By Task Force Football Bat

THE PENTAGON — Viewing a progress report on key Ukrainian military objectives, Army officers up and down the ranks today wondered aloud why the Ukrainian military has not changed any of its statuses from “amber” to “green” — or even from “red” to “amber” — in order to address the ongoing Russian aggression in their country.

“That’s a lot of yellow and red,” the collective body of military professionals who lead one of the largest, best-equipped armies in the world said, scratching their heads and adding that they wonder what their Ukrainian counterparts’ next evaluations will look like.

Status reports are commonly used by the Army to codify progress on a range of tasks — from vehicle maintenance through standing up a functioning democracy in the third world — in a “red, amber, green” format.  

Red typically tells the supervising officer that something, possibly the color, needs to change before his or her commander sees it.  Amber signifies that things are progressing and “are really more ‘gramber,’” according to several experts. And green means that there’s nothing to see here.

“I mean, good that they’re ‘green’ on employing anti-tank missiles and overall info ops, but they might want to just look at status for things like ‘expel invaders’ and ‘protect sovereignty’ before it goes in front of their commanders,” remarked officers in unit headquarters at every level across every combatant command.

“This is not what winning looks like,” the group continued, still aghast at the disagreeable blocks of color on the status report, adding, “how much longer in their deployment?”

Some standout officers offered more solutions-oriented critiques, with one commenting that “using clever slogans like ‘turning the corner’ or just moving the goalposts so you can use more green on your charts is a great way to get to green and get the briefing over with, without having to answer a lot of questions.”

Others expressed disdain at the Ukrainians’ clear struggle with painting the “right picture.”

“Obviously we provided a lot of training and intelligence to the Ukrainian military to fight effectively and kill lots of generals,” said a group of officers, shaking their heads in disbelief, “but I mean, where was the slide-making training? What will happen if all of that ‘red’ and ‘amber’ doesn’t move, and fast?”

Word from Russia that plans and logistics for their upcoming annual Victory Day Parade are “on track, nothing significant to report,” brought begrudging nods of approval from the body of uniformed leaders of American troops.

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