40 Common Military Phrases That Go Right Over Civilian Heads

No, we’re not talking about a bunch of realtors serving in the U.S. Army. Actually, to grab some real estate is rather literal. It means lying flat on the ground with your hands to the earth so that you can perform some push-ups, more than likely as a punishment. So in this case, real estate won’t make you rich, but it should make you fit. 

LEG has got nothing to do with the two lower limbs that most primates, including humans, possess. In fact LEG stands for “low-entry ground soldier.” In other words, infantrymen who go to battle on land as opposed to those who drop in by parachute. Another acronym in use is NAP — non-airborne personnel.

A fister is not someone who goes around punching people in the face. Actually, a soldier with that title is a member of a fire support team. Their job is to provide target information for artillery units, helping them to accurately hit their targets. Despite the fisters term, boxing skills are not essential for this key combat role.

In the context of the armed forces, being called a zoomie does not mean that you’ve been participating in an online video conference. No, a zoomie is a United States Air Force pilot. The origin of the name is obvious enough: there are few better ways of zooming around than in a modern jet-fighter capable of flying faster than the speed of sound.

Anyone who’s actually experienced armed combat will tell you that rapid movement is often key to success and even survival. When someone shouts out, “Beat feet!” on the battlefield it’s not a command to start laying into the enemy with some medieval torture. The order means to move on out — with all the speed you can muster.

Ever been in the situation when you’re driving along and a length of cable or suchlike gets wrapped around your vehicle’s axle? If so, you’ll know that mechanical disaster is the likely outcome. But when used by soldiers, the term has come to mean keeping your eye on the big picture, rather than getting bogged down in detail.

As a phrase, acquired gear sounds innocent enough. But if you hear a military man use these words, there’s a high chance that said appropriation has not been strictly above board. Soldiers have a well-earned reputation for finding ways of getting hold of coveted kit using methods that are not strictly by the book. 

So who is the good idea fairy? It’s the officer who comes up with a bright new notion about how things should be organized on the base. Sadly, it almost always involves some extra tasks for the lower ranks, often of a dreary and time-consuming nature. So it’s definitely not a phrase that’s meant as a compliment.

Why is the sky blue? NASA boffins say it’s because sunlight is diffused by Earth’s atmosphere in a particular way. But the U.S. Army disagrees. In basic training, the army apparently claims that the sky’s color is a direct consequence of the fact that infantry fighters wear blue insignia. And the atmosphere has no choice but to celebrate that. We’re not entirely convinced.  

The fourth point of contact is a phrase used by paratroopers. When you land from a parachute drop, there are apparently five points of contact. The first three are the feet, the lower legs, and the upper legs. That sequence inevitably leads upwards to the fourth point — the butt. Just FYI, if all is going to plan the fifth point is the torso.

The net in question here is a communication net. And the information traveling around this net is anything that a soldier might share with his buddies relating to his personal life. Another term in the same general area is the private news network. That’s the gossip grapevine that thrives in any military setting. 

You can, of course, enjoy a cup of joe. But in the military a joe is not a stimulating beverage. It’s actually a vernacular term for service personnel, akin to another well-known one, grunt. Generally a joe is a low-ranking soldier. Sometimes the everyman soldier is known as Private Joe Snuffy. It hardly sounds complimentary.

First you need to know what the PX is. It’s the general store — with the full title of Post Exchange — that military bases have. It sells everything from military gear to candy bars. A PX ranger is a soldier who’s gone overboard in equipping themselves with all kinds of gear from the PX. The implication is that they’ve probably burdened themselves with a whole heap of stuff that they really don’t need.

A CAB is a combat action badge such as a Purple Heart or, at the very top of the bravery range, a Medal of Honor. So a CAB-chaser is not someone desperate to hail a taxi. It’s a soldier who’s set his or her heart on winning a medal in combat. Such types, it’s said, tend to get in the way by volunteering for front-line duties where they’re not actually needed or wanted. 

However angry they’ve made you, beating your boots is waste of your time. Because footwear is inanimate and it doesn’t care what you do to it. But in the military context if you’re beating your boots, you’re actually bending down to touch your feet then snapping upright. It’s a strenuous exercise, an effective punishment for petty misdemeanors.

Despite appearances, this enigmatic phrase is nothing to do with fast movement over a short distance. Apparently U.S. Army equipment manuals all have a number: sensible enough. But the identifiers all end in dash-ten, so a dash-ten is an instructional handbook. Remember, always read the manual before use. Especially in the case of deadly weapons. 

This unflattering name is used for soldiers who’re assigned as specialists. Such personnel wear a shield-shaped badge. The derogatory term is said to come from the fact that specialists are often excused from tiresome duties. Nobody likes a shirker! Although we’re not sure the opprobrium is entirely deserved in this case.

This strange word soup actually reflects the military’s obsession with punctuality. Soldiers know they’ll get chewed out if they’re even a minute late for a parade or exercise. So they have the habit of showing up 15 minutes early to be on the safe side. But even that could leave room for an unforeseen hold-up. So best to arrive 15 minutes prior to 15 minutes prior. That’s 30 minutes early.

A good piece of gear does not refer, as you might assume, to a particularly effective model of rifle or an impressive explosive device. No, it’s actually used to describe a human who’s in the military. It is in fact a compliment. To win this epithet you’ll need to be exceptionally effective in your role.

When a soldier starts to talk wistfully about being back on the block, the topic is the past. Specifically, the time when the soldier was still a mere civilian. And civilians are described as nasty. That’s not as rude as you might think: in army circles, nasty simply means scruffy. Soldiers, of course, are all shining boots and burnished brass.

The phrase blues buddies does not mean friends with whom you play music. What you need to know is that the smart dress uniform worn by the Marine Corps is known as “the Blues”. Once you have that piece of information it’s no great leap to work out that blues buddies are in fact serving marines. 

The rattle referred to here is no child’s plaything. It’s the full range of equipment a soldier needs when embarking on a mission. In those circumstances you’d be encumbered with a flak jacket, canteen, rifle and as many as 180 rounds of live ammunition. Why rattle? Because that’s exactly the noise you’ll make when you’re kitted out with all that gear. 

You’ve surely enough heard about the USAF, but how about the chair force? That latter term turns out to be the punning, and not entirely respectful, name given to USAF personnel who spend their days at a desk rather than at the controls of a fighter jet. The Marine Corps has a similar turn of phrase — Remington raiders. 

This does not mean you should inspect your abs. Forget about a six-pack, this six is the numeral on a clock face. Six is of course the lowermost number on the dial and when used in a military context, six o’clock means to the rear. So “check your six” is a reminder to watch your back, an essential precaution on the battlefield.  

Days and a wake-up is another military phrase that illustrates the sometimes rather peculiar way the services measure time. Wake-up refers to the last day you’ll be at a base or on an assignment. So three days and a wake-up means you have three whole days to go wherever you are and then the following day you’ll awaken, then depart.

Any serving soldier will tell you that there are times when military duties can be tedious in the extreme. It’s not all excitement by any means. But if you’ve elected to join the armed forces, that’s just something you have to learn to accept. And so, to succeed, you need to embrace the suck.

No, an officer will not order you to stand in a field and undress. Or if they do, you should probably file a complaint. In fact a field strip is when you dismantle a piece of equipment without the luxury of a workshop. A vehicle or a piece of kit might malfunction when you’re out on patrol, in the field. You’ll just have to strip it down and repair it wherever you are.

Fobbit is not a typo for hobbit, although the former’s derivation may well owe something to the latter. For a fobbit is a soldier who takes care not to stray further than a forward operating base — an FOB. So you might say they are justifiably cautious. Or you might think they’re lacking in the courage and initiative that the U.S. Army has a right to expect. 

This pithy phrase is actually an admonishment. If you fail to look after your equipment properly, leaving it unattended, you may not see it again. Not that it will be stolen by your fellow soldiers. It will instead be what’s known as tactically acquired. Actually some people might simply call that theft. In any case — take care of your gear!

This is not a type of bird. Rather it’s a euphemism with blue standing in for buddy while the falcon stands in for a word that’s generally considered to be one of the rudest in even a soldier’s vocabulary. So a blue falcon is someone who messes things up big time for his comrades in arms. It’s not a compliment.

This is one from the Marine Corps. It doesn’t in fact mean that there’s a clandestine group of disgruntled lance corporals. What we’re talking about is the rumor mill that is so very active in just about any military unit you care to mention. In this case, it’s the gossip and speculation that travels like lightning around the lower ranks. 

This could mean that your dad’s gone onto the porch to puff on a cigar — but it doesn’t, of course. In the military world, pop smokes are the signaling cartridges used to help a helicopter hit the spot as it comes in to touch down. There’s a secondary meaning as well — to skedaddle in a hurry. 

Most of us have probably had to endure these: banal PowerPoint presentations. They’re widely used in the military for briefing sessions, so a PowerPoint ranger is a soldier who spends their days creating PowerPoints. All too often, these are over-burdened with all the bells and whistles that the software has in its digital armory.  

A sniper check is not a precautionary exercise aimed at avoiding a sudden burst of fire — although that’s certainly a good idea. No, in this context it actually means a salute. Why? Well, you’re not meant to salute an officer as normal when in the field, because that’s a sure sign for snipers that they have a valuable target. 

In the military, this phrase is generally used with a much ruder word than soup. We’ll leave what it is to your imagination. Anyways, if things go badly wrong on a mission thanks to inefficiency or carelessness, the participants may have to eat an exceedingly unpleasant sandwich. Only metaphorically, we sincerely hope.

Standby is a command that folks in the services tend to hear a lot more than they’d like to. That’s because you might be left in the standby state for hours on end. Alert, yet doing nothing. So standby to standby is a piece of biting soldier satire. It indicates that you should be alert but do nothing while you wait for an order to be alert but do nothing.

Hmm. You could get the wrong idea about this phrase. So let us set you straight right away. It refers to the medals and ribbons that highly decorated soldiers sport on their dress uniform jackets. Fruit salad is another term meaning the same thing. In use, it might be admiring but it also might indicate a level of disrespect.

Great Mistakes is actually a corruption of Great Lakes. It’s a punning name for Naval Station Great Lakes, home to the U.S. Navy’s boot camp. And why is it a mistake? Because the Navy used to have training centers in Orlando, Florida, and San Diego, California. And any fool can tell you that the weather in those two locations is far better than it is in the Great Lakes region. 

The most important characteristic of a left-handed monkey wrench is that there is no such thing. Some tools have adapted versions for left-handed people, but examine a monkey wrench and you’ll see that it needs no modification for use in either hand. So it’s a favorite prank to send a rookie to the stores to fetch a non-existent left-handed monkey wrench. 

Voluntold combines two words, voluntary and told. Of course if you perform a task voluntarily, you do it by choice. But if you’re told to do something in the services you’re simply obeying a command as you must. If you’re asked to volunteer for a task but it’s obvious there’s no real choice, that means you’ve been voluntold.