Military humor

Military humorishumorbased on stereotypes ofmilitarylife. Military humor portrays a wide range of characters and situations in thearmed forces.It comes in a wide array of cultures andtastes,making use ofburlesque,cartoons,comic strips,double entendre,exaggeration,jokes,parody,gallows humor,pranks,ridiculeandsarcasm.

Military humor: Badge of theTonkin Gulf Yacht Club(akaUS 7th Fleet)

Military humor often comes in the form ofmilitary jokesor "barracks jokes".Military slang,in any language, is also full of humorous expressions; the term "fartsack "is military slang for a sleeping bag.Barrack humor also often makes use ofdysphemism,such as the widespread usage of "shit on a shingle" forchipped beef.Certain military expressions, likefriendly fire,are a frequent source ofsatirical humor.

Notable cartoonists of military humor includeBill Mauldin,Dave Breger,George Baker,Shel SilversteinandVernon Grant.

Military jokes

• Military jokes might be sometimes quite blunt, e.g. British soldiers used to make a joke about theDistinguished Service Order(DSO) military decoration, to say of a comrade wounded down the belly that he had receivedDSO,DSO meaning "Dickie Shot Off."
• In other jokes however, the lack of seriousness is more subtle. Often these arein-jokesand not everyone understands them; e.g., the following reference to "Camouflage Uniform Wear Policies":
  • Marines:Work uniform, to be worn only during training and in field situations.
  • Army:Will wear it anytime, anywhere.
  • Navy:Will not wear camouflage uniforms, they do not camouflage you on a ship. (Ship Captains will make every effort to attempt to explain this to sailors.)
  • Air Force:Will defeat the purpose of camouflage uniforms by putting blue and silver chevrons and colorful squadron patches all over them.
• Cadencesoften contain humorous lyrics, or can be modified to be humorous. Examples:
  • My girl's got big ol' hips / Just like two battleships...
  • They say that in the Army, the biscuits are mighty fine / One rolled off the table, and killed a friend of mine...
• Sometimes the joke is made by civilians about the military. In the Philippines during DictatorFerdinand Marcosmartial law years,Chief of the Armed ForcesGeneralFabian Verwas a feared figure. In the midst of the tense times,Filipino peopleused to joke that the general was so fiercely loyal that if Marcos would have ordered him to jump out of the window, General Ver would have saluted and said, "Which floor, sir?"

Comic strips

The best-knowncomic stripabout military life isMort Walker's long-runBeetle Bailey,set in aUnited States Armymilitary post where a number of inept characters are stationed. Also notable are George Baker'sSad Sackand Dave Breger'sPrivate Breger.WhenRoy Cranecreated theBuz SawyerSunday strip,he put the emphasis not on Sawyer but on his comedic sidekick Sweeney.Half Hitch,Hank Ketcham's strip of Navy humor, was distributed byKing Features Syndicatefrom 1970 to 1975. Maximillian Uriarte'sTerminal Lancebegan in 2010 and continues to run online and in theMarine Corps Times.

Military humor incomic booksincludes theAll Select Comicscomic bookfeature "Jeep Jones" byChic Stone.

Films

Among the oldest military comedies in film are theFlagg and Quirtfilms. Comedy films aboutWorld War IIincludeBuck Privates(1941),Stalag 17(1953),Mr. Roberts(1955),Kelly's Heroes(1970) andCatch-22(1970). The filmForrest Gump(1994) offers a glimpse of military humor when portraying Gump as a soldier in training and later fighting inVietnam.

Television

Some comedies, like theDon't Call Me Charlie!(1962–63) TV series (about a young veterinarian drafted into the Army and stationed in Paris), are totally devoted to the military theme. The fourth series of theBritishsitcomBlackadder,known asBlackadder Goes Forth,revolves around the life ofEdmund Blackadderin the trenches ofWorld War I.

Books

Ballantine BookspublishedShel Silverstein's 1956 collection of cartoons fromPacific Stars and Stripes.

Notable books include Shel Silverstein'sGrab Your Socks(1956),Jaroslav Hašek'sThe Good Soldier Švejk(1923) andCatch-22byJoseph Heller.Reader's Digest'sHumor in Uniform(1963) is a collection of short true anecdotes depicting amusing experiences in the armed forces. In 1941, according to editorHarold Hersey,there were about 350 Army camp newspapers. Three years later, when they had expanded to "hundreds and hundreds", he compiled his collection of camp newspapers cartoons,More G.I. Laughs(1944).

In 2002, Hyperion publishedKilroy Was Here:The Best American Humor from World War IIbyCharles Osgood.Publishers Weeklyreviewed:

Originating as a chalked inspection notice in a Quincy, Mass., shipyard, the sketch of bald-headed Kilroy launched a thousand ships and eventually became the most familiar globe-trotting graffiti of World War II... Osgood has assembled a barrage of WWII's amusing essays, stories, jokes, cartoons, poems and short satires. Selections range from heavy artillery (Reader's Digest's "Humor in Uniform" and Bob Hope'sI Was There) to the small-arms fire of lesser-known writers. The opening salvo, "A Dictionary of Military Slang: 1941-1944" (compiled from Harold Hersey'sMore G.I. Laughsand Paris Kendall'sGone with the Draft), is followed by a parade of thematic chapters. Drinking from the same canteens, Osgood repeatedly excerpts from the same handful of mid-1940s publications. Oddly, he ignores the great Dave Breger of the Army weeklyYank,who coined the term G.I. Joe for a cartoon series so popular it ran simultaneously in that outlet and in American newspapers. Osgood offers a half-dozen of Bill Mauldin's famedWillie and Joecartoons but only a single George BakerSad Sackstrip and one cartoon by the stylishIrwin Caplan,a prolific contributor to the slick postwar magazines.

Magazines

Widely circulated on military bases during the 1950s,Charley Jones Laugh Bookwas an outgrowth of earlier military humor publications. DuringWorld War II,Jones soldLatrine Gazetteon Army bases, so successful that he recycled the material into another publication,HEADliners,aimed at Navy men, and then launchedCharley Jones Laugh Bookas a nationally distributed magazine in 1943.Captain Billy's Whiz Bangbegan in a similar fashion afterWorld War I.

Humour in the former South African Defence Force

Military humour in theSouth African Defence Force(SADF) was to be found less in jokes than in humorous expressions and comments. It is sometimes difficult to express their force, since most of it is inAfrikaans,and the play on words does not always translate into English without explanation. SADF humour can be very vulgar, but is never blasphemous. It often comes from the mouths of Instructor Corporals addressing trainees:

• ”Moenie vir my loer nie, ek is nie 'n hoer nie!” (rhyming) – “Don't look at me (like that), I'm not a whore!”
• ”As my vrou net kon sien hoe jy my aankyk, sou sy jou oë uitkrap!” – “If my wife could only see you looking at me like that, she'd scratch your eyes out!”
• ”As jy so stadig fok as wat jy aantrek, sal jy nooit pa word nie!” – “If you fuck as slowly as you dress, you'll never become a father!” (To a conscript who fell in late for early morning PT).
• ”Ek sal jou oog uitsuig en dit voor jou uitspoeg sodat jy self kan sien watse groot poes is jy!” – “I'll suck out your eye and spit it out in front of you so that you can see for yourself what a great cunt you are!”

Plays on words were also popular, for example:

• “Kaptein” (Captain) became “Kaktein” which translated neatly into English as “Craptain.”
• A 2nd Lieutenant, who wore one pip on each shoulder and was usually a National Serviceman, was known as a “plastic pip (pp).”
• In Pretoria, there is a street called “Proes Straat”, where a number of important military buildings were located. “Proes” means to splutter in Afrikaans, but if the “r” is removed the resulting word is the Afrikaans equivalent of the American slang “pussy”. Thus Proes Straat was jokingly referred to in English as “Crunt Street”.
• Soldiers on permanent light duty, classified G3 or G4, were known as “Siekes, lammes en dooies” ( "Sick, lame and dead ones” ) or “Ligte vrugte” ( "Light fruit" ). This last expression is rhyming. It is a twisting of "light duty" in Afrikaans. Apart from the "light" allusion, it has no actual significant meaning.

Like any other army, there were also standard slang terms for equipment and uniforms:

• The large duffle-type bag in which a soldier carried his kit was known as a “balsak” (ball-bag);
• A knife, fork and spoon-set was dubbed a “pikstel” (pecking-set – army meal portions could be quite small during Basic Training);
• A” pisvel” (lit. “pissing skin” ) was a mattress cover;
• “Skrapnel” (shrapnel) referred to overboiled, diced frozen vegetables;
• "Ballas bak" (lit. “baking balls” ) referred to sun-tanning during periods of inactivity on the SWA/Namibia Border;
• A “pislelie” was a broad, funnel-shaped tube set into the ground for urinating, on the same Border;
• A “go-kart” was a portable toilet seat with a lid, also for the Border. Anything up to ten were placed in double rows within a single, hessian surrounded enclosure with no individual privacy, hence the reference to go-kart races.

The various corps had humorously insulting names for each other. Amongst others:

• “Vleisbomme” (meat bombs) were paratroopers;
• "Kanondonkies" (cannon donkeys) were the Artillery;
• "Bebliksemde donkies" (lightning-struck, i.e. crazy, donkeys) referred to the Technical Services Corps, whose badge was a rearing silver stallion in front of a golden lightning bolt;
• Infantry wore a golden Springbok head on their berets. This led them to be called "bokkop" (buckhead), a not too subtle reference to the Afrikaans word "fokop" ( "fuck-up" );
• The Air Force were known as "budgies" after their eagle symbol;
• The Administrative Services Corps (ASC) was the Administratiewe Dienskorps in Afrikaans. Its abbreviation, ADK, gave rise to the nickname "Altyd Deur die Kak" ( "Always in the shit" );
• Later, when the ASC was split up and its beret colour changed from blue to an odd yellowish brown, the new colour was described as "kapoen", a telescoping of the Afrikaans words "kak" and "pampoen" (shit and pumpkin).

There were also soft-covered cartoon books satirizing army life. An example is one based on the old SADF adage, “There are only two sizes in the SADF; too big and too small.” It shows a squad of new recruits, all wearing uniforms and boots far too big or small. In the middle is a soldier with perfectly fitting gear. The Corporal is shouting at him: “What’s the matter with you, soldier? How come everything fits so perfectly?”

Brazil in World War II

The Brazilian dictatorship ofGetúlio Vargaswas known for its unwillingness to get more deeply involved in the Allied war effort. By early 1943 a popular saying was: "It's more likely for a snake to smoke a pipe, than for theBEFto go the front and fight. "("Mais fácil uma cobra fumar um cachimbo, do que a FEB embarcar para o combate.").Before the FEB entered combat, the expression "a cobra vai fumar" ( "the snake will smoke" ) was often used in Brazil in a context similar to "when pigs fly".As a result, the soldiers of the FEB called themselvesCobras Fumantes(literally,Smoking Snakes) and wore a divisional shoulder patch that showed a snake smoking a pipe. It was also common for Brazilian soldiers to write on their mortars, "The Snake is smoking..." ( "A cobra está fumando..." ).After the war the meaning was reversed, signifying that something will definitively happen and in a furious and aggressive way. With that second meaning the use of the expression "a cobra vai fumar" has been retained in Brazilian Portuguese until the present, although few of the younger generations realize the origin of the expression.

See also

• 6 Ps
• Fawcett Publications
• Grande Armée slang
• No Time for Sergeants
• Oxymoron
• Russian jokes(sectionRussian military jokes)
• Republic of Korea Air Force(sectionMilitary ranks)
• Saluting trap
• Sergeant Bilko
• Wipers Times

External links

• USAF slang dictionary
• USMC slang dictionary
• U.S. Navy slang
• Ever heard of Jeep Jones?