A Navy vet recalls learning the slang term gundeck, meaning “to sign off on checks or reports without fully completing them.” A possible origin involves a ship’s gun deck, either as a place where sailors hid to avoid duties or where navigational...
A firefighter named Steve in Newport News, Virginia, wonders why in his line of work, and for some police, certain additional kinds of days off after long unbroken shifts are called Kelly days, Kelly shifts, or Kelly time. The term most likely comes...
One means of hazing newbies in the Army: send them to get a hundred feet of chow line. This is part of a complete episode.
The expressions your mother wears combat boots and your mother wears army boots descend from the African-American tradition of the Dozens, also known as sounding or capping or snapping, where people try to top each other’s insults. This is...
In 1960 the USS Triton submarine made history by completing the first submerged circumnavigation of the globe. A crew member recalls that when a sailor was assigned to periscope duty, he was said to be waltzing Matilda, a phrase that evokes both...
An Army veteran in Madison, Alabama, wonders about the use of the charrette (sometimes spelled with one R, charette) in the military to mean a gathering to workshop ideas and work through all potential solutions to a problem. The term seems to have...