ADS-L Digest - 26 Jul 2005 to 27 Jul 2005 (#2005-209)

[Wilson Gray]

On Jul 28, 2005, at 9:43 PM, James A. Landau wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "James A. Landau" <JJJRLandau at AOL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: ADS-L Digest - 26 Jul 2005 to 27 Jul 2005 (#2005-209)
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> --------
>
> My apologies for not putting the correct title on my previous mail,
> but now
> that a thread has been Established I can't correct it.
>
> Wilson Gray writes:
>
>>  This may not be very relevant, but when I was in Basic Training in
>>  1969 a
>> sergeant when he wanted to compliment you said "your shit is up
>> tight".
>
> You got an actual compliment from a cadre member while still in  Basic?
> That *is* up tight, not to mention outta sight! You must have been
> some
> "sharp soldier," if that phrase was still used in your  day,
>
>> I've
>> never been able to hear the term "uptight" since  without thinking of
>> a
>> DI.
>
> In my day - late '50's -  "D[ril]I[instructor]" was only a marine
> expression disdained by the War  (black GI slang term for the Army).
> Unfortunately, I'm having a senior  moment and I can't recall what the
> term in use was in those days. I "have  an inkling in the back of my
> thinking-cap" that "instructor" was also part  of the Army term, but
> that's all I can come up  with.
>
>
> Yes, DI's gave out compliments.  A DI spends enough time and  energy
> dealing
> with the problem cases that if a soldier behaves himself and is
> helpful to
> his fellow trainees, the DI pats him on the head and goes off to deal
> with his
> hard cases.  I wasn't that sharp a soldier, but I never caused my  DI
> any
> trouble.  The first day in Basic he told me "God, you're ugley" and
> always
> addressed me as "Louisville", but when I got KP the last week of Basic
> he  pulled me
> off and gave the KP to the trainee who had given him the most gray
> hairs.
>
> FWIW, during Basic we were told that the idea of a Drill Instructor as
> a
> noncom specially trained to deal with basic trainees (as well as the
> campaign
> hat ("Smokey the Bear hat") worn by the DI) was copied from the
> Marines.  I
> don't know when this copying occurred, but quite possibly after your
> days in
> Basic.

Right. Back then, everyone having anything to do with the actual
training, whether trainer or trainee, wore the helmet liner from what
one sergeant called "the best-designed example of combat headgear in
the history of warfare." I internalized this to the extent that I'm
still dismayed  by the shift to today's ugly plastic, even after
hearing that the real purpose of having recruits wear only liners as
headgear was to make it more difficult for them to desert. Outside of
the area of the training regiments, that helmet liner stuck out like a
sore thumb, immediately identifying its wearer as a trainee in a place
where no trainee was supposed to be. My alma mater is Fort Leonard
Wood, MO, BTW.

-Wilson Gray

>
> If I remember correctly, a trainee addressed a DI as "Drill Sergeant"
> but
> the abbreviation "DS" was never used.  (Actually "DS" means "direct
> support",
> i.e. supplies to combat troops).
>
> A linguistic peculiarity that has always puzzled me:  within the
> Training
> Center there was a unit called "Committee Group" which did the
> specialized
> training (map reading, land navigation, target detection,  camouflage,
> etc.)
> Where the name "Committee Group" came from I never found  out, but it
> was the
> official name.  The members of Committee Group wore  baseball caps,
> not the
> fatigue cap but true baseball caps with flat unstiffen  fronts.
>
>       - James A. Landau
>