Kevin Brooks wrote:

That said, I did see where one recent document noted that apparently the "T"
in the acronym has lately been changed from representing "theater" to now
representing "terminal"--take that for what it is worth.


This was changed in February this year. MDA's official memo is at

http://www.acq.osd.mil/mda/mdalink/pdf/term.pdf .

From this, and some comments on the issue, it appears that the change
was purely "political" (to make it clear that THAAD is a part of the
US national missile defense effort, and not limited to deployment in
(foreign) "theaters").

Andreas