[Ads-l] "Every man a tiger!"

[Jonathan Lighter]

Without the exclamation mark, this is the title of Tom Clancy's 1999 book
about the Air Force in the 1991 Gulf War.

The phrase was used as a morale-boosting PR slogan by various units during
the Vietnam War. I hadn't seen it earlier.

Until now:

1957 Louis Vittes & Endre Bohem _Monster from Green Hell_ (film): Every man
a tiger."

1955 _1955 Michiganensian_ (Ann Arbor: U. of Mich.) LIX 191: Every Man a
Tiger.

1953 _Air University Quarterly Review_ VI 109: Athletics: "Every Man a
Tiger."

1950 Roy Olin Stratton _SACO - The Rice-Paddy Navy._ (Pleasantville, N.Y.:
C. S. Palmer) 38 [ref. to WWII] :  It was in India that you first heard and
tried to memorize the SACO song EVERY MAN A TIGER, sung to the tune of that
grand old Navy song, THE ARMORED CRUISER SQUADRON.

1942 _Morning Chronicle_  (Manhattan, Kans.) (Jan. 10) 2: Manhattan Indians
Down Chapman By 46-33 Score  'Every Man a Tiger.'

1928 _Columbus [O.] Dispatch_ (Nov. 9) 6: The game! the game! Every man a
tiger for play....State boys must win the day!

[1866 _Evening Bulletin_ (Providence, R.I.) (Oct. 24) 2 [ref. to 1842]: THE
TIGER SPEECH.--In a very charming sketch of Mr. [John] Whipple in the
_Post_ is some account of the famous "tiger speech," familiar to our elder
readers. We well remember it.... Let 'em come, said the orator, and when
they reach our doors, they shall find us, every man, a  _tiger in his den_.
The effect was electric.]
-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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