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Just A Squid

by Zero Ponsdorf••114

In THE OLDEN DAYS… The other branches called us, generically, Squids – But I recall terms we used in The Navy to refer to our fellow sailors. NOT PC.

I’m gonna share the ones I can remember:

Airdale: Someone who plays with aircraft and inhales jet exhaust with a smile.

Bubblehead: A submariner – NEVER a sub mariner.

Radarman: Scope dope.

Gunners Mate: Gun Bunny.

Them that kept us moving and kept the lights on, etc.: Snipes.

Pond Scum: Surface sailors collectively – according to the Bubbleheads.

Kinda wonder how the other branches referred to themselves.

So with no acronyms and/or numbers, please, offer the friendly terms you all used to refer to your fellow service members. Keep in mind that I’m including The Navy here. I certainly don’t remember them all… anyway the ones I DO remember are from near 50 years ago.

The Marines and Army types were collectively “Grunts” to most of us, as I recall, so now you can set the record straight.

One I DO recall is “Redlegs” for artillery – There is some historical basis for that one.

Anyway, fill in the blanks…

Quick update: Thanks I did forget deck apes and pecker-checkers, and The Shoes.

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114 thoughts on “Just A Squid”

  2. When I was a Utilities Systems Apprentice/Journeyman we were known as “Turd Herders” by our fellow airmen. Definitely didn’t want to have someone call you THAT in front of some girls.

      1. I had forgotten that. It was true in the early 70s as well. I don’t even want to know what that term derives from…

    2. …Infantry refer to Armor as Coffin Drivers….

      Or DATs [dumb-assed tankers].

      Admin pukes = “titless WACs” back when soldiers knew what a WAC was.

      POGs were called REMFs [rear-echelon mortar forkers]

      MPs = Mud Puppies. Can’t spell WIMP without “MP.”

      Air Defense Artillery = Duck hunters

      Non-airborne soldiers = Legs

      Any medic was Doc

      SF were called “Special Feces” …. but not if they were within hearing range.

      Intel = spook

      et cetera, et cetera, et cetera ad infanitum ad nauseam.

      1. Forgot these gems:

        NAVY = Anchor clankers, swabbies

        USAF = “Junior birdmen” … Civilians in uniform

        USMC = Jarhead [of course]
        “You can always tell a Marine …. but you can’t tell him much.”
        Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children

        US Army
        Uncle Sam Sin’t Released Me Yet

        1. Sure wish we had a review button ….

          Uncle Sam Ain’t Released Me Yet

          But y’all knew what I meant.

          1. Look at US ARMY in reverse, some will say it means “Yes, My Retarded Ass Signed Up”!

            1. DAMN!! That one is a classic that I hadn’t heard in years.

              Thanks so much for that.

        2. As my cousins remind folk-
          USMC- U Signed the MuthaF***** Contract

          Rainbows- New Airmen
          Cherry- 5 jump chump

          AD Dogs- Air Drop Riggers
          PackRats- Light Pack Riggers
          Stitch Bitch- Maint Rigger

  5. Black Shoe- surface ship sailor of any type, often referred to as “Poor dumb shoe.”
    Brown Shoe- worn by Naval Aircrew, the elite of the Navy, and you don’t even have to ask us!
    Snipe- strange creature that lives in the bowels of the ship and would only come on deck at night, wearing sunglasses. A black shoe subset.
    Bubblehead- Submarine sailor, think black shoe only educated. And weirder. All the radiation..
    Doc- Hospital Corpsman (pronounced “core-man, Barry) Favorite phrase, “This won’t hurt me a bit!”
    SeaBees- We build, we fight! In my experience, they fight Marines on the drunk bus back from liberty.
    Marine- My Ass Rides In Navy Equipment.
    I think that’s the high points. My apologies for any omissions.
    😉

    2. Another common term for surface sailors – particularly among the submariners – is skimmer.
      Aircraft carriers are birdfarms.
      Any other surface ship is a target.

      2. Usually immediately followed by “puke,” so the tender guys were referred to as skimmer pukes.

    3. We Helo types (I know, plenty of foul nicknames for us), assigned SAR at Navy PATRON bases, referred to P-3 drivers as Sub Aviators. Needless to say, we were not popular at the club.

  6. L E G! Usually preceded by dirty, rotten, nasty. (I.e., non-Airborne qualified).

    Always heard Navy folks refer to each other as Brown Shoes (air) or Black Shoes (boats).

    AF calls transport folks Trash Haulers. (But they get the Airline jobs so Karma is a bitch.)

    1. You are correct in the “LEG”, it is not, as one steerman of the DRG calls it, “LEGG”. No self-respecting, jump qualified, Airborne hero would ever use the word “LEGG”. “Legg” is the pantyhose brand that our wives/girlfriends often wore.

  7. Air defence missile numbers: Cloud punchers or angel rapers.

    Parachutists: Dirt darts.

    Artillerymen: Drop-shorts.

    Intelligence Analysts: Dart Throwers.

    Military Police: Cunts.

  9. Corpsmen: Pecker Checker

    Dental Technician: Gummer’s Mate

    Dental Technician: Fang Fairy

  11. Special Forces: Snake eaters

    Signal: Freddy Kilowatts; Wire Rats.

    BTW: I sometimes used Squid here in the bon homme spirit of TAH (and as evidenced by this interesting thread) but a gentleman that I respect seemed offended so I quit. I don’t want to poke a stick at folks I like and respect. I’ll save the stick for the posers and it is a target rich environment.

    1. Do not be troubled. I dunno who might have been offended, but it is a thing that binds us all. Keep this in mind: I’d rather be called “A Squid” than called a “Baby Killer” and spit at.

      Some folks are just toooo sensitive.

    2. If someone is offended by being called a squid my response (as a former Squid) would be “Fine, I’ll call you cocksucker from now on.”

      1. Instinct…That’s it! ROTFLMAO. Man I needed that this morning brother! As an old former Army Leg or Grunt (and damned proud of it) and then Air Force Missile Silo Comm, I always heard and used squid for our Navy brothers and sisters. And the Navy’s little sister, The Coast Guard. I have to say, I loved all my time in the military but the Air Force time was a constant beating of derision compared to the Army. As one of my former Army buddies says, “No one played Air Force growing up!”

        1. GRUNT – Go Run Under Nearest Tank – yep, dad was a tanker and I was a grunt. Got a lot of good natured ribbing both ways.

          And by the way, I still haven’t figured out the nomenclature breakdown for POG – personnel on guard? Anyone in the know, please enlighten me.

          I do know what a REMF is, and I had a pretty good comeback for the troops.

          Me: Are you married?
          Troop: Yes.
          Me: Do you have children?
          Troop: Yes.
          Me: Then your wife is a mother?
          Troop: Yes.
          Me: Now, a REMF is a Rear Echelon Mother F’r, your wife is a mother. So while you are out here complaining about the REMF’s they are probably back there f’n your wife, who is a mother.
          Troop: Says nothing but has a stupid look on his face.

          The thing is, it’s all in the way that you look at it: I am married, I have children, my wife is a mother. Guess that makes me a mother f’er. LOL

          1. Ozzie – I’ve heard two schools of thought on “POG”. One is that it’s an acronym for “Person Other than Grunt” – e.g., non-infantry. The other was that it was a shortened/corrupted form of “pogue”. Dunno which is correct, if either.

            1. Second one, Hondo. The first is used by those who can’t be bothered to actually, you know, keep the frack up with what’s what.

              They’re like those numbnuts who insist on calling a rifle a gun, a magazine a clip and an IFV a “tank looking thing”.

              1. Depends on which source you accept as authoritative, Grimmy. Both work, no one really knows which is correct – and it doesn’t much matter anyway. Neither is generally intended as a compliment. (smile)

    3. That’s
      Jungle Fighting Snake Eaters!

      And “legs” was prefixed with “F*CKEN” and suffixed with a spit.

      All The Way!

      1. 91A10…You are absolutely right. As an 11B leg, I initially took offense off post over the “HEY YA F*CKEN LEGS THIS IS AN AIRBORNE BAR!”. Sometimes the fight was on but in the end we brushed each other off and checked for wounds, broken knuckles, etc. regardless and bought each other rounds. Then with some time and wisdom I knew who went where and if I was invited by one I always yelled, “Next rounds on me!”. Came from my old Top’s great wisdom on how to “win friends and influence people”. He’d say, “troop there was enough fightin’ where we came from and enough waiting when we get back, so make the most of this time”.

        1. “HEY YA F*CKEN LEGS THIS IS AN AIRBORNE BAR!”

          Only heard that about 200 times in FayettNam.

          Thanks for the memory refresh!

      2. “Leg” was also often preceded by the question, “What holds up a chicken’s *ss?”

    5. I did get the ‘squid’ thrown at me, but I also got ‘gob’, both from an old Navy guy who worked for the railroad after he left the Navy. But that was back in them there Dark Ages.

      I didn’t hear a lot of stuff other than this:
      aircraft carrier: flattop
      destroyer: tin can
      submarine: pig or pigboat

      I guess things just change with the times.

  12. Hole Snipe – BT’s
    Fresh Air Snipe – Deck Ape
    Twidget – Whatever they did sounded complicated-Nerds
    Cannon Cocker- 0811
    9999- Non trainable Staff NCO (1stSgt/SgtMaj)
    Gunner- Warrant Officer
    Top – MSgt
    L.I.F.E.R. – Lazy Incompetent Fucker Expecting Retirement

    1. Dave Hardin…Thanks Dave for the LIFER reference and remembrance. Had things in the family been different I was planning a military career. I had served under two types of NCO. The professional NCO who knew his job and often mine and did his and took care of his men’s welfare first and foremost.

      Then there were the F’ing LIFERS.(I spit just then as years ago to even think it,) Worthless ass kissing, bullshitters waiting to get their 20 year ticket punched. F’ed up more good platoons and companies, flights and squadrons in the Air Force than any agent provocateur. In fact I use to say I wouldn’t be surprised to find they were commie infiltrators bent on f’ing up anything they touched. The professionals inspired me greatly and they are who I aspired to become. Still today, admire and respect all those I served under and those on this board who served like them. They made and held a high bar to meet, in my book.

  13. Don’t forget the Sonar girls and twidgets.

    3M Coordinatorm – meals, movies and mattress

    1. sonar girls also known as coners with the rest of the non-nukes

      Skimmers – surface sailors, also known as the bottom 90%

      1. They tried to get me to go subs when I joined.

        I told them I really didn’t want to get on a boat that was designed to sink.

          1. Best exchange along those lines I ever saw went something like this:

            First Comment: “What is the essential characteristic of a submarine?”

            Second Comment: “A submarine is a ship that can submerge.”

            Third Comment: “Any ship can submerge. A submarine is a ship that can – under its own power – resurface.”

            Even being in the Army, I got a chuckle out of that one. (smile)

            1. Honda: Reminds me of a conversation I had with a rigger. When I asked him whether you could parachute-drop a 5 ton he shrugged and said “You can drop anything – once.” 😀

              2. I had a similar conversation with MG Gary Luck during DS/DS about what could and couldn’t be airdropped.

  14. A few of the Navy ratings (like a MOS) had a nickname based on their ratings badge, e.g. Radioman= “sparks”, Quartermaster = “wheels”

    Naval Air were usually called “airdales” and they operated from a “bird farm” (carrier).

    Air Force were called “zoomies”- jet jocks, at least.

    Marines = “gyrines” (don’t know where this came from

    2. “Gyreen,” or “gyrine,” is the sound that shit makes when it hits the fan. That’s how it was always explained to me.

    3. Our flight suits were universally referred to as “zoom bags”.

      O/T: We were required to have something like 70% of our flight helmet covered with reflective tape. I made silver & yellow squares to cover the visor of my helmet. On the back, and over the rest of it, I had a 1″ wide strip of reflective orange that was topped with an arrow, and black tape cut to make the words “DIG HERE”.

      The first time the skipper saw it he nearly spewed coffee out his nose. He thought it was very frikkin’ funny. 🙂

    4. BuckeyeJim…Thank you. My screen name here comes from serving in comm in the Air Force. My First Shirt of the 308th SAC SMW COMM Squadron had been Navy in Korea and he always called us “Sparks”. There is an obvious coincidence to this but it works anyway so I use it.

  16. A few more from the Navy:

    Rent-a-Cop – Master-at-Arms
    Skivy Waver – Signalman
    Wheels – Quartermaster
    BB Stacker – Aviation Ordinanceman
    Weather Guesser – Aerographer’s Mate
    Turd Chaser – Hull Technician
    Spook – Intelligence Specialist / CT
    Sparks – Radioman
    Nose Picker – Aviation Machinist’s Mate
    Penis Machinist – Corpsman

    1. Are you going to forget “Stew Burner” – MS or CS as they are now.

    2. A few others:

      Oscillating Sh!head: Operations Specialist

      Lightning-Fast Chicken F!cker: Crypto Tech

  17. With all due respect to my Army brothers and sisters:
    DATs and CDATs for tankers (Computerized Dumb Ass Tankers)
    Legs and grunts for the infantry
    Short round – artillary

    More later as I can think of it.

    1. I had an instructor at OCS who was an Infantry NCO that went on a rant about Artillery. Suffice it to say, all of the Officer Candidates who were branching Artillery were all standing around giving each other the old “Who, me?” stare. Good stuff.

  19. 13B – 13bangbang (gunbunny)
    BT (Barely Trainable)
    MM (Flangehea)

  23. Airedales = Air wing people in general

    Rotorheads = helicopter pilots

    Assholes = fixed wing pilots

    1. My last comment about fixed wing pilots was rude and impolite, and I apologize for it.

      That being said, that is what everyone I knew called them, and anyone who has ever known one will understand why. They are the most arrogant and obnoxious individuals you will ever meet. However, they do come when you call them, and you don’t call them unless you really need them, so I guess I shouldn’t be too rude. So, thank you, zoomies.

      1. I heard often that helo pilots frowned a lot because if nothing was wrong now, it soon would be.

    2. How do you know when you’re in a room with a Naval Aviator?
      …He’ll tell you.

  24. I was proud to wear the title Signal Puke, Commo Jockey, Wirehead, Bird Burner, and my last trip to Iraq before I got too damn old and worn down (Speicher 2008-2009) I had the best damn bunch of Cable Dogs in the Army. If you had a phone or computer connected to network at Speicher, we either built it or maintained it. You’re very welcome!

    1. I don’t remember which Comm Squadron it was but I saw one years ago that had the slogan “Without us you’re talking to yourself.”

  26. Cherry – fresh out of basic private…
    E-4 private – fresh out of basic college grad…
    Bee bee stacker – ammo specialist…
    House mouse – designated admin puke…

  27. On the USS Barbour County they referred to us Marines as “puppy fuckers”. I never got it. “Where’s the Corpsman? I think he’s below deck with the puppy fuckers”. I actually heard that shit one time. I never knew a Marine that engaged in acts of bestiality with under age canines. Maybe it was a squid thing…

  29. When I rode subs, I heard the officers referred to as “O-gangers,” and the Auxiliaryman of the Watch called the ‘A-ganger.”

    I was a Cryptologic Technician Interpretive in my enlisted life. That is, a linguist.

    Of course, we were universally called “Spooks,” but we also had terms of endearment within rate.

    We linguists were called “immigrants” for obvious reasons.

    The manual morse operators were called “ditty chasers.”

    Don’t know the others.

    1. Linguists often abbreviated as “lingies” in the Army (along with a few less flattering terms.) Morse operators called Hogs since the MOS was O5H. And the infamous SigSec guys were universally known as “Buddy F*ckers” (think they were 05G).

  30. Working in Navigation department, we were called all sorts of names by those working in Engineering and Deck department when liberty call came around.

  31. Cooks – Spoons or Hash-Slingers
    Mechanics – Wrench Dogs or Ratchets
    Airborne – Lawn Darts

  33. Nuc waste – the guys who washed out of nuclear power school and usually ended up on a submarine as an machinist mate in the A-Gang (aux division).

  35. No one mentioned Pogues? Also called REMF or rear echelon mother f****ers. Pretty much anyone that didn’t sleep in a hole at night and eat c-rats every day

    1. Now, Taurus – you know that stands for “Really Excellent Males and Females”, right? (smile)

          1. WWII: “The Navy rides the WAVES, and the Army speads WACs on the floor.” courtesy of a Coast Artilleryman who was activated 8 Dec ’41 and stayed in Germany in the Occupation till ’46.

  36. as a former USCGR MK3 I’ll add in the only one I ever heard used to refer to us and that was Brown Water Navy.

    Typically used by some Navy type to which my standard response was “Yep and if it weren’t for the Coast Guard then Navy kids would be ugly too.” I credit an old Chief at Yorktown RESTRACEN for that response 😀

  37. On the same idea but an angle off. Airdales refer to Aircraft Carriers as boats, just to piss off the black shoe types.

    I didn’t see if that was in there but
    Black Shoe = surface navy
    Brown Shoe = Airdale

  38. USMC issue:

    MP/SP – enemy

    mortarmen/anti-tank missilemen – infantremfs.

    male admin pogues – Ball Bearing BAMs.

    female Marines – BAMS (Broad Assed Marines).

  39. In the MI field we used to refer to Ground Surveillance Radar (GSR) operators as “Pop up targets.”

    Also I once had a former-Marine who was in my Army Reserve MP unit tell me that ARMY stood for Ain’t Ready for the Marines Yet, and I responded that MARINE stood for Muscles Are Required, Intelligence Not Essential. 😉

  40. I don’t know if we got it from the Navy folk or made it up ourselves but on the USS Little Rock we referred to the individuals that worked the deterrent weapons as “missile monkeys”. Back when all of them smoked cigarettes and mostly empty soda cans were considered ash trays. Their break room was co-located with the security post. Hated that guard duty.

  41. And there was “Sea Going Bell Hop” for the Captains orderly. Which was fairly accurate during peace time. Unarmed and basically following the dude around. Handling classified messages was about as exciting as it got. Watching hours of launch and trap never got old. Did get good at making coffee.
    One wag called the duty, “Brig Chaser, senior level”.

  42. Fobbit – same as a REMF, used to describe today’s REMFS in the ME, often heard bawling about lobster and steak not being served often enough, their office A/C not being cold enough…

    Geardo – usually a Fobbit with a truckload of gear on his or her IBA near their desks in an unsuccessful attempt to convince Grunt types that they go outside the wire like they do (Most Fobbits would only tag along on runs to say, Bagram AF to eat BK and Popeye’s).

  43. I heard the term “Lipstick Lieutenants” when referring to Marine Warrant Officers.

    ONCE.

  44. I’m surprised nobody mentioned “wing nuts” referring to Air Force types in general.

  45. Quartermasters (Army) – Stitch bitches

    Can’t tell you how many times, as a Marine aboard a cruiser and a carrier, I was called a bullet sponge

  47. Dammit, one I heard a lot (about older senior folks) was ROAD.
    Retired On Active Duty.

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