Strac[k]

[Wilson Gray]

FWIW, IMO, the Army probably *did* steal the concept and/or the name
from the zoomies.

You know, except for the posters in the D-1-3TRB dayroom when I was in
basic at Leonard Wood, I know STRAC only as slang. The W:pedia article
actually opened my eyes.

After The Wall went up, the Berlin Brigade was immediately reinforced
by two units (battalions? regiments?)  - the Rock of Chickamauga and
the Black Panthers; not only did they bring a living, breathing black
panther with them, but they also brought a big-assed boulder with a
plaque on it designating it as the Rock! - from the 4th Infantry
Division.

Considering that the 4ID was stationed at Fort Lewis, WA, moving units
from there, IMO, didn't make a whole lot of logistic sense. W:pedia
identifies the 4th ID as a STRAC unit. If the 4th was STRAC, well,
then, that's all right. ;-)

BTW, the last that I heard, the 8th Inf Div, stationed at Smith
Barracks in Baumholder, Germany, in my day, had been transferred from
Smith to Lewis and the 4th Inf Div from Lewis to Smith.

I've always chosen to look at such transfers as merely virtual: A is
redesignated B and B is redesignated A and that's all. A real
transfer, involving some 30,000 troops and their equipment, shipped
halfway around the world in one swell foop… To paraphrase a line from
the movie, Circle of Deception:

"Nobody would do that to his own taxpayers!"

But,

Youneverknow.

-Wilson


On Fri, Dec 23, 2011 at 2:09 PM, W Brewer <brewerwa at gmail.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: Â  Â  Â  W Brewer <brewerwa at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject: Â  Â  Â Strac[k]
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> An addendum on strac[k]:
>
>
> Somehow I ended up in the Infantry in 9268 & 9269. Since I was US (rather
> than RA), I got away with being unstrack for a couple of years. Finally
> DEROSed to Ft Riley, KanAss, eventually ETSing, and live happily ever
> after.
>
>
> Chapman slang dictionary 1975 p.418b: *strack* *adj Army* Very strict in
> one's military appearance and grooming [origin unknown].
>
>
>
> http://www2.iath.virginia.edu/sixties/HTML_docs/Resources/Glossary/Sixties_=
> Term_Gloss_Q_T.html#Letter'S':
>
> strac: smart, sharp, well prepared (from STRategic Air Command).
>
> Â  Â  Strack was part of Army vocabulary; I never fathomed its etymology nor
> the bookoo other specialized expressions peculiar to the military milieu.
> (One guy believed that ASAP was a Vietnamese word. Well, sounded like it.)
> Anyway, it looks like Chapman couldn't track down strack, and the internet
> glossary takes it from SAC.
>
> Â  Â  The etymology of strack in the Wikipedia article "Strategic Army
> Corps" sounds convincing. You'd have to get an Air Farce guy who knows the
> history of SAC to see if the Army could have borrowed the concept of strac
> from them. Don't think that'll fly though. So, I cast my lot with strac <
> Strategic Army Corps. Unless it's a Vietnamese word.
>
>
> As Paul Harvey used to intone, =93And now you know the rest of the story.=
> =94
>
>
> -----Whiskey Bravo.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



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