Army Dictionary
Have you ever wondered what all these three letter acronyms meant? Or what the heck anything in this silly toon means? It’s possible that you don’t understand because it simply isn’t funny. On the other hand, “Joe” does speak in a cryptic half language.
We have provided the list below for those of you who don’t speak fobbitish/gruntling (Army talk).
- PVT, PV2
- Private (E1,E2 the lowest form of life in the Army)
- PFC
- Private First Class (E3)
- SPC
- Specialist (sham shield, E4)
- CPL
- Corporal (sham shield in line to be E5)
- SGT
- Sergeant (E5)
- SSG
- Staff Sergeant (E6)
- SFC
- Sergeant First Class (E7)
- MSG
- Master Sergeant (E8)
- 1SG
- First Sergeant (E8)
- SGM
- Sergeant Major (E9)
- CSM
- Command Sergeant Major (E9)
- SMA
- Sergeant Major of the Army (E-gads!)
- W-1
- Warrant Officer 1
- W-2
- Chief Warrant Officer 2
- W-3
- Chief Warrant Officer 3
- W-4
- Chief Warrant Officer 4
- W-5
- Master Warrant Officer 5
- 2LT
- Second Lieutenant (O1 & the officer version of a private)
- 1LT
- First Lieutenant (O2)
- CPT
- Captain (O3)
- MAJ
- Major (O4)
- LTC
- Lieutenant Colonel (O5)
- COL
- Colonel (O6)
- GEN
- Oh my, they’re full of stars
- ANOC
- Advanced Noncommissioned Officers Course
- AO
- Area of operations
- AQI
- Al-Qaeda in Iraq
- BNOC
- Basic Noncommissioned Officers Course
- BRM
- Basic Rifle Marksmanship. Fundamental shooting skills.
- CBED
- Car Borne Explosive Device
- CHU
- Containerized Housing Unit (home – sweet-home)
- CIF
- Central Issue Facility. The CIF mission is to stock, issue, exchange, and process turn-ins of designated items authorized by CTA 50-900, Appendix A.
- CO
- Commanding Officer; Company/Troop Commander
- COIN
- Counter Insurgency
- CP
- Check Point (used to screen vehicles & people … sometimes called a “control point” though not often)
- EOD
- Explosive Ordnance Disposal
- EPW
- Enemy Prisoner of War
- FOB
- Forward Operating Base
- IA
- Iraqi Army
- IED
- Improvised Explosive Device
- IP
- Iraqi Police
- JAM
- Jaish al Mahdi
- JCOP
- Joint Combat Operations Post
- NCO
- Non-commissioned officer; general term for all sergeants’ ranks. Enlisted leaders.
- NCOIC
- NCO In Charge
- NFG
- New F#@$in Guy
- NFG errands
- Useless jobs given to NFGs to keep them out of your way. Send them to look for some flightline or some propwash. Have them test a vehicle’s armor for soft spots.
- OP
- Observation Post
- OPSEC
- Operational Security
- PL
- Platoon Leader
- PLT
- Platoon
- PSG
- Platoon Sergeant
- QRF
- Quick Reaction Force
- SOFA
- Status of Forces Agreement, official name: “Agreement Between the United States of America and the Republic of Iraq On the Withdrawal of United States Forces from Iraq and the Organization of Their Activities during Their Temporary Presence in Iraq” but ABUSARIOTWUSFIOTADTTPII was too long to remember
- SOP
- Standard Operating Procedure
- TA-50
- Table of Allowances 50. Army-issued individual equipment
- The Wire
- Security perimeter around a FOB
- TOC
- Tactical Operations Center
- XO
- Executive Officer
- Jody
- The non-military guy who is back home with the military guy’s wife or girlfriend.
- Fobbit
- A term used to describe soldiers who never leave the wire, also known as the FOB. Originally used as a derogatory term, it has evolved into a term most often used by fobbits themselves. Go figure.
- POGUE
- Person Other than Grunt which is what nearly all non-infantry folk are called by infantry folk.
- Terp
- Interpreter
- 9 – Line
- Nine line MEDEVAC (MEDical EVACuation) the format used to call in an injury requiring one be removed asap to a medical facility.
- General Order No. 1
- The base order for all deployed military personnel in Iraq that bans alcohol use, pornography, and a litany of other vices. Thanks a lot, Vietnam. You had to ruin the fun for everyone.
- Frago
- A fragmentary order; the ever-evolving update and change to mission that serves as the ringmaster to the Army’s circus.
- Charlie Mike
- Continue mission
- Mikes
- Army cool-guy speak for minutes
- Oscar Mike
- On the Move
- Tango
- Terrorist
- Delta Tango
- Dead Terrorist (the best kind)
- Pop Smoke
- To leave … fast.
Please please please alphabetize this soon.
Your wish is my command…
what does Delta Bravo Sierra stand for then?
When I was at OCS it stood for dumb bull @#$! … coincidentally it also happens to be my initials. Funny how that works, eh?
I figured as much, just wasn’t sure.
I remember one too. OCS Organized Chicken S@#!
Oh, and don’t forget MTCF, Mongolian Turtle Cluster F@$#. Although that on may be unique
to PSYOP units.
Thanks guys!
You left out Tango Uniform…T!ts Up (ie something’s busted).
Irregardless….used by many SNCOs in all services. My favorite non-word.
CSM Friday (yeah that was his name) 1/377th FAR Friggin hated me and ‘Irregardless’. So of course irregardless of the conversation I said that word everytime I spoke to him, irregardless. Mutal hatred, also a military thing.
I remember that guy. Wasn’t he the one who got fired from 82d and ended up at 1/377 where he spent most of his time hitting golf balls in Rocket Park?
Draw Fire
Unass
Unf***
What the screw? – unique to infantry e-7s who moonlight as baptist ministers
You forgot “What the F*ck, Over”.
LOVE the site, for us old guys from the ‘nam, yes, we ruined it for you all.
How bout FUBAR, SNAFU, and TARFU… (all the things remain the same.)
Tango Mike? is it Thanks much? as a reply after you’ve gotten an answer?
AFU: All F***ed Up (anything that don’t work.)
“What the f***, over?” Radioman for “What’s goin’ on around here?”
“Red Smoke” – anything thrown up as a distraction from whatever (usually nefarious) activity you’re in the middle of or trying to get away with.
“Lawn Dart” or “Dirt Dart” – any first-time jumper (Had a guy in my Jump class that picked up the moniker “Lawn Dart” for real – managed to drill a hole on his first monkey-on-a-string jump. Owch.)
“Klicks” – typical slang for kilometers (damned metric maps!) I’m surprised you don’t have that one up yet… (“Step count” is the ratio between number of paces taken in one hundred meters – usually somewhere in the sixties. For me, it’s 66.5, so I count 66-67-66-67. Used to keep bearing and distance, checked at the half-klick or klick mark.)
Alternate names:
O1 – “Nugget” or “Butter Bar,” from the brass colour of the single bar for their rank insignia. Usually derogatory.
O2 – “Silverbell” – since they’ve got a single silver bar. May or may not be derogatory, based on context.
O3 – “Railroad tracks” (typically not derogatory) or “aiming stakes” (/very/ derogatory,) from the two silver bars.
‘FNG Errands” – they’re typically sent off after things like:
- “Relative Bearing Grease” (typically shipboard Navy)
- “Flight Line” (any base that sustains flight operations)
- “Shore Line” (any base that supports Naval operations & ship docking)
- “Cannon Report” (any base with an artillery command)
- “PRC-E8″ in a radio shop (an E8 is typically the first sergeant, and “PRC” is pronounced, obviously, “prick.” Sending someone after the “prick E8″ is a fun way to get him in Dutch with the topkick..)
There are also phoney details like:
- “Storm Watch.” Put them up atop the barracks, their job being to spot storm clouds. Popular with gulf coastal bases and bases in Tornado Alley
- “Flight Line Watch” – have them stand at the end of the flight line with the Basic issue flashlight (the one with the yellow cone – in the Air Force, we called them “Lackland LASERs”) in each hand, held high. This was to help guide in landing aircraft. Important to stand them at the downwind end of the runway, since that was where the planes would be approaching from…
You get the idea. With some creativity, you could keep the new guy busy for a while. With a bit more, you could find out if the new guy was incompetent (keep him running around for a month or so) or useful (he saw through things like this immediately.)
@Citizen D – “unass” is still one of my favourites – even though civs look at me like I’d just grown a third head when I use it (took my wife a few years to figure out what I was talking about, even.) Compare to “reass” – to be reassigned or move, not to “return to an area.”
Yup, gotta Unass this AO!
[...] Over at Delta Bravo Sierra they’ve been putting together a unofficial Army dictionary. [...]
I also like:
Lima Lima Mike Foxtrot (LLMF) = Lost Like a MotherF*er.
Pogey Bait = Non-military issued snacks and food in the field.
Hey You Detail = Any detail you got assigned to because you were too stupid to hide.
I was always told that I moved like ‘Pond Water’ in Boot camp and now use that on my girlfriend and daughter. Also, Graduates of Airborne school doing thier first jump were always ‘Cherries’ and we had a helmet painted red with a whip out the top to look like one. I served under the late great Ronald Reagan in the 80′s (3rd Cav/11th ADA, Ft. Bliss, TX) and with the Reserves (12th SFGA, Rolling Meadows, IL). Proud as Hel
for FNG’s Navy = “Keys to the engine room. And hurry up, we gotta go.”
FNG Jobs: Get a box of grid squares, go to arms room get blank adapter for the mortar system
Terms: REMF: Rear Echelon Mother F*****
I remember when I was an FNG MP and the desk sergeant sent me on a bogus mission to the topographical unit to get a box of grid squares. Instead I went back to the barracks and cut up a map. After returing to the PMO I dumped the ‘grid squares’ on his desk. Never had to worry about a bogus radio call after that.
Here are some other Navy FNG jobs. Get a bucket of steam, get a box of ball tabs, a box of radar contacts, so many feet of chowline or waterline,
Mail buoy watch, snipe hunt, have a look at the sea bat.
Navy nicknames for specialty ratings:
Anchor Clanker – Boatswain’s Mate
Skivvy Waver – Signalman
Stewburner – a cook. The rating is Ship’s Serviceman and includes a lot of food-related jobs.
Cannon-Cocker – Gunner’s Mate.
“Blue Falcon” – Buddy F**ker.
“Charlie Foxtrot” – Cluster F***
Just to show how the times have changed- I don’t think anyone under 50 these days has ever encountered
Ricky-Tick ( right away, immediately!), and the urgent extreme variant
MOST Ricky Tick ( often followed by ‘Sir!’)
And probably nobody remembers “Joe Sh*t The Rag Picker”… the guy you did not want on your fire team, MASH or heli-evacs….
but even if the terms change, the spirit of trying to wring a few grins out of often deadly situations probably goes back to Medieval times at least.
“Captain, one of your archers is holding his bow at an inoperable angle!”
“Sir, that would be Fedley-smyth, the lads call him Dung For Brains… or DFB…”
Thank you Julian. I couldn’t agree more. In fact, I might suggest that the spirit goes back even further. Perhaps to old Rome, “Hey, I got you phylanx riiiiight here!”
I remember Joe Sh*t, The Rag Picker!
Two other guys you don’t want on your team: Harry Grips and Jimmy Jism.
@Cmdr Crashlander,
What is MTCF supposed to be an abbreviation of?
LPC leather personal carrier/ great site
Don’t forget about being ‘voluntold’ for something.
My favorite one that I do to our FNG is:
Exhaust Sample (hold a cup over the exhaust)
Frequency Grease (To get a better radio signal)
ID 10 T (Idiot)
Radiation Sample (chem light on something that produces radiation)
Papa Uniform 55 Y… (spell it out)
Altitude Activated Chem Lites (for night ops, have them throw a chem light in the air to activate it)
Have you ever considered posting a list of the (more or less) regular characters? I’ve just recently found DBS, and every few strips I find someone I’ve never seen before.
Just a thought, for what it might be worth.
You forgot FO/FiSTer….. best job in the whole Army, in my not-so-humble opinion :)
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MTCF? That would be “Major Tactical Cluster F*ck.
I’d add “FIDO”. “F*ck It Drive On!”
A lot of jargon and puns come from the phonetic alphabet. It has changed over the years. For example, you can get fired for using Y-Yankee, or W-Whiskey, but this is the alphabet I learned when I started using radios in the Corps in ’67. I use it every day in my work in tech support, but I am constantly horrified at the number of people who can’t spell these words, and have no idea what I’m talking about.
Alpha
Bravo
Charlie
Delta
Echo
Foxtrot
Golf
Hotel
India
Juliet
Kilo
Lima
Mike
November
Oscar
Papa
Quebec
Romeo
Sierra
Tango
Uniform
Victor
Whiskey
X-ray
Yankee
Zulu
“Lima Charlie,” meant Loud and Clear, though I often heard the more formal usage, “Lima Charles.”
For a while, there was a scale of rating volume and clarity from 0 to 5, thus, “Five by five” meant loud and clear, while, “Two by five” meant poor volume, but good clarity. “One by One” meant I have no idea what you just said, so I’m going to do my own thing, anyway.
The classic, “Bravo Sierra,” for Bull S***. In garrison areas, I sometimes heard Corpsmen referred to as “Mobile Pecker Checkers,” or, on the radio, “Mike Papa Charlie.” In Nam, I never heard a Corpsman called anything but Corpsman or Doc. I believe “Doc” to be one of the two most revered nicknames in the Corps, the other being “Gunny.”
In Nam, the Viet Cong were “Victor Charlie,” “Victor Charles,” or just “Charlie.” I don’t remember hearing North Vietnamese Army troops called anything but NVA, but there were plenty of pejorative terms for the enemy, in general.
Somebody get me some Chem light batteries
Can’t believe that nobody here has ever sent the FNG out for a [insert unit of measurement here] of Machinist’s Punch.
The CBED is usually reffered to as a VBIED (Vehicle Borne IED). And there’s no “I” in ordnance for EOD.
When I was in the Corps, our Battalion’s SACO (Substance Abuse Control Officer– the guy who arranges/administers/etc. the drug screenings) was not-entirely-fondly referred to as the ‘Battalion Pickle Inspector’.