the war sinking, the Bush Administration is eager to show that sufficient progress is being made toward quelling the insurgency to justify a DRAWDOWN of the 133,000 troops in Iraq.”—‘Time Magazine,’ 12 June, page 39>
