Iraq's battlefield slang

LA Times ^ | Jan 28, 2007 | Austin Bay

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

PRIESTS, PROSTITUTES, psychologists, cops, jazz musicians, poker players. Every trade has its jargon and "insider lingo." ...

..."Embrace the suck" isn't merely a wisecrack; it's an encyclopedic experience rendered as an epigram, gritty shorthand for "Face it, soldier. I've been there. War ain't easy. Now deal with the difficulty and let's get on with the mission."...

...Dynamic truth: Basically means "this is the plan when my supervisor gave it to me, but change is already in the works."

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

Noam Chomsky--Non grunt, non military echelons above reality...

[ARE SOLE]

Fun post. ... "Mortaritaville."

Ha ha.


Regards

[IronJack]

Bum wad -- originally British slang for toilet paper, it has expanded to mean newspapers, particularly newspapers with a liberal editorial bias, like the LA Times.

Congress Colonel -- a pejorative term for someone who second-guesses the military strategy to gain political points. Sort of like a Monday-morning quarterback. Or John McCain.

Boxer shorts -- brief quotations from Sen. Barbara Boxer of California. Generally so ill-informed and hyperbolic as to be hilarious. Often used as jokes to break the stress of battle.

[george76]

Embrace the suck

[george76]

Bum wad -- originally British slang for toilet paper, it has expanded to mean newspapers, particularly newspapers with a liberal editorial bias...

[angkor]

Catfish: The helicopter transport facility (actually a plywood shack) at Balad/Anaconda. If you've moved from one place to another inside Iraq, you've likely gone through Catfish at least once. It has cold bottles of water, a TV, unusable telephones, a whiteboard for flight tracking, and tents with cots for those who get stuck there with no available flights (frequent, and can last for days). It is unknown whether Catfish has any other "real" name.

[magslinger]

O dark 30: Pronounced "oh dark thirty." A word play on military time. Means a very early hour during the night. ("We had to get up at oh-dark-thirty.")

When I was in the Navy in the late '70's, it was "0 dark hundred", which meant early in the morning. "20 late 30" meant very late at night.
("We had to work from 0 dark hundred to 20 late 30")

[TADSLOS]

185th Avn Bde, MS ARNG. I know the guy who coined the phrase "Catfish Air".

Catfish Air

[angkor]

"Fun post. ... "Mortaritaville." "

I like Bombaconda more (and I was there).

Incoming 1 to 3 times a day, usually ineffective (John Q. Jihad launching one or two spare rockets on the way home from work), sometimes deadly.

My last week there they dropped 6 or 7 mortars in the KBR parking lot about 200 yards from my hooch, at 5:30 in the morning.

It was the first time ever that I crawled around the trailer on my knees looking for Kevlar, and made sure to crouch below the height of the sandbags outside (about 3 feet).

A real boneshaker.

One KBR guy was wounded but not seriously.

[Non-Sequitur]

Hate to ruin it for him but some of those - Lifer juice, Bohica, one digit midget, Oh dark thirty - were around when I was a young ensign 30 years ago.

[ARE SOLE]

Thanks for it Bro.


Regards.

[Billthedrill]

Nad pad. I'm dyin' here... BTT.

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

Nifty. I remember space available flights on c-130s. Fly backward, bring something to cover your ears, and make certain you used the paper bags or clean it yourself.

[Non-Sequitur]

When I was in the Navy in the late '70's, it was "0 dark hundred", which meant early in the morning. "20 late 30" meant very late at night.

And we all knew what O Beer Thirty meant, right?

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

And since you aren't intending to retreat, you'd better keep it on and aligned!

[Gritty]

[gcruse]

Yup. Weekend Warrior is even older.

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

Annapolis speak probably took a while to work its way up the Hudson.

You were probably "short" just before you left; good "Gouge" was good info, a reliable rumor; "skating" meant you caught some easy duty....

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

And in view of "General order #1" probaly about the only thing served.

[Non-Sequitur]

"skating" meant you caught some easy duty....

That, or you managed to get yourself out of something. That's one slang term I've never heard used that way in civilian life.