The Nation: Running Down a Rumor

One of the most persistent rumors round U.S. Army bases is that selected units are being trained to invade the oil countries of the Middle East. Indeed, the story is that the Army has actually been practicing to attack a country code-named, none too subtly, “Petrolandia.”

As it turns out, this particular rumor stemmed from a training exercise of some combat elements from the 1st Infantry Division at Fort Riley, Kans.

The real name of the operation was “Exercise Dusty III,” a reference to the fact that a man named Dusty Anderson owned the farm being theoretically defended in a counterguerrilla maneuver by two helicopters and 20 air-assault specialists. For the purposes of the drill, the Army gave Dusty Anderson’s farm a special designation “Patrolandia.” An error in Soldiers, an Army magazine, changed the a to e, and thus an inflammatory rumor was born — and spread.