Stories

When I returned to the states after England and Turkey, I found myself in a different division. During the four years I was overseas, the army had closed down two infantry divisions, one mech division, and a few overseas units. Most of the airborne soldiers from those units were reassigned to the 82nd. 

We got a lot of soldiers and NCOs who had only ever jumped in Jump School—what we called "five-jump-chumps." I had a platoon sergeant who had never really served in the infantry and had spent the last few years at Range Control in Hawaii. He was worthless. He didn't even know how to rig his equipment for jumping and would need 26 more jumps before he could go to Jumpmaster School.

Worse than that, the word "hooah" was everywhere. Rarely heard was the Paratrooper word "airborne." Airborne used to be used for Roger—that, yes, no, hello, and goodbye. It was what we said.

When we saluted an officer, we said, "All the Way, Sir," and then they returned our salute and said, "AIRBORNE! "The day I became a first sergeant, I saluted an officer who responded with 'Hooha.'" His salute was sloppy as well. This major got an earful.

That was it. At the next formation, I told my guys that if they used the "h-word" around me, I'd drop them for 50 pushups. That began to work, though it was a hard habit for most to break.

One day, two of my paratroopers knocked on the door to my office. They said that they had heard that the word "hooah" was a Turkish word. I knew this was the beginning of a trooper joke, knowing that the giys were aware of my love for all things Turkish. I played along. "Really, I have never heard that, but if you give me a day to research, I'll get back to you."

The next day, I summoned them back to my office. I sat them down and "explained" that it was not a word in Turkish but rather a Turkish idiom that, loosely translated, meant "Do me up the backside, you big stud muffin" and is used when a man wants to have sex with another man.

This lie got around, and the "h-word" ceased to exist in Charlie Company.