[cedarswingman]

I'm a REDNECK and proud of it. NO OFFENSE TAKEN but I wonder if you know the term REDNECK originated in England several centuries ago when the common people rebelled against the demands that were put on them by the King. In order to identify each other,while fighting the Kings Army, the common people wore a red collar around their neck and become known as REDNECKS.
Jeff Foxweorthy has made as lot of money making fun of REDNECKS and I don't fault him for that but if I were in Iraq, or anywhere else, I would feel a lot safer knowing there were a bunch of REDNECKS around.

[Little Bill]

They were all rick burners and Luddites and got deported to Oz. The real Red Necks were the small holders in the South and the Boarder States who worked their own holdings, were for the most part Unionist, a nasty Independant group of people, go to Eastern Tenn for an example.

[TexasCowboy]

"if I were in Iraq, or anywhere else, I would feel a lot safer knowing there were a bunch of REDNECKS around."

From a Texas redneck, I agree!

[AnAmericanMother]

Occam's Razor.

"Rednecks" are so called because leaning over chopping cotton in the hot sun permanently sunburned their necks.

I majored in history and specialized in American and British military history, have never heard the story you relate. Can you give me a hint as to who was fighting and when?

You may be thinking of the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion and the "redlegs" - the Highland Scots so called because they wore the kilt (actually in those days the belted plaid - the kilt was invented by a tailor in Lochaber in the 19th century).

Many Highlanders emigrated to the South at that time and later on during the Clearances. But the relation between their new abode and the term "redneck" is purely coincidental.