Huss in Military Slang

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Mike Cook calling from Omaha, Nebraska.

Hi, Mike. Welcome to the show.

How can we help?

Back in 1966-67, I was in the Marine Corps serving in Vietnam.

And there are a lot of words and phrases that are unique to the Marine Corps, probably most of them that can be used in polite conversation.

But the one that I was interested in, when I got to Vietnam, there was a phrase that all the Marines were using was, give me a huss.

I believe you’d probably spell it H-U-S-S.

And it was basically it just meant give me a hand or help me with something.

And I don’t know if that was unique to the Marine Corps or unique to Vietnam or just that time period because when I came back to the world and started my civilian life, I worked with a lot of other veterans.

Some were Vietnam veterans and some weren’t from different branches of the service, and they had no idea what Give Me a Huss was.

Oh, interesting.

That’s cool. Have you ever heard it as Cut Me a Huss?

I’ve heard it all kinds of ways.

I was just Huss, you know, Cut Me a Huss, yeah.

There’s a really strong theory on this in the book called Marines and Helicopters, 1962-1973.

It’s by William Fales, published in 1995.

And he’s got this particular section on the HUSS, H-U-S-S.

But what he explains here is that the HUSS comes from the nickname for a Sikorsky helicopter.

Oh, really?

Yeah, there was a model.

I’m going to just summarize this.

You can look up the book, Marines and Helicopters, published in 1995, William Fales.

There was a model of the helicopter that was launched in 1962 called the HUS, also known as the -34D.

And the models changed over the years, and the model numbers changed over the years, but that first name, the HUS, stuck.

And so the idea was that you would call for a HUS when you needed some help, because apparently these helicopters, even though they were kind of difficult to operate, they were very reliable.

They didn’t break down and need new parts and repairs as often as the other machines.

And so if you were stuck in a tight place or you just needed something drop shipped or what have you, you would call for a Haas, and that meant the helicopter.

And later the term became generic.

And he writes in here, using the old designation, which never did lose its popularity among Marines, and which was much easier to say over a radio, much easier to say than, like, the longer, you know, initials and numbers, he would broadcast, give me a huss.

That word huss has been incorporated in the vocabulary of Marines to indicate something good, something beneficial, a favor, or a special set of circumstances that are pleasurable.

He says it takes its place right there along with gung-ho and other words that we’ve gotten from the Marines.

Well, that’s interesting.

I know we referred to Huey helicopters.

Yeah.

And then slicks or another type of a helicopter that we had.

Chinooks, all kinds of different helicopters.

I never put those two together to be the meaning of the word us.

But it would be a welcome sight, right?

Oh, yeah.

Anything that had a lot of guns on it was a welcome sight.

Yeah.

Well, I appreciate your time.

Mike, I appreciate your calling.

I just learned a new word.

I appreciate it.

Well, I’ll give you another one.

Semper Fi.

Semper Fi.

Semper Fi.

You bet.

Take care.

Keep the faith.

Thank you very much.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

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