Grunt Speak

The Army has an abbreviation for everything. Brevity is an Army value. When speaking, you’re supposed to use the BLUF – Bottom Line Up Front. Marines aren’t even supposed to use the word “I”…a good habit to get into. But if the boss wants to know more, he’ll ask. Here’s how it goes down: “All the way, sir! Sir, I need your approval to divert 10,000 widgets to Zone X from Zone B in order to allow Unit Tough to assault Objective Kill as planned.” That’s the bottom line. “Hooah, Joe” in this case means approved. If he says, “Negative, Airborne. We sent them sent 10,000 yesterday. Why do they need more? Drink water and get me the 5Ws ASAP”, then you know you’re in for a bad afternoon. (5W = who, what, when, where, and why)

Even abbreviations have abbreviations – TLA means three letter abbreviation. Love it. You can speak entire sentences without using real words. “Hey Airborne, find the NLT on TOT for HE at POD… WILCO, sir…All the way. Drink water, you.” No wonder they call us grunts.  

BCG = Birth control glasses. That’s the name for the glasses the Army gives us. Very effective too. No woman will speak to a guy wearing those. For the ladies, they are called RPGs for Rape Prevention Glasses. Equally true. When you combine the hairdryer effect, the diminishing returns of Febreeze, and BCGs you have all the components to the Army’s secret Infidelity Prevention Program or IPP. To use the BLUF: I stink.

To see the new and improved BCGs you can look at the Father’s Day message I recorded for dad. The link is: www.dvidshub.net . Just look at the page, click on the right side box entitled “Father’s Day Messages”, and then click on Arkansas. Click my name and then the video should play. Katy says Grace forgives me for not mentioning her name. Thank goodness!!

Another applicable acronym is DEROS (Dee rose) = Date of Expected Return from Overseas. As in DEROS can’t come soon enough.

I digress. In addition to TLAs, we use call signs to keep things short on the radio. For example, the commander’s call sign ends in 6. When I was commander of Fox troop, my call sign was Fox 6. Simple. If you’re my driver, your call sign is Fox 6 Delta. So someone might call my tank and ask for “Fox 6″. My driver might answer, “This is Fox 6″, and the other person who knows my voice might say, “Negative, I need Fox 6 actual.”

So we in the Army who are away so often refer to our wives as “House Hold 6 actual”. We might wear the rank, but we know who gets the job done.

So to Household 6 Actual, ”Household 6 Delta reports BCGs, hair dryer effect, and failing Febreeze are keeping enemy forces at bay. Will continue IPP till DEROS. BLUF: Love you. Household 6 Delta, out.” 

 

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