FW: Modern War Words???

Dave Wilton dave at WILTON.NET
Thu Dec 19 03:43:43 UTC 2013


Most of these were not around when I served in the late 80s.

The few that were around in my day (and some of these go back well before my
time):

Willie Pete
shitbag
mike mike
drop
pogey bait
smoke (not exclusively military)
Class VI
in theater

To my knowledge, the rest are relatively recent. (I qualified as a combat
tourist in the first Gulf War, but I never heard it called that.)


-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of
Victor Steinbok
Sent: Wednesday, December 18, 2013 3:27 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: FW: Modern War Words???

I'm pretty sure Combat Tourist, Hero, Smoke and Shitbag are quite old
(smoke, for sure, and it's also old gang slang). That is, I've heard them
before 2002. Some (hero) came from period films (including sci-fi, not just
military docudramas). Others are documented more directly. Old military
might be a better source on this than a fly-by-night observer like me.

     VS-)


On 12/18/2013 6:13 AM, David Barnhart wrote:
> The following is from my nephew who was deployed in Afghanistan a
> couple of years ago.
>
> Regards,
> David
>
> barnhart at highlands.com

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