12 May 2009

More of OIF Slang and stuff....


From the Soldier side: When I returned from OIF III in Dec 2005, I had to go to language rehab. I suffered an affliction that almost every other word out of my mouth was a bad word. I still regress sometimes...like when I see something really stupid. I might say something like: "How in the F-- did you get so F--ing stupid?" The "F" word is a good filler. You can use it any time you can't think of a better word because it is just so, oh how the F-- can I F--ing say this...well, it's just a very useful word. (For those vets out there I know you're saying "F--ing right on dude.")


OK, enough B--s--, here's more acronyms from OIF.

IED : improvised explosive device…pretty much any kind of explosive or bomb Mickey moused together to blow up. The concept was only limited by the imagination of the maker…and some had very good minds for this sort of shit. They could rig up old artillery rounds, left over minds, or whatever. They could set if off with cell phones, trip wires etc. They could even make this shit cut through M1114 armored Humvees like the one the killed Roberto in June 05.
ICDC : Iraqi Civil Defense Corps [obsolete] "I" stoof for Iraq, so IP were Iraqi Police, ING- Iraqi National Guard, IA- Iraqi Army. As one organization failed, our dumbass leaders would try another system. They didn’t realize that they were just “hajji.”
Inside the wire - Troops working inside the wire--Vietnam-era phrase for the perimeter of any US base in Vietnam. Outside the wire was going outside the camp or FOB. Most of the forces when I was in Iraq never ever went out side the wire. We did. I had some teams who had over 100 missions outside the wire in Baghdad---they had big balls. REMFs don’t go outside the wire.
KBR : Kellogg, Brown & Root -- The biggest contractor serving the Coalition Forces. They ran the mess halls, the garbage, the laundry, the power supply, and pretty much everything on the “safe camps”. What a racket.
LN : Local National. A citizen of Iraq, if you're in Iraq, Afghanistan if you're in Afghanistan, etc. Usually encountered as labor brought on post to do construction or other labor. TCN- Third Country National- from any other country who came to work for contractors in Iraq. Usually from 3rd world country so KBR paid them a hell of a lot less salary.
Mortaritaville : nickname for LSA Anaconda, a major base near Balad, reflecting the frequent mortar attacks.
Muj (pronounced: Mooj), short for Mujahadeen. Formally a person who wages jihad, informally used for the Iraqi Insurgents starting in 2005.
outside the wire -- outside the security perimeter surrounding the FOB.
OEF : Operation Enduring Freedom.
OGA : Other Government Agency - CIA
OIF : Operation Iraqi Freedom. (I never could figure out how it went form “Looking for WMD” to OIF, I mean when the F-- did the Iraqi people ever ask us the liberate them?)
POG : People Other than Grunts [pronounced "pogue"] rear-echelon support troops. Arose in 2005 as a synonym for Fobbit, it seems. (Fobbit was anyone who stayed on the camp or FOB)
PSD : Personal Security Detail - private security contractors, most of the ones I worked with were former British SAS, US Special Forces, South African police, etc. They were very good and well paid—I preferred them for my security team when I had a choice.
Red on red : enemy-on-enemy fire. In June 2005 it was reported that Marines patrolling the desert near the Syrian border had, over the previous several months, seen a new trend in the Iraq insurgency. Insurgents were fighting each other in towns along the Euphrates from Husayba to Qaim. This suggested that there had been a split between Islamic militants and local rebels. I’ll tell a story about this later… Blue on Blue stood for US Troops shooting at each other by mistake…which I also have stories of.
REMF : rear-echelon motherf**r - Vietnam era phrase revived for the sandbox. The term REMF seems to have fallen into disuse, replaced by “fobbit”. I liked calling REMFS REMFS, because they usually didn’t know what it stood for.
Remfland: the rear-echelon areas where support personnel live and work in relative safety -- the paradox being that in the Sandbox, unlike Vietnam, REMFland is more a state of mind than a physical location. REMF-MF= REMF Mother F—er.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Speaking of Mortaritaville,
this is a good Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfayhFjH_7A


HBD, by the way.