Actually, I thought of a much easier way to decide the factual question. Google web search is too clogged up with recent material, but Google book search is another matter:
Clearly the phrase "combat troops" is not a recent coinage. I think I'll take your technical point on that and decline to repeat myself about the rest.
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Actually, I thought of a much easier way to decide the factual question. Google web search is too clogged up with recent material, but Google book search is another matter:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&tbo=1&tbs=bks:1&#...
Clearly the phrase "combat troops" is not a recent coinage. I think I'll take your technical point on that and decline to repeat myself about the rest.