Posted on 11/25/2001 9:39:17 AM PST by real saxophonist
Now, 'Saddle Up!' is one I recall pretty fondly. I still use that one occasionally and I've been out for ten years already.
Yeah, if it's pronounced phonetically it does sound abit odd. However, when forced from the back of the throat as a 'grunt', I like the sound. I've been retired five years, and it still jumps out spontaneously at particularly motivating moments.
It is a direct result of lack of a$$-kickin' beginning in bootcamp, and the general dumbing down and feminization of the military!!--and subscribed to by only those boots of that persuasion!!!
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"How lame," I thought. I guess a good "Ooh-rah!" is beyond them. Too bad.
A good "Ooh-rah!" comes from the gut. You really can't even do it right the first time. It takes a lot of practice. It's liike calling cadence; you start out, "left, right, left, right, left, right, left." And over time, you develop your own thing: "Da-low-righty-low-righty-lefta-righty-laoh."
One's "Ooh-rah!" develops over time.
My personal definition of an "Ooh-rah!" is: "The short, barking laugh of a United States Marine."
I read a book about the battle of Antietam. It might have been "Landscape Turned Red", by Stephen Ambrose. He mentions the Rebel yell, of course, but he also mentions (If I have the right book), the "Manly hoo-rahs!" of the Union Troops. So I would have assumed that today's "Ooh-rah!" stems from that tradition. It's interesting to hear older Marines say they are not familiar.
I just know when a really good feeling wells up inside me, an "OOH-RAH!" usually wants to burst loose right behind it.
Semper Fidelis
Walt
I once thought , myself, that it may have come from Jack Webb's old flik, The DI, where the DI says something like, "Let me hear you roar, tigers!" --that was in 56/57, and the BS oohrah was tobegin a few years after that.
In my opinion, repeat: my opinion! Semper Fidelis, and Gung Ho! are the standby battle-cries of the Corps--and in the explanation that Evans Carlson gave to Robert Sherrod, aboard ship, on the eve of Tarawa, it seems to me that Carlson explained Gung Ho as an extension and/or explanation of Semper Fidelis--that, together w/General Puller's comments on Semper Fidelis, at the 1956 court-martial of S/Sgt Matt McKeon, tells the story!
Semper Fidelis, Marines!
Dick Gaines D
BTW, all that oohrahing you hear on the bases are just "practice", gotta get that sound just right ;o) Just a woman's point of view.
I went through bootcamp (MCRD)in the summer of 63 and wasn't discharged until 67 and never once heard it. It must have been started sometime after that.
The first I heard it, ever, was in watching the movie "Scent of a woman" in which the blind "Army" vet officer, used it often. I figured then, that is was some kind of Army thing.
I'm a traditionalist and don't like it either and don't have a clue as to how it became attributed to the Corps.
Thanks Surferdoc. That would explain the "Army" officers use of it in "Scent of a woman". I believe Al Pacino played the Army vet who had been blinded in Nam. He may well have been a Ranger, but It's been about ten years since I saw the movie and all I remember for sure is his Army uniform.
LOL, yep, have been all my life.
A good story about one of the most Horrible Marines ever!! A gift to the Marines among us from an old Army Sgt.
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