Embrace the Suck

Milspeak: Slang for military jargon, troop idioms, and Pentagonese.

Members of America’s armed forces have their own distinctive language: milspeak. Especially since WWII, soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines have invented and adapted their own slang vocabularies, creating a colorful insider’s lingo of bureaucratic buzzwords, acronyms, mock jargon, dark humor, and outright profanity. Milspeak gives a unique and touching insight into military life from basic training to the trenches; from the flight deck to the cockpit.

This comprehensive field manual includes more than 500 colorful entries including:

• Voluntold: Derisive slang for “I was ordered to volunteer”.
• Back to the taxpayers: Navy slang for where a wrecked aircraft gets sent.
• Dome of obedience: Slang for a military helmet. Also called a brain bucket or skid lid.
• Echelons above reality: Higher headquarters where no one has an idea about what is really happening.
• Embrace the suck: The situation is bad, deal with it.

Embrace the Suck is the perfect gift for the soldier, sailor, marine, or airman in your life - or for the Beltway Clerk* who yearns to speak like one.

*Derisive term for a Washington political operative or civilian political hatchet man. May refer to so-called “Washington defense experts” who’ve never served in the armed forces.