Favorite Military "sayings"

TJRaccoon said:
I wiped out on the SLT and continued to do PLFs. Ended up with internal bleeding in the sinus or something. Spitting up blood for three days. Went on sick call and was a Tower Tango recycle. The SLT was hell for me the first try.

When I went to my unit I did a total 44 jumps in 3 and a half years. I never busted up during a landing and landed generally like a bag of poop. Several high wind jumps results in feet - ass - head landings. A couple feet - head landings. Think I learned my lesson from the SLT the hard way!
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SLT was useless, but the Suspended Harness was useless-er.

Honestly, for me, the most useful parts of Ground and Tower Weeks were the PLFs into the pit from the little platform, and the bit where they harnessed you to a big cafeteria tray and pulled you along the grass until you learned how to pop your canopy release assemblies. That was fun.
 
FrugalFannie said:
If it ain't raining it ain't training
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"This is Infantry Weather!" or "It's a FINE day to be an Infantryman, a FINE day!" First heard in Infantry OSUT in a torrential downpour when forming up for PT from an enormous Samoan driill sergeant who played O-line for the Ft. Benning Dougboys.
 
graphite said:
From the training cadre on the grenade range, "Remember Trainees, when the pin is pulled, Mr. Grenade is no longer our friend!"
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My sister almost fragged her instructor with a grenade in the 70s. She was surprised when I remembered it a few years back. Like I'd forget. [rofl]
 
KBCraig said:
O. M. G.

What a useless bit of training that was. It didn't simulate the PLF at all, because here you are swinging a few feet off the ground, then you get released to free gravity and crash to the ground with no time to react. Nothing at all like an actual parachute landing.
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Agree!
That torture device almost got me recycled thru jump school.
Black hat calls me over and says..."You better get that shit right or your going back to day one..."[smile]
I got it right.
 
I don't know if it's been mentioned already in this thread, but a pet peeve of mine has always been "fifth point of contact".

It's usually used as, "You better pull your head out of your fifth point of contact!", by people who have obviously never been to jump school.

A quick search tells me that today, there are five points of contact in a Parachute Landing Fall.

When I went through jump school in 1986, there were only four. If you screwed up by not keeping your chin tucked, your head became the fifth point of contact, and that was Not A Good Thing.

The proper expression was, "You better pull your fifth point of contact out of your ass!"

Whether we go by four points of contact, or five, one's ass has never, ever, been called the fifth point of contact. Thus, no way to pull your head out of it.
 
KBCraig said:
fifth point of contact!"
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5th was your push up muscle on your side as you did the tuck and roll. cira Oct 1979

That is why basic airborne school was located in a sort of a bowl. All of those effen push ups compressed that part of Georgia!

Just for the record...... Canadian Airborne was a lot more fun. Best six day drunk I ever had. [cheers]
 
in basic, the haircut was $3.25. Short or long? The “briefing” was get it short. If you get it long you will go to the back of the line and do push-ups until you are called for recut. This is where I learned there is always that one guy. He was strong by the end of basic.
 
I was not in the military, but both my mom and dad were. I got a lot of sayings from my dad (Marine infantry as a sergeant, then later officer in the Navy) that I only later learned were military:

"adjust fire" (as in, "we'll try that then adjust fire if it doesn't work")
"make a hole and make it wide"
"tail end charlie"
"drop a deuce" (I didn't know this was military until reading this thread)
"willy pete" (my dad thought that WP shells were particularly beautiful, especially at night)
"on time is five minutes late"
and the ever popular "let me get my head and ass wired together"

I think he might have coined one, used when we were sitting down to watch a TV show "here we go, half the way, chairborne"
 
APFSDS said:
I think he might have coined one, used when we were sitting down to watch a TV show "here we go, half the way, chairborne"
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"Chairborne ranger" is a common phrase in the Army, or at least in maneuver units. It is a mild insult, and/or a phrase that some people like to co-opt because they are proud to be REMFs.

What your dad was saying here is a version of a running cadence that starts out, "Here we go, all the way, airborne, every day..." It used to be the first cadence they'd play over the PA system up and down Ardennes Street in the late '90s, right after reveille. Every. Single. Weekday.
 
Picton said:
"Chairborne ranger" is a common phrase in the Army, or at least in maneuver units. It is a mild insult, and/or a phrase that some people like to co-opt because they are proud to be REMFs.

What your dad was saying here is a version of a running cadence that starts out, "Here we go, all the way, airborne, every day..." It used to be the first cadence they'd play over the PA system up and down Ardennes Street in the late '90s, right after reveille. Every. Single. Weekday.
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He worked with some Army folks during desert storm (I think) and was very impressed with them. I have heard the airborne cadence before, so thought his adaptation was pretty funny lol.
 
As much as I hated running, I loved the running and marching cadences we'd sing.

I find myself sometimes singing them to myself as I do my mindless tasks around the house. I try to clean them up, since I know my kids are listening.

One day, I picked my son up after church in the children's section, and a woman who looks like she's never smiled took my ticket for my son. (Why do churches always put nasty old ladies who hate kids in charge of the kids?) Anyway, she sees who my kid is, and says "Oh XXX! He was entertaining us all morning with his songs." I don't know at this point if this is a good thing or a bad thing, so I ask what songs he's been singing. "Oh lets see...'I don't know but I've been told'"
My heart stopped. I knew what was coming...
"Eskimo kisses are mighty cold" WHEW - he repeated the clean version.


Voluntold
Flight line
Coming in broken and stupid
 
" I'm So Short, Boot, I'd twist My Ankle if i Fell off A Dime "

" Beaucoup Dinky Dau "

" Eat the Apple, . . . . . . . Core ( Corps) ! . . . ( Can't bring myself to say it anymore ) ! [cheers] Semper Fi
 
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Heard it once at the Pentagon but figure it to be quite a well used saying there: "Blow your bosses' boss if you want to get ahead"
 
Picton said:
Thirteen Foxtrot, baby. “Rock-hard fisters.”

Best MOS in the army, other than maybe cav scout.
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Stop me if I've told this one before...

I was in the group (1/11 ACR) that took delivery of the first five M981 FSTVs in USAREUR. I had just arrived in country, and I was the only one who had been trained on them at Sill.

About 30 minutes into the classroom time, the contractor rep told me to just step on up and finish teaching the class, because I had more time on the platform than he did.

Pre-GPS, it was amazing. The downside was using the ITV platform, because the ITV was a super-high priority target for "the threat" (we weren't allowed to name names back then).
 

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