What Is The “Scuttlebutt” With Navy Terms and Slang?

That’s right folks. It wouldn’t be the Navy without some weird acronyms and slang to confuse the heck out of civilians, and to impress our shipmates with some audacious and impressive terminology! Without further ado, here’s the scuttlebutt on Navy slang and terms:

Numbered Navy Terms and Slang

• 0-dark-hundred, 0’dark-hundred (pronounced “oh dark hundred”, because the “zero” in time expressions was verbally pronounced “oh” in the US Navy and US Army as late as the 1980s: A slang term for any time between midnight and daylight. Used to convey that the time is when people are usually asleep. e.g. “We have to get up at 0-dark-hundred.” It is not a reference to any particular time.
• 0-dark-thirty, 0’dark-thirty: A slang term that is used to describe that the commencement time of an operation or exercise is after midnight and before daylight; most typically when people would be deep asleep. It is not a reference to any particular time.
• 13 button salute: When a sailor in dress pants pulls down on the top two corners and all 13 buttons come unbuttoned at once, usually done just before sex.
• 1D10T or ID10T: A mythical substance that new Sailors are sent in search of as a joke. Pronounced as “one dee ten tee”, “one delta ten tango”, “eye dee ten tee”, or “idiot”.
• 1MC: The General Announcing system on a ship.
• 1st Division: The division, in most aviation and afloat commands, which is responsible for the material condition and cleanliness of the ship. On ships equipped with small boats, the First Lieutenant or “First” (First Division Officer or Deck Department Head) is in charge of these boats and the sailors who maintain and run them. On small boats, the “First” is in charge of boatswain mates and deck seaman. On larger ships, the “First” may be in charge of air crew. Work for 1st division varies among ships depending on size. Small ships only have one division, while larger ships like carriers or amphibs can have 5 or more. On Submarines the 1st Looey (1st Lt) is a collateral duty usually held by a First or Senior Second Class Petty Officer. In addition to their billeted duties they own Deck Div and are responsible for all the equipment necessary for handling and storing of mooring lines, assisting the COB with personnel transfers at sea and resupply at sea, materiel condition of the ship, general housekeeping (issuing laundry soap, cleaning supplies, toilet paper, rack sheets, etc.), and escape and rescue equipment like life vests and SEIE Suits. Deck Div typically consists of the 1st LT, their LPO (relief in training), and occasionally a few NUBs who’s divisions are too busy for babysitting.
• 2JV: Engineering sound-powered circuit. (Growler)
• 2MC: Engineering loudspeaker circuit. It’s like the 1MC but restricted to Engineering Spaces.
• 7MC: On submarines this is generally the Ship’s Control Comms Circuit (between the OOD on the bridge and Helmsman below in Control.
• 8 Day Skate: On a four section duty roster there is time where each section finishes duty in the morning and is not on duty again for seven more days. If the first partial day is counted, it’s referred to as the 8 Day Skate, or 8 days without standing watch or duty.

• 21MC: Ships command intercom circuit, mainly used between the bridge, combat, and flight decks. Also known as the Bitch Box.
• 2-10-2: A female, perceived to be unattractive otherwise, out at sea on a ship which has many more males than females and who is consequently paid more attention than she would be paid on land. “She was a 2 before going to sea, a 10 out at sea, and back to a 2 when she returned.”
• 2-6-10: Abbreviation of “It’s gonna take 2 surgeons 6 hours to remove 10 inches of my boot from your ass.” Used to motivate someone who is not pulling their weight.
• 43P-1: Work center Maintenance manual; prior to OPNAV numbering the current guidance 4790/4(series) it was 43P. The series of books; 43P-1, 43P-2, 43P-3 & 43P-4 were separate books covering all aspects of maintenance. The 43P-2, 43P-3 & 43P-4 books were replaced in the mid 1980’s with one book. the new book was a three ring binder, blue in color and had “3-M” all across the front & side. The 43P-1 book containing MIPs stayed in the work center and was a deep red color with 43P-1 across the cover. Officially no longer named the 43P-1, the fleet continues to name and refer to their work center maintenance manual as the 43P-1.
• 4JG: Communications circuit used by V4 Fuels Division to coordinate flight deck fueling operations between the flight deck and below decks pump and filter rooms. Also used to pass information between a flight deck fuel station and flight deck control as to status of fueling operations for individual aircraft. Found on aircraft carriers and similar vessels.
• 4MC: Emergency communications circuit that overrides sound powered phone communications to alert controlling stations to a casualty.
• 5MC: A circuit similar to the 1MC, except that it is only heard on the flight deck of an air-capable ship and in engineering spaces. It is EXTREMELY loud to overcome the jet noise on the flight deck. Do not stand near one of the speakers without hearing protection.
• 8 (or) 6 boat. Preferred term by Amphib sailors for LCM-8 or LCM-6 boats, as opposed to “Mike” boat.
• 90 Day Wonder, 90 Day Miracle: OCS graduate (as opposed to a graduate of four-year Naval Academy or ROTC training).
• 96er: A period of five nights and four days off of work due to special liberty or holiday. Very rarely occurs due to duty.
• 180° Amnesia: Occurs when a sailor has been deployed and selective memory is desired to deal with questions asked by his or her significant other. “Whatever happens on WESTPAC stays on WESTPAC.”
• 4 acres of sovereign U.S. soil: An aircraft carrier.

A – Alpha Navy Terms and Slang

 

• Abu Dhabi (used attributively / as an adjective): Labeled in Arabic aboard a ship; used of any product, but especially soda cans. “We’ve been home from cruise for 8 months and we still have Abu Dhabi Cokes in the vending machines!” (More common synonym: Hadji.)
• Acey-Deucey Club: A recreational facility that serves alcohol for first and second class petty officers, or any Enlisted Club that caters mostly to First and Second Class Petty Officers, but still allows all enlisted personnel. Also, a board and dice game akin to Backgammon. Except you start with all pieces off the board. Also a Variance on the rules.
• Action Guy: A SEAL, SWCC, EOD, Diver or Recon Corpsman type. See FAG.
• Admin: Aviation,Pre-arranged meeting point, or shared hotel in-port.
• Admin Warfare Specialist (humorous, sometimes derisive): A yeoman, personnelman or holder of another Navy administrative rating. Used especially of a sailor who does not have a warfare pin.
• ADCAP Advanced Capability Torpedo that began life as the Mk 48 torpedo (21 inch diameter) launched primarily by submarine platforms. After the 3rd Mod, advances in computer technology and circuit miniaturization brought about the ADCAP which is a truly remarkable torpedo.
• ADSEP: ADministrative SEParation: Release from Naval Service for administrative reasons. (The list of reasons is very extensive and can be found in BUPERSINST 1900.8C, Enclosure (2).)
• AD: Aviation Machinist Mate, one who throws wrenches at aircraft and prays to mech gods for a favorable outcome.
• AE: Aviation Electrician’s Mate
• A-Farts: (AFRTS) Armed Forces Radio & Television Service. A-Farts is received via satellite all over the world and offers a variety of shows. Some of the most entertaining offerings are the propaganda commercials it frequently airs since regular advertising is not permitted.
• AFRTB: (Airframes runs this bitch) Term commonly used among AM’s.
• AFTA: Advanced First Term Avionics: Part of the advanced electronics schooling package, reserved for AT’s AQ’s and AX’s for advanced training. Basically, they taught the PO2 exam for 6 months.
• A-Gang: The Auxiliaries Division of the Engineering Department. Members are known as “A-Gangers.” Also called “Fresh Air Snipe.”
• Ahead Flank Liberty: The fictitious speed at which a ship travels after a mission or patrol is completed with high marks and the ship is headed into very nice foreign ports that cater to visiting US Forces.
• AIMD: Aircraft Intermediate Maintenance Department. A department on aircraft carriers and Naval Air Stations responsible for maintaining aircraft sub assemblies. On an aircraft carrier, this consists of 5 divisions: IM1 – AIMD Admin, IM2 – Airframes and Power Plants, IM3 – Avionics, IM4 – Ground Support Equipment (GSE) and Aviation Ordnance, IM5 – IMRL.
• Air Department: Consists of 5 divisions, usually manned by Aviation Boatswains Mates. V0 Division: Admin offices. V1 Division: Aircraft Handlers on the flight deck. V2 Division: Maintenance of Catapults and Arresting Gear. V3 Division: Aircraft Handlers on the Hangar Deck. V4 Division: Aviation Fuels.
• Air Boss: Air Officer. His assistant is the “Mini Boss.”
• Air Force Gloves: Pockets. Used when a sailor has his hands in his pockets.
• Air Force Salute, Airman Salute, Airedale Salute: An “I don’t know” shrug of the shoulders. Also called an Ensign Salute.
• Airedale: A sailor who works in one of the Navy’s aviation rates also know as “Brown Shoes.”
• Airstart: (1) An attempt to restart an aircraft’s engine(s) after in-flight failure. (2) A blowjob.
• Air Wing: The aviation element on board an aircraft carrier consisting of various squadrons.
• A.J. Squared Away: (name for) a sailor who is always “squared away,” meaning always having a perfect shave, perfectly ironed uniform, spit-shined shoes, haircut with less than 1mm of hair, spotless uniform, etc. Anyone who has been designated with this nickname is most likely a lifer who has no life outside the navy. Compare to “dirtbag.” The more derogatory “A.J. Squared the fuck Away” is often used by those that can’t attain A.J.’s high standards.
• All Ahead Bendix: Attempt more than full speed ahead, e.g. by bypassing limiters or subjecting the engine motors to overvoltage, on the assumption that the risk of defeat outweighs the risk of engine damage.
• All-16ths: an adjustable wrench. While not permitted to do the job, it gets the job done just the same.
• All Three Dead: A3D Skywarrior
• Alpha Dogs: Refers to Alpha Company, a division of vehicle operators and mechanics within the Naval Mobile Construction Battalions, also known as the Fighting Seabees.
• Alpha Inspection: Formal inspection of uniforms and living spaces. Often performed with a white glove and a black sock.
• Alpha Mike Foxtrot: Adios, motherfuckers.
• Aluminum Cloud: The F-14 Tomcat.
• Already Broke: The USS Arliegh Burke.
• Anal Palace: The fast attack submarine USS Annapolis.
• Anchors and Spurs: The famous dance club at NAVSTA San Diego where many a lonely Navy wife has broken the seventh commandment. Many sailors find this amusing until it happens to them. Also called “Cankers and Sores.”
• Angles and Dangles (Submarine Service): (a reference to) placing a submarine at crazy angles and in crazy positions soon after leaving port, to see if anything breaks loose. Known as “at sea” by the surface Navy.
• “Another Fine Navy Day!”: An expression said (in a very cheery manner) on occasions when, in fact, it is not a Fine Navy Day at all. Compare “Living the dream!” in the civilian world.
• Anymouse (adjective): Anonymous. Used to describe the safety system whereby sailors can drop anonymous recommendations into a locked box.
• AO: Aviation Ordnanceman, personnel assigned to Aircraft Carriers, Helicopter Carriers and Aviation Squadrons that store, handle, assemble, transport and load all weapons and drop tanks along with electronic counter measure pods, dispensers and sono-bouys on Navy and Marine Corps aircraft. Other duties include storing and maintaining unit small arms as well as training and qualifying squadron member in their use and the use of deadly force. Aviation Ordnancemen are expected to have a broad knowledge base of the rate and and be able to perform any duties of the rate.
• AOCS: Aviation Officer Candidate School; since discontinued pre-commissioning programs at NAS Pensacola, FL and Bremerton, WA that trained both prior service and non-prior service college graduates to become naval officers and to subsequently qualify as either Naval Aviators, Naval Flight Officers, Air Intelligence Officers, or Aircraft Maintenance Duty Officers – program merged into with Officer Candidate School from Newport, RI in late 1990s and then in the late 2000s moved to NETC Newport, RI.
• AOL: Absent Over Leave; Navyspeak for AWOL. See UA, the correct Naval term.
• AOM: All Officers Meeting, held for a variety of reasons like training, port calls, mess issues, etc.
• Armpit of the Med: Naples, Italy. So called on account of its unique smell and the overall (un)cleanliness of the city.
• ASH Receiver: An “ash tray.” Newbie sailors are sometimes sent all over base to locate an ASH Receiver as a joke.
• ASMO: Assignment Memorandum Orders. Mostly issued in boot camp to set a recruit back in training due to poor performance.
• Assholes and elbows: The only things which should be seen by a boatswains mate when deck hands are on their hands and knees holystoning a wooden deck.
• Asshole of the Navy: Norfolk, Virginia, home of the fabled “DOGS AND SAILORS KEEP OFF THE GRASS!” sign. The cold shoulders from civilians persist in certain Navy towns. See also “NoFuck, Vagina.”
• ASVAB: The Navy’s enlisted entrance exam. (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery)
• ASWOC: Anti-Submarine Warfare Operations Center – shore-based briefing/debriefing/analysis/operational control center for VP aviation. See also TSC.
• Aviation Queer: The enlisted rating AQ, Aviation Fire Control Technician; since merged into Aviation Electronics Technician (AT).
• AW: The enlisted rating previously known as Aviation Anti-submarine Warfare Operator, now known as Aviation Warfare Operator; sometimes preceded by the adjective “fuckin'” by non-aircrew sailors
• AWOL: Absent Without Official Leave; this is a US Army and USAF term, not a Navy term, see UA.
• AX: The enlisted rating Aviation Anti-Submarine Warfare Technician; since merged into AT rating.
• Aye: Yes (I understand).
• Aye, aye: Yes (I heard the order, I understand the order, and I intend to obey/carry out the order). “I understand and I will comply.”

B – Bravo Navy Terms and Slang

• B1RD: Pronounced: Bravo One Romeo Delta. Nomenclature used to identify a bird to boot sailors. Similar to CGU-11.
• Baby Beater: A small sledge hammer
• Baby Birdfarm: A helicopter carrier/amphibious assault ship.
• Baby Killer: An obscenely large wrench/screwdriver
• Baboon Ass: Corned beef. The nickname is based on its color and flavor. See also Monkey Butt.
• Back Alley: Card game of trump played by 2 to 4 players (mostly “snipes”). Players are first dealt 1 card each then 2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13, 13-12-11-10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1. Players bid on the number of tricks to be taken, trump is determined by draw. Score is kept by awarding 3 points for bids made and taken and 1 point for each additional trick. A player unable to make their bid goes set 3 X the bid. Game can be played by partners.
• Bag (noun): Flight suit.
• Bag (verb): To issue demerits at the Naval Academy.
• Bag it: Hit the bricks, take off. “Liberty is down.” “Let’s bag it.”
• Bag of Dicks: An unwanted or extremely tedious task, e.g. one that is given one hour before shift change and will require at least 3 hours to complete. Someone who has been given a “Bag of Dicks” has been “bagged,” which is quite similar to getting ‘sand bagged’.
• Bag Nasty: A pre-packaged bag lunch usually consisting of a cold cut sandwich, piece of fruit, and juice box or can of soda. Served at galleys in lieu of regular chow for sailors on the go.
• Bagger: A sailor who is chronically late for watch relief. Also known as a “shit bag.”
• Ball Button: The fourth button down on the new Service Uniforms, so called because it has a tendency to come undone.
• Balls O’Clock: Any unspecified time late at night when it is absurd to be awake and having to do things, be on watch, etc.
• Balls Thirty: (1) The time 00:30, when there is a security sweep on some bases. (2) Any time late at night that doesn’t qualify for Oh Dark Thirty.
• Balls to Two: A short watch stood from 0000-0200. Not generally seen outside of Boot Camp.
• Balls to Four: A four hour watch technically stood from 0000-0400, though in practice begining at 2345 and ending at 0345. Most commonly seen on a “Dogged Watch” schedule.
• Balls To The Wall: see Wiktionary’s mainspace entry on the term “balls to the wall“
• Bandit: An aircraft which has been positively identified as hostile.
• Bar fine: Fee paid to the manager (“mamasan”) of a bar (generally adjacent to the former Naval Base Subic, former Naval Air Station Cubi Point, or former Clark Air Base in the Philippines) for letting a “hostess” take the night off. If a longer term “relationship” is desired by both parties, the “bar fine” can be paid in advance as “steady papers.” Sex is universally expected, although technically not required. The hostess will expect some entertainment (dancing, dinner, etc.)
• Barely Trainable: Derogatory term for a Boiler Technician (BT).
• Barney Clark: A slider topped with a fried egg. Also called a “One-Eyed Jack.” Named, due to its apparent high cholesterol content, for Mr. Barney Clark, who in 1982 received a “Jarvik” artificial heart.
• Barricade, Barrier: The huge nylon net strung across the landing area of a carrier to arrest the landing of an aircraft with damaged gear or a damaged tailhook.
• Bar Stool Technician: A term labeled to the former AQ rating, Aviation Fire Control Technician. The rating badge icon looked like a bar stool.
• Batphone: A dedicated outside telephone line (not for personal use) typically for shore power or security purposes. Sometimes used to connect CIC to Engineering.
• Battle Group (BG): A group of warships and supply ships centered around a large deck aircraft carrier and that carrier’s airwing. Usually consists of one cruiser, one supply ship, and one or two destroyers, frigates, and submarines. More recently referred to as a Carrier Strike Group (CSG).
• Battle Racks: (term for) when mission-exhausted Aviators are allowed to sleep through General Quarters.
• Battle rattle: body armor and helmet.
• Battle Stations: A manning condition involving (usually) all hands. Assignments are planned out prior to setting the underway watch and posted in the Watch, Quarter, and Station Bill. Assigned personnel go to their assigned stations to do their assigned task in support of fighting the ship in a battle or when there is a credible threat of attack for which the ship must be prepared to fight against.
• Battlewagon: Battleship.
• BB: Battleship, class of ship
• B.B. Stacker: Crew that handles and maintains the air launched weapons, Aviation Ordnancemen (Red shirts)
• BCG’s: Birth Control Glasses: Standard Navy-issue corrective eyewear for non-flight crew and non-flight deck personnel. So named because they are so thick and hideous that one is guaranteed never to have sex while one is wearing them. Term has become obsolete due to more normal looking frame choices now offered (outside of enlisted recruit training, at least). (Also known as CGL’s — Can’t Get Laids.)
• B.D.N.W.W.: Broke Dick No Worky-worky. See Broke Dick.
• Beer Day: On many navy ships, even in the present day, all hands are given 2 beers if they are underway without a port call for a given period of time — generally 45 days. Both beers are opened when they are given to the crewmember to prevent them from being hoarded.
• Beans, bullets, and black oil: Supplies of all sorts needed by a warship.
• Bells:

1. Naval method of indicating the time of day aboard ship, usually over the 1MC. One bell corresponds to 30 minutes past the hour. Bells will only be rung as a single strike, or a closely spaced double strike, with a maximum of eight bells (4 sets of 2). Bells repeat themselves every 4 hours. For example 2 sets of 2 bells, followed by a single bell (5 total) could be 0230, 0630, 1030, 1430, 1830, or 2230.
2. Method of requesting speed changes from the Engine Room using the Engine Order Telegraph (EOT), normally from the Bridge. (example: 1/3, 2/3, Full, Standard, Flank, B1/3, B2/3, BI, BEM)

• Benny: A treat or reward, derived from “Benefit.”
• Benny Suggs: The Navy’s Beneficial Suggestions program, a method where DON employees, and Navy and Marine personnel can make suggestions to improve various programs and operations.
• Bent Shitcan:

1. Someone below Naval standards.
2. An angry or particularly unpleasant attitude, such as one might have if their only job onboard was to collect and retain everyone else’s refuse, and then on top of that some asshole got mad and kicked him, leaving a big, ugly dent in his side. “We got a new XO and he had an attitude like a Bent Shitcan.”

• Big Chicken Dinner: Slang for a Bad Conduct Discharge, a punishment awarded to a sailor who has committed a serious infraction of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
• Big O boat, USS Oriskany CVA34, Also called the Mighty O boat, After the fire of 10/26,1966 she was called the USS Zippo by some.
• Bilge Juice: Non-sanctioned alcoholic beverage created while on long deployments by mixing yeast, water and sugar.
• Bilge Rat: Someone who works in the engineering spaces. On submarines the bilge rat is usually the smallest non-qual in the division, although bilges are great places for a field day assignment (good for napping) so a senior second class petty officer might call dibs on a bilge.
• Bilge Troll: Engine room lower level watchstander; junior enlisted nuke machinist mate on sub.
• Bilge Turd: Derogatory term for “Boiler Technician”, typically from jealous Machinist Mates who wish they could be as badass as the now extinct Boiler Technicians were.
• Bilge Water: Something spoken that is nonsense or ridiculous.
• BINGO: Minimum fuel needed to return to base (RTB).
• Binnacle List: The daily list of ship’s crew who are sick in quarters (see below). So called because in the old days of sailing, this list was posted on the binnacle, the casing that housed the ship’s compass.
• Bird: Aircraft.
• Birdfarm: Aircraft Carrier.
• Bitchbox: Intercom or amplified circuit used to communicate between spaces of a ship. (example: 2MC, 5MC, 23MC, 26MC)
• Bitching Betty: The recorded or computer generated female voice heard in an aviator’s headset when something is not as it should be. She is usually worried about unsafe flight conditions or an enemy threat (e.g. “Pull up!).
• Black beret: Worn by Swift Boat and PBR Sailors, originally in Vietnam. The tradition has sporadically been followed by modern small boat sailors. (See “Brown Water Navy.”)
• Black box: Repair, in primarily for electronic equipment, where an entire card or subsystem is replaced, rather than individual components. As a noun the said card.
• Black and Decker Pecker Wrecker (derogatory): A female who has orthodontic braces.
• Black gang: A ship’s engineers.
• Black Hole, The Black Hole: The Navy’s main base at Norfolk, Virginia, so called because “it’s where sailors’ careers go to die.”
• Black Pants: An enlisted sailor below the rank of E-7 (Chief Petty Officer). So named because of the black and khaki working uniform. See also “Blue Shirt.”
• Black Shoe: Sometimes shortened to just “Shoe.” Term used to describe shipboard or ‘surface’ officers and senior enlisted members, due to the black footwear worn while in khaki uniform. See also BROWN SHOE
• Blanket Party: A beating administered to someone whose head has been covered with a blanket (to prevent that person from identifying the attackers), in boot camp (and usually at night), because the individual is perceived to have harmed the group by not being squared away.
• Blivit (or Blivet) (derogatory): A person who is full of shit; ten pounds of shit in a five pound sack. Often starts bullshit stories with ‘believe it or not’
• Blowing the ___ Fleet: Performing oral sex on a prostitute (in reference to the fact that said prostitute may have had sex with the entirety of the named fleet). “You just blew the 7th Fleet.”
• Blowing Shitters: An act by which an HT uses straight firemain pressure on a clog in the sewage line (CHT/VCHT) that cannot be removed by ordinary means. Normally a last resort, yet used more often than not, that when not done properly causes one hell-of-a mess… especially on CHT lines when some unfortunate soul is on the crapper when the full force of the firemain comes through.
• Blowing a Shitter (Submarine Service): Inadvertently “flushing” a toilet (see “Shitter,” below) while San Tanks are being blown overboard by charging the sanitary tank with enough air pressure to overcome sea pressure; this could be a considerable pressure if the boat is deep which is costly so it’s usually a housekeeping evolution at periscope depth.
• Blue Falcon: (Also known as a “Bravo Foxtrot”) Slang term for “Buddy Fucker”, also, “Noble Order of the Blue Falcon” for those who are true masters of Blue Falconry.
• Bluejacket: An enlisted sailor below the rank of E-7 (Chief Petty Officer).
• Bluejacket’s Manual: The handbook of seamanship issued to recruits.
• Blue Roper (also: Blue Rope): A sailor that is in training to be a Recruit Division Commander, so called because of the blue rope they wear on the right sleeve.
• Blue Side: The figurative side one is stationed at if one is stationed at a Naval Command; contrasted with the “Green Side” (Marine Corps Command).
• Blue Shirt: Aviation Boatswain’s mate, usually seen chocking and chaining birds to the deck. Precursor to Yellow Shirt. Same as Bluejacket, referring to the blue utility shirt worn by those personnel.
• Bluenose: An individual who has crossed the Arctic Circle.
• Blue Dick: The Navy, AKA (I’ve been f-ed by the Blue Dick again)
• Blue on Blue: (1) Fratricide, friendly fire, so called because blue is the color associated with friendly forces during “workups” and exercises, while the fictional enemy country is usually orange. (2) (in port) A girl-on-girl stripper scene, porn scene, etc.
• Blue Tile: An area of the aircraft carrier on the starboard main passageway, O-3 level, where the Battle Group (now called Carrier Strike Group) admiral and his staff live and work. As the name implies, the deck is indeed blue tile there. Passing through, especially by junior enlisted sailors, is highly discouraged. During wartime, armed guards may be posted on both sides of the blue tile. Pictures of bare-assed drunken aviators standing on the blue tile during port calls are highly prized keepsakes.
• Blue Water: Deep water far from land. Only larger, self-sufficient ships can operate on these waters. Also called the “high seas.” See “Brown Water.”
• BMOS: Big Man On Ship: Often refers to the ship’s Captain. The closest civilian equivalent is BMOC (Big Man On Campus).
• BMW: Big Maine Woman: One of the large women in the Brunswick/Bath Maine area who like to pick up sailors from the former Naval Air Station Brunswick or pre-commissioning destroyers at the Bath Iron Works in local bars.
• Boat:

1. Boats list (lean to the inside of a turn), Ships heel (lean to the outside of a turn). “Turn to Port, heel to Starboard” Word passed from the bridge to PriFly indicating a turn and to warn the flight deck crew of deck angle changes.
2. A water craft small enough to be carried on a ship (ships themselves may only be called boats by members of the crew who have completed a deployment).
3. A submarine (submarines are called boats, with only limited exceptions).

• Boat Boo: A sailor’s girlfriend or boyfriend aboard ship, usually during deployment, and often an arranged affair between two married sailors.
• Boat Mocha: A submarine drink made from half a cup of coffee and a hot chocolate packet.
• Boat School: Nickname for the United States Naval Academy (USNA) at Annapolis, MD.
• Boats: A sailor in the Boatswain’s Mate rating or the Aviation Boatswain’s Mate rating, or the ship’s Bosun or Air Bosun, the latter usually a CWO or LDO.
• B.O.C.O.D: “Beat Off Cut Off Date”: The date prior to returning home from a deployment on which a man should stop masturbating in order to save himself up for his wife or girlfriend.
• Bogey: An unknown aircraft which could be friendly, hostile, or neutral.
• B.O.H.I.C.A.: (Bend Over, Here It Comes Again). Often used when situations, as can be normal, repeat themselves but more often when you just know you are about to get it again from the Command.
• B.O.H.I.C.A Key — Naval Air Station Key West was located on Boca Chica Key, Florida.
• BOHICA Boat — Derogatory name for USS NIMITZ (CVN-68) BOHICA our screws never stop. A ship’s bumper sticker was authorized by the CO and were printed by the thousands until the CO found out what BOHICA meant. Circa 1981.
• Bolter: Failed attempt at an arrested landing on a carrier by a fixed-wing aircraft. Usually caused by a poor approach or a hook bounce on the deck, this embarrassing event leads to a go-around and another attempt to “board.”
• Boner Garage: USS BONHOMME RICHARD (LHD-6). See also “Bonnie Dick.”
• Bonnie Dick: USS BONHOMME RICHARD * (CV/CVA 31, LHD 6)
• Boomer: Ballistic Missile Submarine (SSBN)
• Boomer Fag: Crewmember of a Ballistic Missile Submarine (SSBN)
• Boondockers: The standard workday steel-toed boots.
• Boondoggle: An inefficient meeting, event, or evolution; one that it is more fun than productive. Telling the LPO you’re going up to the calibration shop for awhile but head up to the roach coach instead? That’s also a boondoggle. “Shithead is on a boondoggle again.”
• Boopdiddley: All-purpose, virtually meaningless expression, used as an exclamation i.e. “Boopdiddley!” or ” Aw, Boop!” (1974)
• Boot Camp: Term used to refer to the eight week basic training course held at Recruit Training Command, Great Lakes, Illinois. Can also refer to a green or inexperienced sailor, officer or enlisted person, e.g. “Boot ensign.”
• Boot Chief: Nickname given to a Chief during their first year as a Chief. Only used Chief to Chief.
• Booter (usually derisive): Any sailor who has very little time in, or a lot less time than the speaker.
• Boot Topping: Black paint used to paint the water line on ships.
• Booty Cigar: A bowel movement, particularly a very long one.
• B.O.S.N.I.A.: Big Ol’ Standard Navy-Issue Ass (from the apparent widening of the hips due in part to the cut of the working uniforms)
• Bosun’s Punch: New sailors on ship are sometimes assigned to find this mythical tool in the office of one of the ship’s Bosuns (Boatswain). The sailor is then typically punched very hard in the shoulder by the Bosun in question.
• Bottom blow:

1. To open valves in the mud drum to allow boiler pressure to force accumulated sludge out of the boiler.
2. To take a shit.

• Bounce Pattern: When several aircraft are practicing touch and go landings at the same airfield.
• Boxing your coffee: Using two paper cups and pouring back and forth to mix creamer and/or sugar.
• Box kicker: Supply clerk.
• Box of Rocks: Derogatory term for more than one sailor that has performed their work in an unsatisfactory manner.
• Brain Fart: A condition when, under stress, one cannot recall or perform something that would normally be easy or second nature.
• Brain Housing Group (chiefly in the USMC): A skull.
• Branch: Lowest organizational level in most naval commands. Below department and division.
• Brass Monkey: Device used on old wooden ship’s to hold cannon balls. If it is cold enough to freeze the balls on a brass monkey, it is cold enough to crack cannon balls.
• Bravo Bozo: Derisive term that is the opposite of Bravo Zulu. Given for something done poorly. Also used when a sailor gets a BZ from the command, shipmates will call it a Bravo Bozo award.
• Bravo Zulu: Originally, “BZ” was a signal meaning “Well Done.” It is sometimes used by seniors praising subordinates in one form or another. ([1])
• Breakaway Music: Music played over the 1MC after “breaking” away from an oiler following UNREP. Can be outdated classic rock that was never really popular in the first place, or cool music, depending on the ship’s commanding officer. It is played to “motivate” the crew after an UNREP, VERTREP, etc. Usually played at a level that would normally get you a ticket in town and is so distorted as to make it impossible to identify the song.
• Bremerlo: A husky (large) female. Derives from Bremerton, Washington, where there is a base at and around which such females are common. The name is a concatenation of Bremerton Buffalo described as weight a ‘bremer-ton’.
• Bremerton: How much a Bremerloe weighs.
• Brig: Jail.
• Brig Chaser: The sailor who escorts a prisoner to the brig.
• Broke-dick: Technical term describing malfunctioning or inoperable equipment. Example: “The fuckin’ aux drain pump is fuckin’ broke-dick.”
• Brown bagger: Married sailor who brings his lunch from home in a paper bag.
• Brown Nose: Sailor trying a “little too hard” to make rate by sucking up to superiors. Can also refer to those who wear khakis (Chiefs, Officers) since it is assumed that most have “brown-nosed” to obtain their present position. Mythical rates include “Chief Brownnose” and “Brow Nose First Class.” Also known as a “Butt Shark.”
• Brown Shoe: Term used to describe aviation community officers and senior enlisted members, due to the dark brown footwear worn with khaki uniforms and aviation winter working green uniforms.
• Brown Trout: Occurs when some Hull Tech blasts the sewer lines, causing raw sewage to be disbursed onto the decks of lower level berthing areas. Called that for the fact the turds could look like a rumpled brown fish.
• Brown Water: Shallow water close to land; littoral water in which smaller ships can operate. Sometimes specifically: the portion of Vietnam where Navy patrol boats operated.
• Brown Water Navy (Sailor): Any Sailor who operates a small boat in inshore areas.
• Brown Water Puddle Pirate: Affectionate name given to the US Coast Guard by their brethren blue water sailors.
• Bubba: Any shipyard worker. Usually speaks in unintelligible english with a heavy New England or southern accent. Tends to be obese with a strong body odor.
• Bubbette: A female bubba.
• Bubble (or The Bubble):

1. The edge of passing or failing at something, or “the fence“: when someone is on the edge of passing or failing at something, or is undecided, that person is “on the bubble.”
2. (Submarine Service) The indication of the ship’s angle fore and aft. The Diving Officer of the Watch (DOOW, pronounced “Dive”) controls the angle on the ship by various means. The original ship’s angle gages were liquid filled glass tubes with an air bubble that indicated the trim angle. If the angle becomes too large, he will be ordered “mind your bubble.” In rough weather near the surface, maintaining the angle on the ship can be very difficult. When the Dive can no longer control the angle on the ship by the means at his disposal, he is said to have “lost the bubble.” (3) The area on an aircraft carrier where the Catapult Launch Officer sits. So called because it is raised only a few inches above the flight deck and has angled windows. (4) (in the expressions “have the bubble” and “lose the bubble”) A grasp of the situation; understanding or control of what is going on.

• Bubblegummer: A newbie or young sailor just out of boot camp or school.
• Bubblehead: A sailor in the Submarine service.
• Budweiser: Nickname for the SEAL Trident insignia.
• Buddy Fucker: Someone who fucks over their shipmates, and who is not to be trusted with any information or watch swap.
• Buffer Tech: A junior enlisted who polishes the deck with a buffer, a duty normally assigned to shore duty personnel or those attending “A” School.
• Bug Juice:

1. The Kool-Aid-like beverage dispensed on the messdeck, in the CPO Mess, the Officer’s Wardroom or the Flag Mess. Typically Orange or Red. Before the turn of the century, bug juice was also used to clean decks when cleaning agents were not available. It is still used for removing corrosion from brass fittings. Allegedly also because the powder used to make the juice attracted bugs.
2. (USMC) A 50/50 solution of Skin-So-Soft & alcohol used during drill to repel sand fleas at Paris Island.

• Bug Juice Sunrise: Orange with a splash of Red.
• Building 1: USS Brooke (FFG-1), so called because she had so many problems with her P-fired boilers that she was regularly unable to get underway from her long-occupied berth at NAVSTA San Diego. When she did get underway she was typically towed back in, whereupon she was referred to as “USS Broke”.
• Building 20: Derogatory term used to describe the U.S.S. Mt. Whitney (LCC-20), as it rarely goes to sea.
• Building 36: The USS Bryce Canyon (AD-36). Home ported at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, she left port only on rare occasions (so her crew could collect sea pay); when she did, she had to be towed back in.
• Building 39 (1990s-era Norfolk slang): The USS Emory S. Land (AS-39). So called because, during that time period, she rarely left port.
• Building 38: The USS Puget Sound (AD-38).
• Bulkhead: Wall.
• Bulkhead remover: A fictional substance veteran sailors often task new sailors with getting, as a joke.
• Bull, Bull Ensign: The seniormost Ensign onboard a surface ship, a submarine, or in an aviation squadron other than in the Training Command. This Ensign is charge of various wardroom duties, often including mentoring the juniormost Ensign (see “George”) and setting up the wardroom’s movie night while at sea. Originated during World War II when Admiral “Bull” Halsey designated one officer to oversee wardroom functions.
• Bull Nuke (Submarine Service): The senior most enlisted nuclear sailor, usually the Engineering Department Senior Enlisted Advisor.
• Bullet Sponge: U.S. Marine.
• Bully Big Dick: The USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71). The name is a corruption of “Bully Big Stick”, the Roosevelt’s shipboard news program.
• Bumfuck, Egypt: The middle of nowhere; an out-of-the-way duty station.
• Bun: A sexually active female sailor.
• Burn (verb):

1. To smoke a cigarette.
2. (as “burn a copy”) To make a xerox copy of a document or sheet of paper.

• Burn a flick (verb): To watch a film while underway.
• Burn holes in the sky (verb): To fly monotonous patrol flights over a given area.
• Burnbag: (1) One of the red-and-white-striped paper bags which are used to hold classified material meant for destruction. (2) An underperforming Cryptologic Technician or “CT” Shitbag.
• Burn Run: An organized evolution to dispose of the material stored in burn bags.
• Busted: Reduced in rank as a result of Captain’s Mast.
• Buster: Proceed at max possible speed.
• “Bust Me on The Surface” (Submarine Service): An expression used when a subordinate strongly disagrees with an order given by a superior (who may be under heavy situational pressure) and the subordinate takes actions which are correct but counter to the order. The expression references the disciplinary action which could result in the fresh air of safety that would not be reached if the original order were carried out. Rarely used.
• Butt Kit: Ash tray. Aboard a ship, it is a can with a hole in the lid, usually hung from the bulkhead near watch stations.
• Butt Puckering: A term used to describe a harrowing or scary experience. “It was a Butt Puckering experience.”
• Butt Shark: A Sailor who is obviously brown-nosing in hope of receiving favorable evaluations.
• Butter Bar: The single gold bar on the khaki uniform of an Ensign (Navy) or 2nd Lieutenant (USMC) By extension, an Ensign, or any new officer fresh from OCS, the Naval Academy, or NROTC.

C – Charlie Navy Terms and Slang

• CA: Cruiser, Attack, Class of ship, a heavy cruiser.
• Cadillac: A mop bucket, usually with wheels and a wringer. See also “Swab.”
• CAG: Title used when addressing the carrier air wing commander. It is a holdover from the days when air wings were called air groups and stood for Commander Air Group. Can also refer to the air wing itself, as in CAG-1, CAG-5 or CAG-14. See “air wing.”
• Cal PO: Calibration Petty Officer: Collateral duty position, typically filled by the most junior and inept sailor in a division, responsible for ensuring a division’s test equipment is delivered to the cal lab on time.
• Carl Prison: “America’s Favorite Carrier,” the USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70).
• Captain’s Asshole: The XO. In general, the CO makes policy, the XO enforces it, hence the name.
• CASREP: Casualty Report: Report to higher authority something which is inoperative, OOC (out of commission), and the impact on readiness. Often jocularly applied to broken minor items not requiring any report, or to personnel who are on the binnacle list. Also applied to those who have been killed.
• CAVU: Ceiling and Visibility Unlimited: Perfect flying weather.
• CF (pronounced Charlie Foxtrot): clusterfuck.
• C-GU11 (pronounced “See-Gee-You-Eleven”): Seagull. Similar to the code for “bulkhead remover.” A common joke is to ask inexperienced personnel on watch to “keep an eye out for signs of C-GU11s in the area, over.” Sometimes spelled C-6U11, Z-6UL1 or various 1337-like combinations.
• Cake Eater: An officer
• Canoe Club: The U.S. Navy.
• Canoe U: United States Naval Academy
• Captain’s Mast: Navy term for non-judicial punishment under Article 15 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Depending on the rank of the commanding officer involved, the name of the procedure may change to Admiral’s Mast, OIC’s Mast, etc. “Mast” for short.
• Cannon balls: Baked, candied apples served to midshipmen at the Naval Academy on special occasions. Twelve are served per table. If one person at the table is willing to eat all 12 apples and succeeds, that person is given the honor of “carry on” (lack of harassment by upper classmen) for the remainder of the semester.
• Carrier Strike Group (CSG): See “Battle Group.”
• Carry on: An officer’s reply to a junior person’s call to “attention on deck”, meaning all present rise and come to attention as a sign of respect. “Carry on” allows personnel to continue whatever they were doing. Also see “cannon ball.”
• CC: Cruiser, class of ship.
• Cell Block 70: The USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70), so called on account of her never ending berthings and overall resemblance to a prison.
• CG: Cruiser, Guided Missile, class of ship.
• CGN: Cruiser, Guided Missile, Nuclear, class of ship.
• CGU-11: Nomenclature for a Seagull to boot sailors. Usually used as part of a goose-chase.
• Chancre Mechanic: Corpsman.
• Channel Fever: Anxiousness, felt when approaching port, to get leave. It is sometimes cured by a “Channel Fever Shot,” a slap or kick to the backside.
• Chaps: Chaplain.
• Checks Five-Oh: Excellent, in proper working order. Things can also be repaired and gotten into proper working order and then referred to as “checks five-oh.” Derives from the 5-point evaluation system used in the navy, in which a score of five is given to individuals who perform exceptionally well.
• Check Valve: A person who “does for himself or herself, but not others.” None of the goodies get past that person. Similar to a real check valve which only allows fluid to go one way.
• Chem Wipe: Also known as Kim-Wipes, though they bare no resemblance to the far more delicate Kimberly-Clark product. These are heavy duty paper towels purchased in bulk, and are used in every cleaning situation imaginable.
• CHENG: Chief Engineer. (Pronounced much like Chang and used as the officer’s name.)
• Chest Candy: Decorative military ribbons and medals worn on the chest.
• Chicken-catch-me-fuck-me: Chicken Cacciatore.
• Chicken Switches (Submarine Service): Switches in the overhead above the Dive Officer’s station that release 4500 lb air into the main ballast tank, initiating the Emergency Main Ballast Tank blow (EMBT blow) causing the tanks to fill with air and the submarine to rise to the surface in a real hurry. Sometimes, engineering drills may cause the sub to go near test depth (the depth the submarine has been tested to); this may be caused by a delay in recovering the reactor, or many other reasons. If the Dive Officer (or whoever has the Con) blows the tanks, they were “chicken” — afraid of sinking.
• Chief: Title given to enlisted personnel who have achieved the rank of E-7 and who have completed their transitional training and indoc.
• Chilly Willy: USS Curtis Wilbur DDG-54
• Chit: The document a sailor fills out to make various types of special request (i.e. for emergency leave, or to move off base to civilian housing). A “My Wife Chit” is a special request that uses one’s wife as an excuse/justification for needing to be absent.
• Chit Chipper: Paper Shredder. So named because one can’t do anything without a chit, especially one that is “lost in routing”
• CHT Tank/Shit Tank/Chit Tank: Collection, Holding and Transfer system, which collects all ship’s shower and toilet runoff/sewage until such time as it can be pumped or dumped.
• Chokers: Service Dress White Uniform worn by Officers and Chiefs.
• Chop: Supply Officer. Taken from the Supply Corps’ porkchop-shaped insignia. (Submarine)
• Chow: Food.
• Chow Boss: Food Service Officer.
• Chow down: Eat.
• Chow Hall: Dining room.
• Chowdale: An airwing member who spend all their time in line for chow, holding up others who actually have things to do.
• Chub Club: The mandatory physical training to which sailors are assigned if they are overweight.
• Chuckie V: The USS Carl Vinson.
• Chuck Wagon: (yet another name for) the USS Carl Vinson.
• ChuHai: A Japanese alcoholic beverage made by mixing sake and the equivalent of Kool-Aid. Can be bought in most Japanese convenience stores or at a ChuHai stand in the Honch.
• ChuHai Stand: One of two standing-room only drinking establishments in the Honch. Named for the affordable alcoholic beverage it sells to junior sailors and contractors, ChuHai.
• CINCHOUSE: Commander-in-Chief of the House. Used to refer to a sailor’s spouse. Also COMHOUSE, COMHOME, CINCHOME, HOUSEPAC, etc.
• Cinderella Liberty: Liberty that expires at midnight.
• Circular firing squad/circular ass-kicking: An attempt by all command levels to find someone/anyone to blame for a problem for which no one wants to take blame.
• CIWS: Close In Weapon System. Jocularly re-interpreted as “Christ It Won’t Shoot” or “Captain I Was Sure.” See “R2D2.” Pronounced “See Whiz.”
• CIVLANT/CIVPAC: Home, or where you go to when you leave the Navy.
• Civie cut: A civilian haircut worn by males who live around military towns to distinguish themselves from military personnel. Usually just an inch or two longer than what military allows, but enough to let the females know who’s who.
• CL: Cruiser, Light, class of ship
• Clap Line: Line of men in front of sick bay which often forms shortly after pulling out of a foreign port where women provide sexual services to sailors (at cost). The Clap Line consists primarily of men who are waiting to get treated for venereal disease.
• Cleaning Stations: An hour-long field day evolution in which everyone drops what they’re doing and cleans their spaces. See “XO’s Happy Hour.”
• Clobbered: of a landing pattern or comms frequency at a field or ship: filled to capacity, such that one can’t get an aircraft or a word in edgewise.
• Cluster Fuck: The situation which arises when a group performs some task in a severely disorganized manner, usually with poor results. Also, any person or thing that is in a state of general disarray: “That kid is a walking cluster fuck.” Can be indicated using the NATO phonetic “Charlie Foxtrot” for “CF.” More severe than a Goatrope, but not as severe as a Monkey and a Football.
• CNO: Chief of Naval Operations. The Navy’s senior admiral and member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
• CO: Commanding Officer. The head of a ship, submarine, aviation squadron or shore command; usually no lower in rank than a Commander, often a Captain, the Commanding Officer is in charge of most of the everyday things that happen on board the ship, in the squadron or aboard the shore installation, from corporal punishment (Captain’s Mast) to common everyday maintenance, and upkeep of the ship, squadron or shore command. The Commanding Officer usually wears a special pin on his pocket designating him Command Afloat, or Command Ashore.
• COB (Submarine Service): The senior chief aboard: The Chief of the Boat.
• COC: Chain of Command: The hierarchy of officers a sailor takes orders from, the order in which supervisors are in charge. Goes from lower ranking (Seaman, Fireman, Airman) to higher ranking (LPO, LCPO) up the chain of command.
• Cock-ologist: Corpsman (derived from a 1980s Coca Cola commercial having a Coke-ologist).
• COD: Carrier Onboard Delivery: The C-2 Greyhound, which ferries people and supplies to and from a carrier on a regular basis.
• Coffin Locker: A personal storage area located underneath a sailor’s rack.
• Cold Shot, Cold Cat: A catapult launch from a carrier in which insufficient speed is attained to generate lift. Often fatal for the aircrew if they do not eject in time.
• Color Company: The recruit company in boot camp that maintains the highest score through the entire eight week evolution; they are given three days special liberty unmonitored. Color Company is also given the honor of being the first company to Pass in Review if there is not a Hall of Fame Company that graduates Boot Camp at the same time.
• COMMO: Communications Officer: The officer in charge of the Communications Division. Usually the most junior officer aboard ship.
• Commodore: Historically, the designation given to a one-star admiral (presently called Rear Admiral Lower Half). Presently, “Commodore” is the unofficial title of a Captain (O-6) in charge of a squadron of ships or submarines, a wing or group of the same type of aircraft, or a group of SEAL Teams.
• COMNAVSNACPAC, COMNAVSNACLANT: A sailor who stores a lot of junk food in their rack. “PAC” refers to the Pacific Fleet and “LANT” to the Atlantic.
• COMNAVWIFEPAC: A male sailor’s wife.
• Comp Time: Compensation Time, time/days off during week for shore-based sailors who had weekend assignments, above and beyond mere watch-standing.
• COMRATS: Commuted rations pay.
• Coner (pronounced “Cone-er”) (Submarine Service): A submarine crewman who is not part of the engineering department (see “Nuke”), especially a Torpedoman, because such crewmen are stationed in the forward cone of the Sub and are pretty much prohibited from wandering into the rear engineering spaces. Also known as “Forward Pukes” (as opposed to “Fuckin’ Nukes”) or “M.U.F.F.s” (“My Up Forward Friends”). Long-hand as Clean Only, No Education Required.
• Constant Bearing Decreasing Range (CBDR): A term used to indicate that an object or ship viewed on radar, or visually from the deck or bridge of one’s own ship is getting closer but maintaining the same relative bearing. Without a change of course, this will ultimately end in a collision. CBDR is also used as a warning to shipmates heading into trouble or danger (not necessarily physical collision) they might not see or be aware of.
• Connie: Nickname for USS Constellation CV64.
• Constipation: Derogatory name for USS CONSTELLATION (CV-64).
• Corpsman Candy: Sore-throat lozenges handed out at sick bay in lieu of any substantive treatment. Sometimes accompanied by two aspirin.
• Cover: Term for any sort of headgear worn with a uniform in USN, USMC and USCG
• Countersunk Sailor: A female sailor.
• Cow: A refrigerated fixture in the galley that dispenses something like milk.
• CPO: Chief Petty Officer. Often refers to all chiefs, E-7 through E-9.
• CPO Spread:

1. (Submarine Service) The world’s most useless and uncomfortable rack sheet. Once thought to be solely for the elite khaki club, it is in fact a very cleverly disguised spy tool for a chief or officer to see if sailors have been sleeping (by checking for “Rack Burn”).
2. Weight gain apparent in senior enlisted men and women who have taken desk jobs.

• Cracker Jacks: The dress blue uniforms worn by sailors below the rank of E-7.
• Crack House: A designated smoking area aboard ship that is not a weatherdeck space. So called because it quickly fills with a haze of smoke. Also called “Crack Shack.”
• Crank:

1. Penis.
2. (also called a “Mess crank”; see also “Mess cranking”): A mess deck worker,E-3 or below, assigned to mess deck duties. Generally each division must supply a sailor on a rotating basis. May also refer to a new transferee assigned to the mess decks while qualifying for a regular watch. The term has always been discouraged, despite its frequent use. (3)Arcane Main propeller (screw) shaft, “whatever turns your crank.” (Whatever makes you happy.)

• Crapper: A toilet, see also shitter and pisser.
• Crash & Smash (team): Permanently assigned flight deck firefighting personnel. Also, a game played by aviation personnel involving several long tables and a great deal of beer, wherein the aviators attempt to replicate with their bodies the arrested landings their aircraft make.
• Crazy Ivan (Submarine Service): A maneuver, demonstrated in the movie The Hunt for Red October, used by Russian submarines: It involves quickly turning 180 degrees while underway, so as to see if any enemy (American) submarines are following. Collisions occasionally resulted.
• Creamed foreskins: Creamed chipped beef. See also “SOS,” “Shit on a Shingle.”
• Crotch crickets: Scabies or lice.
• Crowd Killer: An aircraft which holds 14+ crew (typicaly no passengers). Origins in the P-3 Orion Sub Hunter/Killer community.
• Crow: The eagle which adorns the Petty Officer rank insignia.
• Crow happy: Newly appointed petty officers that are drunk with rank, think they are in charge, and can order subordinates around.
• Crow’s Foot: A device placed on a valve wheel to aid in opening or closing the valve due to it being extremely hot or hard to turn.
• crud: An upper respiratory infection usually caught in boot camp by new recruits bringing viruses from all over the country.
• C.R.U.D.: Corrosion products found in reactor coolant. An acronym for “Chalk River Unidentified Deposits.”
• Cruise: A ship deployment from her home port, usually lasting between 5 and 8 months.
• Cruise boo: A sailor’s underway spouse/girlfriend/boyfriend. Typically not the same person as the sailor’s ashore spouse/girlfriend/boyfriend (i.e. one or both of the sailors is currently in a relationship/marriage with a person not stationed on the ship).
• Cruise sock: A sock, sacrificed early in a deployment, which one uses to clean up after one masturbates. It is usually kept under the mattress and can stand up on its own by the end of cruise. Also called an “Underway Sock” or “Happy Sock.”
• Cruise widow: A sailor’s wife. See also WESTPAC/LANTPAC widow. May frequent enlisted/officers clubs upon her husband’s deployment, assuming her husband is similarly engaging in infidelity during deployment.
• Cryppy, Cryppy Critter: Cryptographer.
• CSO: Combat Systems Officer: Officer responsible for maintenance of a ship’s combat system (gun, missile, radar, command control and communications systems).
• Cum Dumpster: A shameless sycophant. A kiss-ass or a military base whore.
• Cumshaw: The art of trading something that doesn’t belong to you, to someone, for something that doesn’t belong to them, not necessarily for personal gain, but to circumvent regular supply channels, or to obtain something not available through supply channels.
• Cunt: A tear drop shaped piece of metal placed in the bottom loop of sail rigging to keep the rope from chaff wear during tie-down of open sails. i.e. “cunt ring”.
• C.U.N.T.: (1) Currently Unqualified Naval Trainee. (2) Civilian Under Naval Training. (3) Control Unit No-go Test. (4) Chesapeake University of Naval Technology (US Naval Academy)
• Cunt Hair: A very small unit of measurement, used when eyeballing something. “How much more till the pipe is in place?” — “Oh, about a cunt hair.” A “red cunt hair” is a slightly smaller unit of measurement. A “Royal Cunt Hair” is the finest unit of measure.
• Cu Shing: The sound of shit when it hits the fan. Derogatory name for USS CUSHING (DD-985), especially with the Commodore embarked.
• CVN 7 on 2: The USS Abraham Lincoln CVN-72. A play on words that hints at the escapades her crew may have been involved in.
• CWO:

1. Chief Warrant Officer (W1–W5): A “Super Goat,” a highly qualified senior enlisted (E-7/E-8) person who has earned a commission through a competitive process and continues to work in their technical field. By definition, a technical specialist.
2. Communications Watch Officer.

D – Delta Navy Terms and Slang

• Daddy Rickover: A nuke referring to the late Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, the father of the nuclear navy.
• Dago: San Diego or Diego Garcia.
• Dammit: Proper way to read an exclamation point quietly. “You are a shitbag!” becomes “You are a shitbag, dammit.”
• Dain Bramaged: The USS Bainbridge.
• Danger nut: A “fun” game in which one or more sailors place a washer or nut around a rod or similar metal device and then hold it to a steam vent. The washer or nut spins wildly due to the high pressure of the steam. Once it reaches a high enough speed, the rod is turned so that the steam blows the object completely off the rod and likely at another sailor, who then has to dodge the “danger nut.”
• D.B.F.: Diesel Boats Forever: (marking on an) unauthorized pin showing a non-nuclear submarine.
• DD: Destroyer, class of ship. Originally a Torpedo Boat Destroyer, then later, just Destroyer.
• DDG: Destroyer, Guided Missile, class of ship.
• Dear John (or Jane) Letter: A letter (or nowadays, e-mail) that a sailor receives in which his or her significant other breaks up with or leaves him or her whilst the latter is deployed.
• Death Pillows: (Submarine Service) Canned ravioli usually served at midrats. Named for the way they make you feel after you’ve eaten them.
• Deck: Floor.
• Deckplate: Derogatory term for the lowest worker.
• Deck Plate Leadership: That level of leadership greatly appreciated by commanding officers and the ward room: Enlisted personnel who know what needs to be done, how to do it well and right, and who are able to lead the people working for them to get the job done. This is the expected norm in the United States Navy.
• Deck Ape: Non-designated enlisted person serving on the deck force.
• Deep Six:

1. Term for throwing something overboard; refers to the “deep six”, the lowest fathom (six feet) before the ocean floor. Has been mostly replaced by Float Checking (see below).
2. To permanently dispose of something as if it never existed. Example: if told to “Deep Six” a piece of paper you would burn or shred it instead of just throwing it away (round filing or file thirteen).

• Delta Sierra: “Dumb Shit”: A stupid mistake or poor performance, the opposite of “Bravo Zulu.”
• Department: Highest organizational level in most naval commands. Common departments are combat systems (combination of some operations/weapons department divisions) supply, admin, deck, engineering, operations, and maintenance. These are broken up into divisions.
• Dependopotamus: Term used for overweight dependents of sailors.
• Desert Duck: Helo that delivered mail in the Persian Gulf during Operation Earnest Will. Usually it was gray, loud and smoking when it landed.
• Deuce and a half: a 2.5 ton truck.
• Dickbag: “douche bag” or “dirt bag.”
• Dick Skinners: Hands. “Get your dick skinners off my white hat.” Other terms include: Peter clamps, Meat hooks, Dick beaters.
• Dicking the dog: Putting “half-assed” effort into a task. (Refers to improperly securing the “dogs” on a watertight hatch when passing through. Such a lax procedure could spell doom for a sinking ship if hatches were not absolutely watertight.) Also said as “poking the poodle” or “screwin’ the pooch.” Not to be confused with “screwing the pooch” which refers to royally messing up a task.
• Dicksmith (derogatory): A hospital corps member.
• Diddy Bag: Small white cloth bag with a drawstring. Issued in boot camp, used to store loose items, shoe polish stuff, etc.
• Diddy Bopping: Walking around with no particular purpose.
• Diggit:

1. Term used mostly by disgruntled personnel to refer to an “A.J. Squared Away” sailor. Utterance of the term is usually accompanied by the McDonald’s tune followed by “I’m diggin’ it” instead of “I’m lovin’ it.”
2. A multi-tool (aka Gerber, Leatherman, etc), while not authorized to perform ANY maintenance, is nonetheless carried by most engineers in Reactor spaces.

• Dilbert: Fictional and clueless cartoon character used in WWII era training material to demonstrate what NOT to do in naval aviation. Dilbert often paid dearly for his ignorance, lack of attention to detail, or carelessness.
• Dilbert Dunker: Device used in water survival training (“swims”) to teach aviators how to get out of the cockpit of a fixed-wing aircraft that has crashed or ditched at sea. Much easier than the dreaded “helo dunker.”
• Di-LDO: (Direct input Limited Duty Officer) Term students use for a loathed LDO instructor. Some Instructors at Naval Nuclear Power School are Limited Duty Officers, but are commissioned immediately upon completion of college, as opposed to LDOs that have spent time in the enlisted ranks. These Direct Input LDOs have not spent time “in the fleet”
• D.I.L.L.I.G.A.F: (Do I Look Like I Give A Fuck?), A term indicating supreme indifference; “Gaffer.” Can also have a second F added to the end, when used in this context it means “Do I Look Like I Give A Flying Fuck?“
• Dimed/Diming out/Dropping dimes: Comes from dropping a dime in a pay phone to make a call. To throw someone ‘under the bus’, or to out someone as being the one who did something wrong or made a bad call. Usually done to avoid getting in trouble at the expense of someone else. Example: Chief Coffeedrinker: “Why did you do this? You know that is unauthorized.” AMAN Nobody: “AM3 Schmuckatelli said to, Chief.”
• Dining-in/Dining-out: Social functions, usually for officers and chiefs, where dinner dress is worn and certain “rules of the mess” are followed. Generally presided over by the Executive Officer (XO) and run by a Chief or Junior Officer (JO) called “Mr. Vice,” these events can become quite rowdy and raucous. The difference between the two is that significant others may attend dining-outs. Dining-ins are for the service-members only.
• Dinner plate for Marines: The front buttoned flap on enlisted dress blues. See crackerjacks.
• DinQ: Delinquent in Qualifications, or some other admin requirement, “on the dinq list for tetanus shot…”
• Dipper: An anti-submarine helocopter with a variable depth dipping SONAR. See “Dome.”
• Dipsy Dumpster: what a shitbag sailor crawls out of, before going up to quarters, watch, liberty, etc. “You look like you just climbed out of the dipsy dumpster, Seaman Timmy!”
• Dirtbag: A term often used by an annoying lifer who has no life outside the navy to insult a sailor for having a few wrinkles in his uniform, having missed a spot while shaving, having a small spot on his uniform, having hair barely touching his ears, etc. Compare to “A.J. squared away” above.
• Dirty Boat Guy: The nickname Dirty Boat Guy or “DBG” is associated exclusively with the US Navy’s Special Warfare Combatant-craft Crewman. SWCCs are more commonly referred to as Special Boat Teams or “Boat Guys.”
• Dirty-dick: To rub genitalia on someone’s cup or soda can as an act of retribution or to be funny; see also “cock swab.”
• Dirt sailor (not pejorative): A person who primarily works ashore in a camouflage uniform (e.g. in the expeditionary forces). Not used to describe a SeaBee.
• Dirty-shirt wardroom: (Aircraft Carrier): Forward wardroom immediately below the flight deck for pilots wearing (sweaty) flight gear and working ship’s officers. As opposed to formal ship’s wardroom.
• DISBO: Disbursing officer on ship.
• Ditch: To intentionally crash land an aircraft as “gently” as possible — usually into the water. This is generally done when fuel is almost all used up with no hope of making it to a safe landing area, or when a slowly developing but potentially fatal emergency is going on.
• The Ditch: The Panama Canal.
• Ditch Wog: A sailor who has passed through the Suez canal or Panama canal, but has not become a shellback.
• Ditty-bop: A Radioman or Cryptologic Technician Collection (CTR), from the sound of Morse code. Also “ditty chaser.”
• Division: Middle organizational level in most naval commands, below department and above branch. Usually headed by a junior officer (JO). Common divisions are powerplants, airframes, 1st Lieutenant, etc… Divisions are sometimes divided into branches or work centers.
• DIVO: Division Officer.
• Ditty bag:

1. Any mesh bag, but so named because usually used to contain soiled laundry.
2. A container (usually zipper-closed) for toilet articles such as soap, razor, shaving cream, deodorant, etc; especially for expeditionary sailors. ;dop kit; douche kit.

• Dixie Cup: The canvas white hat sailors wear with their dress uniforms.
• DIW: Dead in the Water. No longer moving through the water, which means rudder control is lost as well. Often the result of a serious engineering casualty. Can also be used to describe the status of a person whose plan has gone awry. “The MPA signed his chit for an extra three days of leave in San Dog, but the Cheng wouldn’t let him go, so now he’s DIW.”
• DLG: Destroyer, Leader, Guided Missile, class of ship.
• DLGN: Destroyer, Leader, Guided Missile, Nuclear, class of ship. All of these were later designated as Cruisers.
• Doc: Nickname and term of respect given to Hospital Corpsman by their shipmates and Marines.
• Dock jumpers: The unfortunates who would have to leap ashore to tie up when no “line handlers” are available.
• Dog:

1. A soft-serve ice cream machine (named because the chocolate flavor resembles the excrement of man’s best friend). Also called an “auto dog.”
2. A pivoting latch, usually one of several, for locking down a water-tight hatch.

• Dog and Pony show:

1. A special show put on for inspecting senior officers.
2. Apocryphally, a show in which women have sex with dogs and ponies: Sailors may claim to have witnessed such shows in Tijuana or the Philippines.

• Dog watches: The 1600-2000 evening watch is customarily split into two two-hour “dog” watches, so that the watch sections rotate rather than being stuck with the same schedule every day. Also permit everyone to get evening chow at a reasonable hour (although First Dog watchstanders usually find the better chow is all gone).
• Dog zebra: Closing fittings or doors for light discipline at night.
• Dolphins (Submarine Service): Submarine Warfare Insignia pin, earned upon becoming qualified in submarines. (See “Qual card”) Referred to as dolphins because of the dolphin fish used in the design.
• Dome: A SONAR transmitter/receiver. It may be fixed, as in those mounted on the bow of a ship below the waterline, or mobile like those “dipped” by anti-submarine helocopters.
• Donkey dick:

1. A helicopter and/or fixed-wing refueling nozzle. “Grab the donkey and fuel the bird.” “Go grease the donkey dick.”
2. (Submarine Service) The head valve indicator (a rod which shows if the snorkel’s intake valve is open), the hose fitting used for the towed array sonar, or anything else that is roughly round and longer than it is wide;
3. these items have very limited use–one specific evolution–and therefore could also refer to a sailor with only one skill or is qualified on only one watch station. “That donkey dick is about as useful as tits on a boar hog.”
4. A concrete vibrator used to remove air bubbles.
5. A hot dog or sausage.
6. A spout connected to a 5 Gallon fuel can.

• Donut: A floating device used to store oily waste pumped out of the bilges in port.
• DOR: Disenroll at Own Request, Drop at Own Request. To drop out of a voluntary program such as aviation or submarines.
• Douche down: To wash, usually using fresh water.
• Double Digit Midget: A short-timer, someone who is less than 100 days from retirement, EAOS, or being discharged to civilian life.
• Double Nuts: Aircraft flown by the squadron or air wing commander, typically has “00” (zero zero) painted on the nose and also printed on routing slips for correspondence.
• Down: Not working, out of commission, broken, “broke-dick.” In aviation, non-flyable, usually for maintenance reasons. When applied to an aviator, it means not allowed to fly. This can be for a variety of reasons: Medical, personal, disciplinary, etc. In flight training, a down is a failed flight.
• DRB (Disciplinary Review Board): Step in the NJP process in which the accused attempts to prove his innocence by being screamed at for 2 hours.
• Drift Count: Monitoring the movement of the ship while at anchor.
• Drifty: Lacking the ability to stay focused while attempting to perform a given task. (Petty Officer to Sailor: “is there something the matter with you? You are acting drifty today!”)
• Drill Rodeo: A game in which a screwdriver is inserted head first into drill where bit should go and battery is removed. The trigger is taped down and once someone holds the end of the screwdriver, the battery is slapped in and the player must attempt to hold on to the screwdriver for as long as possible. Best used with higher voltage drills.
• Drifter: Sailor who at all times lacks the ability to stay focused. Also called drift-pack, or in the very extreme case “COMNAVDRIFTLANT/PAC”, a parody of COMNAVSURFLANT/PAC.
• Drop a Chit: The act of filling out a request chit.
• Drop your cocks and grab your socks: A saying that the petty officer of the watch yells in the sleeping quarters when it’s time for everyone to get up. Often done in boot camp. Alternatively, “stop your grinnin’ and grab your linen.”
• D.U.B. (Dumb Ugly Bitch): woman enrolled in the Naval Academy
• Ducks (Submarine Service): The time 22:22. Refers to the resemblance of the numbers in a digital display resembling a line of ducks. At times, ducks will be marked by the ship control team (Diving officer of the watch, Helmsman, Planesman, and Chief of the Watch), sonar shack (Sonar Supervisor, Broadband, Narrowband, Class), and fire control team (Fire Control Technician of the Watch). “Stand by to mark ducks … Mark. Quack Quack Quack Quack.” Leave it to Bubbleheads 🙂
• Durka (used attributively / as an adjective, derogatory): Related to the Middle East.
• Dynamited Chicken: Chicken a la king or chicken cacciatore.

E – Echo Navy Terms and Slang

• Eagle Shits (noun + verb): “the eagle shits” = “the military pays (me) today”, “today is payday.”
• EAOS: Expiration of Active Obligated Service.
• Easter Egg Hunt: An especially rigorous investigation or inspection in which the inspecting officer seems unduly motivated to find everything wrong he possibly can, even if it ridiculous–“The XO held an Easter Egg Hunt at Messing and Berthing today.” Sometimes used as a threat of punishment or retribution – “Do what I told you to do or I may have to hold an Easter Egg Hunt in your locker.”
• EAWS: Enlisted Aviation Warfare Specialist. (Often pronounced “A-wis.”)
• EB Blue: Waterproof version of EB Green.
• EB Green: Green duct tape acquired from Electric Boat in Groton, CT; can be used to fix almost anything, temporarily.
• EB Red: Extreme, nuclear grade version of EB Green. Conforms to MIL-STD-2041D to prevent corrosion to nuclear components.
• Ed’s Motel: Navy filmmakers’ acronym for Editorials, Motion Picture and Television Department.
• EIDWS: Enlisted Information Dominance Warfare Specialist.
• Elephant Scabs: Veal Parmesan. A.K.A. Veal Wheels.
• Emerald Shellback: One who crossed the Equator at the Greenwich Meridian.
• Emergency Blow: When a sub rapidly blows all of the ballast out of the ballast tanks, resulting in a rapid ascent and an impressive display as the sub breaks the surface.
• EMO: Electronic Materiel Officer, line officer or electronics CWO or LDO responsible for maintenance of the unit’s radar, radio, and command and control equipment. Extra Man Onboard
• Enlisted Puke: Derogatory term used sparingly and very privately among junior officers to describe a particularly worthless and disliked enlisted subordinate. The opposite of a highly respected and particularly valuable “Good Man.” “Gadoozlefrank is an enlisted puke. Schmuckatelli is a Good Man.”
• ESWS: Enlisted Surface Warfare Specialist. (Often pronounced “E-swas.”)
• Eternal Patrol: The last and still on-going patrol of a submarine lost at sea. The subs and the sailors are on eternal patrol.
• Evil Planet Notorg: Groton CT. (Notorg is Groton spelled backwards.)
• Evolution: Any scheduled event.
• EWO: Electronic Warfare Officer.
• Eyeball liberty: Ability to see but not interact with something pleasurable, especially members of the opposite sex; For example, male sailors may joke that they have eyeball liberty ogling a boat full of women while exiting port, or in view a port itself where no actual liberty is allowed.

F – Foxtrot Navy Terms and Slang

• FAG: (1) Fighter Attack Guy: F/A-18 Hornet/Super Hornet pilot or naval flight officer (“NFO”). (2) Former Action Guy: Any SO, SB, EOD, ND, or FMF Recon Corpsman or any other parachute-qualified member who is in a position where they cannot maintain their jump quals, or goes into a different warfare community. (3) (“Submarine Service”) Forward Area Gentleman: A crewman serving in the forward part of the submarine, a non-Nuke.
• Family Gram: A 40-word personal communication from the family members of an Officer or Sailor on a Strategic Deterrent Patrol assigned to a Fleet Ballistic Missile (FBM) submarine. Each crewman was allocated a limited number of these messages during each 3-month patrol and they were severely censored to protect the submariner from news that could negatively effect the emotional condition of the recipient. All Family Grams were screened by the CO/XO upon receipt, prior to distribution to the individual. A similar system was used for surface ships.
• Fan Room (see “X-Ray fitting”): (1) A room with a fan or blower, A “closed” space which is often utilized for general mischief away from watchful eyes.
• F.A.W.C.U. (pronounced “fuck you”) (Submarine Service): Focused After Watch Clean Up, usually between 1 to 2 hours of “Field Day” after every watch rotation.
• Fart sack: Canvas mattress cover (In cold conditions sailors sleep inside them for extra warmth.) or a dirt sailor’s sleeping bag.
• Fart Suit: Dry suit worn by aviators when flying over cold water. So called because of the rubber seals at the neck and wrists which keep water out in the event of water entry. These seals also keep all flatulence inside the suit, where it remains hot and mixes with ball sweat, pitstink, and various other foulness. This foul air is released by removing the suit, or more amusingly by pulling one of the wrist seals open while squatting and pointing at an unsuspecting individual, thus forcing all the stench in his direction.
• Farting dust: Getting old.
• Fashion Show: A series of individual personnel inspections conducted in each uniform the sailor owns. Usually this form of Extra Military Instruction is reserved for the most severe dirtbags who are either consistently failing uniform inspection or look like crap on a daily basis.
• FASOTRAGRULANT/PAC: Fleet Aviation Specialized Operational Training Group, Atlantic and Pacific. Specialized training for Aviation Administration (AZ) and Aviation Anti Submarine Warfare Operators (AW) ratings.
• Fast Cruise: Pretending to be underway while moored to a pier. Usually an all day event to get the crew ready for a real underway.
• Fat Boy: Derogatory term for Amphibious Ships used by bridge officers on cruisers and destroyers. “We better slow down or the fat boys won’t be able to keep up.”
• Fat boy program: FEP (see below).
• FEP: Fitness Enhancement Program. Mandatory physical training regimen designed to return sailors to within physical readiness standards. Also refers to sailors who are enrolled in the program… Fat Enlisted People / Forced Exercise Program. See “Chub Club.”
• FF: Frigate, class of ship.
• FFG: Frigate, Guided Missile, class of ship. also,”Forever Fucking Gone”, A frigate which spends more time underway than in port.
• Field Day: All hands clean-up. Usually lasts on a good day about 3-4 hours. (30 min of cleaning and 2-4 hours of fucking off.)
• FIDO: Fuck It! Drive On! An expression used in the face of adversity, meaning that regardless of the setback you are going to continue anyway!
• Field expedient ___: Anything that is made or done ad hoc in the field. E.g. a “field expedient Frappuccino” might be made by putting all the MRE coffees, sugars, and creamers into a 2-liter bottle and mixing.
• Field Survey: The nominal survey taken before discarding a worn-out item “in the field” (often off the end of the pier) instead of submitting it for a proper, formal “survey” to determine if it should be redistributed or disposed of. (Sometimes, a field survey results in an item being handed down to a needier local unit, thrown off the fantail at sea, or sold ashore for booze money.)
• F.I.I.G.M.O.: Fuck It, I Got My Orders: A refusal of a long or tough assignment near the end of a duty rotation. Also seen as a name badge at this time, so officers/petty officers will forget the wearer’s real name.
• FIG: An FFG is called a FIG.
• Fighting gear: Eating utensils.
• Five by five: nonstandard Radio speech indicating “loud and clear.” Derived from an arcane method of reading signal strength.
• Five and Dimes: A watch rotation where the sailor or watch team stand five hours of watch, then have ten hours off (to clean, perform maintenance, train, get qualified, conduct drills, take care of divisional business or their collateral duty, eat, shower, and occasionally sleep). This follows from a three-section watch rotation, and results in the sailor standing watch at a different time every day and night, repeating every three days.
• Fish (Submarine Service): See Dolphins, above. Also “torpedo.”
• Fit Boss: Officer designated by the Commanding Officer to be responsible for the command Physical Readiness Program. Can be a collateral duty for a commissioned officer or more frequently, a civilian contractor’s primary duty.
• Flag, Flag Officer: Rear Admiral (Lower half) and higher (“flag” rank, because they are entitled to show a flag with an appropriate number of stars on their car, ship, building, etc.) A person with such a rank can also be referred to by number of stars they have; so a “three star” is a Vice Admiral, and so forth.
• Flag Deck, Flag Bridge: Command level on large ships for Admirals if they are present, see Flag.
• Flare to Land, Squat to Pee: Navy pilot’s derisive description of aircraft landing technique used by (primarily) Air Force aviators; used in comparison to the nerve-wracking controlled crash that is the typical carrier landing.
• Flattop: Aircraft carrier. Also the haircut worn by truly motivated sailors.
• Flavor Extractor: Standard equipment in all Navy galleys.
• Fleet Up: When a second in command takes his senior’s place upon that senior’s transfer, retirement, or other re-assignment.
• Flight Deck Buzzard: Chicken (food).
• Flight Line: The area on a ship or station where aircraft are made ready for flight. Also used as a prank on gullible new sailors, as in “Go get me 100 feet of flight line from the crash shack.”
• Float Check (also Flotation Testing, Float test): Throwing something overboard. “Take that and give it the float test”
• Floating Bellhop: Derisive Army term for sailor.
• Flying the Bravo: Menstruating; from the signal flag, which is all-red, one meaning of which is “I am discharging dangerous goods.” Also used to indicate one who is in a bad mood “What’s wrong with him?” “Oh, he’s just flying the Bravo”
• Flux capacitor: New members of a CVN’s MMR will be sent to retrieve the “flux capacitor” from the OOW in the reactor control room. A flux capacitor ran the time machines, particularly in the car, in the Back To The Future movies…
• Forecastle: (Pronounced “foc-sull”) Forward most part of a ship.
• forecastle zoo: Game of naming everything on the forecastle which has an animal name, e.g. “Bull nose,” “Wildcat,” “Pelican hook,” “rat guard, rat lines,” “deck Apes.”
• Foc’s’le Follies: A gathering of all the aviators in the airwing in the carrier’s foc’s’le (forecastle). The CAG, ship’s CO, and battle group admiral are also usually invited and present. The “official” reason for this event is to hand out awards to the top aviators. The most enjoyable parts are the “roll calls” from each squadron, and the skits that two or three of the squadrons perform. If the roll call or the skit fails to amuse the rest of the airwing, the offending squadron is booed and belittled mercilessly. Follies are held about every 6 to 8 weeks while on deployment.
• FM: Frequency modulation, or Fucking Magic, sometimes referred to as the FM Principle
• FNG: Fuckin’ New Guy — self-explanatory
• FOAD: Acronym, Fuck Off And Die, traditional response to MARF see below.
• FOD: Foreign Object Damage. Caused by Foreign Object Debris, such as nuts, bolts, or anything that could be sucked into a jet engine, damaging it. At aviation commands, FOD can also describe a worthless individual, i.e. “If Airman Smith isn’t in this shop in 5 minutes, write that piece of FOD up.”
• FOD Walk Down: A periodic, organized search on an aircraft carrier flight deck or hangar deck looking for debris that a jet engine might ingest. The OIC of this evolution is sometimes referred to as “the FOD-father.”
• Four (4) by Eight (8) Watch: The worst watch section to be in because one’s first watch is 0400 to 0800, then one works one’s duty station until 1600, followed by second watch 1600 to 2000, every day. Note, on some ships, the 0400-0800 is the 0400-0700, see “Seven to forever” below.
• Fourballs: Midnight, entered as 0000 when writing logs; The “Fourballs watch” is midnight to 0600 when underway on a submarine, using a 3 person x 6 hour shift, 18 hour rotation “day” for each watchstation. Most engineering daily chores are performed on the 0000 watch, after which one is relieved at 0530 for chow, followed by drills at 0700, chow at 1200, followed by drill review at 1300, collateral duties at 1500, chow at 1700, followed by the 1800 watch; a very long “day” underwater — 24+ hours. The Sub equivalent to the Four by Eight watch mentioned above.
• Freeball: To wear no skivvies.
• Freeboard: On a ship or boat, this is the vertical distance between the waterline and the “gunwale” (see below).
• F.R.E.D.: Fucked Up Ridiculous Educational Device: The computer that graded the teletype capabilities of those going through Radioman “A” School. So called because it used to grade based on keystrokes rather than words per minute.
• Fresh Water Navy (derogatory) members of the US Coast Guard.
• Fried Calamari: A sailor who has been electrocuted. This term derives from the nickname “squid”, meaning “sailor.”
• Fried horse cock: Fried baloney.
• Frocked: Advanced in rank or rate with no pay increase. See BOHICA.
• Frog Hog: A female who hangs around Navy SEALs.
• Fruit Salad: Numerous ribbons on a dress uniform.
• FTN: Fuck the Navy (common epithet used when complaining about naval policies or regulations). Often scrawled on the walls of toilet stalls by sailors who have been assigned to clean it for a reason. Also can refer to “Free The Nukes,” referring to sailors in the nuclear power field. Also refers to a mythical rate or ship type an “FTN Striker” says he/she is trying to get in (i.e. Fleet Tug-Nuclear, Fire Technician-Nuclear). Also stands for “Fun Time Navy” around higher chain of command to save face in front of said chain of command, yet “secretly” means “Fuck the Navy.” In nuclear commands, can sometimes be seen as KEY when over-nuked (the last letters of the same three words are used.)
• FTN Striker: Sailor whose stated goal/desire is to get discharged.
• F.U.B.A.R.: Fouled up beyond all repair, Fucked up beyond all recognition. (Foobar)
• F.U.B.I.J.A.R.: Fuck You Buddy, I’m Just A Reservist
• F.U.B.I.S.: “Fuck You Bitch I’m Short”: Slogan indicating lack of care since the one uttering it or wearing it will be leaving soon.
• Fuhgowee’s: Code word for ditching work and going home at lunch time, so as not to be suspected by PO1, Chiefs, etc (used in Newport News Drydock). Sailor 1: “What are you having for chow?” Sailor 2: “Fuhgowee burger sandwiches.”
• Fulmer: A sailor that desperately tries to win various games (ping pong, pool, etc.), but does not have the skills to compete successfully.
• FUNGUS: Fuck You, New Guy, You Suck.
• F.U.P.A. (pronounced “foop-uh”): Fat Upper Pelvic Area: The bulge that protrudes from ill-fitting pants worn by an overweight sailor, or by extension, the sailor him- or herself. (When describing a female, it may stand specifically for “Fat Upper Pussy Area”; when describing a male, “Fat Upper Penis Area.”)
• FuckingNuke (always one word): A sailor who is trained to operate the boat/ship nuclear power plant.
• Fuckface: Any person or thing which has a face.
• Fuck the mission, clean the position: Break out the swabs.
• Fuck You, strong message follows: Seen on a numerical list of epithet substitutions (the unauthorized “Falcon Code,” derived from the “Charlie Echo” code), especially transmitted over radio, which has to stay clean
• [A] Full up round: Operational or (of a person) fit for duty, a fully operational projectile to be fired from a gun.
• Fun Boss: Morale, Welfare and Recreation Officer.
• F.U.R. (derogatory): Fucked Up Recruit: A boot camp recruit who constantly makes mistakes.
• Fuzznuts: A young sailor, one not long out of puberty.

G – Golf Navy Terms and Slang

• Gaff Off: To ignore or purposely fail to show proper respect to someone more senior, such as by blowing off an assigned task, by not saluting, or by using improper forms of address.
• Garden Party: A semi-formal social gathering requiring dress whites from the waist down and dress blues from the waist up.
• Gator: Gator Navy vessel or sailor. Or, the ship’s navigator.
• Gator-Freighter: A ship used in amphibious warfare, or generally the transportation of Marines and their equipment, especially, a carrier-like vessel (amphibious assault ship) whose primary purpose is to put ass in the grass.
• Gator Navy: The part of the surface Navy that exclusively supports embarked Marines and amphibious operations. Conducts operations near shore. Contrast with the “Blue Water” Navy or “CRU-DES.” Note, an amphibious command ship may also coordinate supporting arms from non-gators, such as destroyers or aircraft.
• Gator squares: Putting a square on a chart, often 3 miles by 3 miles, in the middle of a body of water, and steaming around in it for hours. Common overnight activity for ships underway. “Do we have any nighttime evolutions this underway?” “No, just gator squares.”
• Galley: Crews’ mess, or dining area. Place where food is prepared for consumption.
• GCE: Gross Conceptual Error, an instructor’s comment on student work wherein the student has clearly misunderstood a concept.
• Gear adrift: (1) (said when there is) loose or unsecured gear or equipment. (2) (said of) an incompetent sailor, one who has a screw loose. “Seaman Jones is gear adrift!”
• Geedunk: (1) Candy, or a place that sells candy (namely Gedunk bars). (2) Ice cream. From the Harold Teen comic strip. From the sound that a coin makes when put into a candy machine.
• Geedunk-a-donk: A huge jiggly ass acquired from eating too much geedunk.
• General Quarters (GQ): Set to prepare a ship for battle or during a serious casualty such as a main engineering space fire. Every sailor has an assigned duty station to be manned; the ship is set for maximum water tight integrity. On submarines, the term “Battle Stations” is used.
• George: The juniormost officer onboard a surface ship. Also spelled “JORG”, meaning Junior Officer Requiring Guidance, or “JORGE,” meaning Junior Officer Requiring General Education.
• George jobs: Nit-picking paperwork jobs given to George because no one else wants them. Examples: Morale Officer, Mess Officer.
• Gerbil Alley: Jebel Ali, United Arab Emirates. The only guaranteed port visit during any deployment.
• Gerbil Gym/Gerbil Room: Exercise space on board ship with treadmills, stationary bikes, and elliptical trainers — all pieces of equipment on which one performs motions that should move one to another place, though one remains in the same position like a gerbil on its wheel.
• “GFO”: Goat Fuck Operation.
• Ghetto: Open-bay barracks, usually reserved for single sailors who are in transit or otherwise temporarily assigned there.
• G.I. Shower: In boot camp the recruits are inspected frequently. If they are found to have soiled clothing as a result of not showering, several of the company will take the recruit into the barracks shower and scrub the persons bare skin with floor broom heads.
• Gigged: Having suffered a point deduction in Boot Camp for an unsatisfactory personal, uniform, or bunk or locker inspection. Deduction is usually one to five points per infraction, depending on the severity.
• Gig line: The visual line formed by uniform zipper, belt buckle, and buttoned shirt seam. Also used as another in-joke to send new sailors on a wild goose chase. See bulkhead remover.
• Girl Scout: A sailor with an inordinate amount of decorative patches on spotless poopysuit, or a sailor regarded as overly concerned with appearance; a dandy.
• Girl Scout Training Aid: A complete pepperoni (a sausage roughly 1-2 inches wide and 2-3 feet long).
• GITMO: Guantanamo Bay Naval Station.
• Glow worm: A surface fleet name for nuclear machinist’s mates.
• Goat Fuck Operation: A situation in which every possible aspect fails or goes “sideways”. Not a single aspect is successful.
• Goat locker: A lounge or galley for the exclusive use of “Chiefs.”
• Goatrope: A confusing, disorganized situation often attributed to or marked by human error.
• God, Junior-Grade (derisive): A superior.
• Goffa / Goffer: General descriptive term for any sort of soda or fruit juice, non alcoholic.
• Gold Crow: A 12+ year PO1 with good behavior. Very rarely, a PO2 (due to changes in high year tenure), which leads the question of how somebody can screw up that badly and still call it “good” behavior.
• Gold Locker: A locked cabinet in the Engineering Spaces wherein the most valuable, precise, fragile, or one-of-a-kind tools are kept. “I could have fixed it but I don’t have a key to the Gold Locker.”
• Golden Dragon: A sailor who has crossed the Prime Meridian or the International Date Line into the Eastern Hemisphere.
• Golden Shellback: A sailor who crossed the International Date Line and Equator at the same time.
• Golden rivet: The rivet, made of gold, which according to folklore every ship is built containing one of.
• Golden Screwjob: Used when a sailor has 12 years or more of honorable service, and, for reasons unknown, does not have his Gold rank device. A Golden Screwjob is never spoken of when the sailor in question is within hearing range.
• The Goo: Instrument Meteorological Conditions (IMC). When an aviator flies an aircraft into the clouds, can no longer see the earth or the horizon, and is dependent on instruments for navigation, he is said to be “in the goo.” This is usually done intentionally when flying with an Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) flight plan, but can lead to high “pucker factor” when it is done accidentally.
• Good Deal (Submarine Service): When a sailor receives an assignment that is viewed by others as better than theirs, despite the fact that this may not be the case. This includes missing underways/deployment for reasons of life-threatening illness, terminal disease, or the death of spouse/children. “Did you hear that Steve got hit by a drunk driver last night? He broke seven ribs, his left femur, and is on a ventilator. They are pretty sure there is no brain damage, but they have him in a medically-induced coma until then. Looks like we’re down a mechanic for deployment — Steve got the good deal.”
• Good Humor Man: Reference to the Summer White uniform. This is an all-white short sleeve uniform that makes the wearer look suspiciously like the ice cream man.
• “Got your six”: looking out for your or your buddy’s ass; refers to a clock dial.
• Gouge: The inside scoop, the skinny, the low-down. Only the information one needs to know in a given situation, with nothing else to waste one’s time. Some black shoes say “Live by the gouge, die by the gouge.” Aviators say “Live by the gouge, excel by the gouge.”
• Grab-ass: Any kind of unstructured group socialization or horse-play, usually during working hours. As in “They were standing around playing grab-ass.”
• Grape:

1. (Submarine Service) Easy as pie, man. Examples: “This is fuckin’ grape duty.” “That was a fuckin’ grape sig, you cocksuckin’ asshole piece of shit.” The latter example can be translated as “Bravo Zulu, shipmate!” (See Bravo Zulu, above. Also see “sig” below.)
2. (Aviation Service) A sailor in an aviation fuels rating; so named because of the purple flight deck jersey such sailors wear.
3. USMC: A person’s head. “….then you smash his fucking grape!”

• Great Mistakes: Common epithet used when complaining about RTC/NTC Great Lakes Illinois. Commonly used by old school sailors to complain about the quality of sailors after the Navy shutdown RTC San Diego and RTC Orlando. It was “mistake” to keep RTC Great Lakes, as the sailors have continually failed to measure up.
• Greenie (Submarine Service): Green coveralls generally used during field day or exceptionally dirty work.
• Green Scrubby: Mildly abrasive scouring pad. Also called a “Greeny Weeny.” It’s green, of course.
• Green Side: The figurative side one is stationed at if one is stationed at a Marine Corps Command; contrasted with the “Blue Side” (Naval Command).
• Grip and grin: A public affairs or awards event in which some member of the command must shake hands, smile, and have their photo taken.
• Grog: Initially, this referred to the watered down rum ration given daily to sailors in the Royal Navy. Presently, in the USN, it refers to the alcoholic brew offered at social events like “dining-ins” and “dining-outs.” Depending on the wardroom and in particular on the person preparing the grog, it may be pleasant and delicious or one of the most foul and disgusting beverages ever conceived.
• Grok (Nuke Field Geek): To understand completely. From Stranger In A Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein (USNA ’29).
• Gronk (Submarine Service): To tighten a bolt or nut so much that the operator of a wrench or ratchet who tries to tighten it further or to loosen it sees stars. “Who the fuck gronked this nut on so tight?” See “Star tight.”
• Grotopotamus: The rather large ladies that graze around the Groton, CT area. Similar to a Bremerloe.
• Grottweiler: See Grotopotamus.
• Growler: A sound-powered phone, which is used like a telephone to call specific dialed in stations. It has a hand cranked dynamo which will produce a whirring sound on the other station, hence the “growl.”
• Ground-Pounder: Navy term for Marines, specifically infantry. Generally pejorative.
• Gundeck: To juryrig something; falsifying or misrepresenting records and reports. Occasionally, gundecking (while technically wrong) may have to be done to satisfy an inspection of an otherwise nonessential or useless program. Gundecking any reports constitutes falsifying an official document, and can be punishable by Captain’s Mast or even a Court-Martial, should the person gundecking be caught, which they almost always are.
• Gun Boss: Weapons Department head.
• Gunner: Term applied to and used in addressing (informally) an Ordnance Technician Surface Warrant Officer.
• Guns: A sailor in the Gunner’s Mate rating.
• Gunwale: (pronounced “gunnel”) The top of the hull portion of a ship that runs down the port and starboard sides.
• Gut: The section of a port city or town where visiting sailors can find cheap booze, games of chance, ladies of the night, a bar brawl or two, and other entertainment. Often placed off limits by the captain.
• Gyrene (derogatory, Navy term): A U.S. Marine; a “jarhead.”

H – Hotel Navy Terms and Slang

• HAC: (pronounced “hack”) Helicopter Aircraft Commander: the pilot in command of a helo.
• HACQ: (pronounced “hack”) House Arrest, Confinement to Quarters: Unofficial punishment where an officer is confined to his stateroom, usually during a port call. During this time, the officer is not allowed to leave the ship (all officers must have permission from the Commanding Officer, or his appointed delegate before debarking the ship at any port call, including their home port).
• Hall of Fame Company: A recruit company during boot camp that maintains perfect marks through the entire eight-week evolution; harder to get than Color Company, the company that rates Hall of Fame Status is given three days special liberty, as well as the week prior to shipping out to the fleet as downtime. They are also given the privilege of wearing their winter blue, or summer white uniforms, or, as an alternate, their dress uniforms, for the week before shipping out to the fleet. Hall of Fame Companies are also given precedence above Color Company, and are given the honor to be the first recruit company to Pass in Review.
• Haji: Racial epithet for a Middle Eastern individual, or anything Middle Eastern. For instance, pull-tab sodas are referred to as “Haji Sodas” due to their ubiquitous presence in the Fifth Fleet AOR.
• Halfway-Night (Submarine Service): Party night on predetermined 1/2 length of boat’s patrol. Tenderloin and lobster, frozen, but good.
• Happy Hour: The hour during which the ship is cleaned every day.
• Hamster: Chicken cordon bleu, a common chow entree.
• Haole: Pronounced “How-Lee” Hawaiian term for non-native. A dangerous thing for a sailor to be around Pearl Harbor, as some of the natives see them as easy targets for crime, especially when local law-enforcement doesn’t seem to care.
• Happy Sock: A sock used for masturbation.
• Hatch: A closure in the deck, commonly watertight, on a Naval vessel. Sailors tend to call doors “hatches,” but the term actually only refers to openings in the deck. If it goes through a bulkhead, it’s a door.
• Have a Navy Day: Has two separate meanings. 1.)”Have a great day”! From your Navy superiors. 2.) “Get Fucked or Fuck-Off” from your Navy equals and lower in rank.
• Haze Grey: The color painted on Navy ships.
• Haze Grey Motherfucker: Sailor (or CO) who prefers to be under way as much as possible, or a ship and crew that spends a great deal of time under way—e.g, “We were haze grey motherfuckers.”
• Heads and Beds: An inspection performed daily at sea by the XO or a designated replacement, usually the MAA.
• HCO: Helo Control Officer, talks to each pilot as he makes his approach to a small boy (See LSO)
• Head: Bathroom (the term comes from the days of sail, because wind would blow from the rear of the ship forward the bathroom would be located at the front “head” of the ship to carry the foul smell of excrement away from the crew). “Head call” means to use the head.
• Helmet Fire: When a pilot becomes so task saturated in the cockpit that he loses the big picture and situational awareness (SA). Often leads to mistakes that can produce lethal results.
• Helo (pron. hee-low): Term applied to all naval helicopters (from the standard message abbreviation HELO). Calling a naval helicopter anything other than a helo, and especially a “chopper,” is grounds for a serious beat-down.
• Helo Dunker: Dreaded training device that all naval aircrew and pilots must endure every few years when they complete water survival training, or “swims.” Designed to simulate crashing a helo at sea, it is basically a huge metal drum with seats and windows that is lowered into a pool and then flipped upside down with the “passengers” strapped into it. There are generally four runs that must be successfully completed. Two of these are blindfolded. It is not fun and even scares the hell out of Marines. (F)AWs enjoy it though.
• Here today, GUAM tomorrow: Received orders from one island to another island, as in ADAK to GUAM.
• Hinge: Slang for an O-4, or lieutenant commander (LCDR). So called because of the lobotomy that is supposedly mandated as soon as a naval officer is promoted to this rank, in which half of his brain is removed. A hinge is then inserted that allows for reattachment of the removed gray matter later. The hinge also limits the LCDR’s head movement to the fore–aft axis. This is clearly demonstrated as the O-4 is constantly nodding in the affirmative and saying, “Yessir, yessir” when in the presence of the CO.
• H.M.F.I.C. : Head Mother Fucker In Charge. Refering to the senior ranking person for an assigned duty or task.
• Hockey pucks: Swedish meatballs (also, trail markers, porcupines, road apples).
• Hole: Main engineering space aboard ship to include the Fire Room (boiler room), Machinery Room (Engine Room) or a combined room (Main Machinery Room) contains both boilers and main engines.
• Hollywood Shower: To take a long shower that wastes water (See Navy Shower). It is permissible to take one when a ship is pierside connected to pier water and sewer, if no one else is waiting for the shower.
• Holy stone: The stone or the act of using one. A pumice stone for cleaning a wooden deck. The name derives from the sailor stating that “anything that would cause a seasoned sailor to bend his knees, and curse the name of his maker must surely be holy.” or from the hole in the center for inserting a handle.
• Honch (“the Honch”): Entertainment district just outside the main gate of Yokosuka Naval Base. Famous for masagi girls, karaoke and Kirin beer.
• Honey-ko: A reference to a male sailor or his “girlfriend” for the evening. It is expected that the sailor will not have another “girlfriend” that same evening and not get caught with another on a subsequent evening. Used primarily at the former Subic Bay and Clark bases in the Philippines. “Cheating” was not allowed, and some how would be found out quickly by means of the “honey-ko telegraph.”
• Hooch: (1) A living environment, such as a tent, made more comfortable by innovation. (2) Illicit homemade alcohol.
• Hooligan Navy: WWII Navy pejorative for the Coast Guard, from its flexibility in enlisting men discharged from other services to rapidly expand for Prohibition. (Term endures within CG.)
• Hot Footed: Carefully placing matches under the toenails of a sleeping shipmate and then lighting them all at the same time, after which the perpetrator(s) immediately hide or attempt to look innocent, leaving the victim to wonder what asshole did this to him.
• Hoover: The S-3B Viking, mostly due to its unique engine noises
• Horse Cock: Large log of baloney or overcooked kielbasa usually put out for lunch or midrats. Horse Cock sandwich is one of the least favorite boxed lunches served to helo crews when visiting other ships.
• Hot box: Ship’s engines are lit off, but ship is not underway. Refers to the shape of a gas turbine module.
• Hot Dog: A sexually active male sailor.
• Hot Racking or Hot Bunking: Submariners share racks. When one goes off, the other takes his place (three men share two racks). In the aviation community, “hot racking” refers to an individual who has not taken a shower before retiring to his bunk, usually after working a 12-hour shift on the flight deck.
• Hot Wash – An immediate after-action or exercise critique.
• HR Puff and Stuff: A nickname given to Hospital Corpsmen who regularly appear for duty in a disheveled manner with their uniform in disarray. It is a combination of a rank (Hospital Recruit, the most junior Hospital Corpsman rank) and a name that connotes the obesity and stresses placed on the uniform of just such an overweight and careless sailor. Also used as an admonishment to junior Corpsmen and Dental Techs in order to motivate them to perform regular uniform maintenance.
• HTC: Known as a Hull Tech Chief or slang for “Head Turd chaser” or “Home Town Civilian,” a term designated to any active-duty sailor about to retire.
• HT Punch: A mythical tool newbies are asked to fetch from the engineering spaces. They usually return with a sore arm, courtesy of a Hull Technician who is in on the joke.
• Hummer: Slang for the E-2C Hawkeye, mostly for the sound of its props. May also be used to describe a blowjob.
• Humped the bunk: Screwed up. Also known as pounded the pooch or popped the puppie.

I – India Navy Terms and Slang

• ‘I Believe’ Button: A fictitious button to be pressed when complex technical details are not immediately understood, but there is not time to go into laborious explanation. “Just press the ‘I believe’ button for now and we’ll talk about it later.”
• IBM (Instant Boatswain’s Mate). Term used to describe a sailor who has just failed out of a rather difficult A-School (Nuc, ET, AT) and will now head to the fleet (and obvious deployment) undesignated. Phraseology: Instant Boatswain’s Mate, just add water.
• Ice Cream Social: Ice cream that is typically served at 2100 on the mess decks on Sundays when underway.
• ID10T: Idiot, pronounced “Eye-Dee-Ten-Tango.” Similar to “bulkhead remover,” an inexpensive way to derive enjoyment from inexperienced personnel. “Recruit, go get me an ID10T form, and step on it!”
• IFNAG: (Derogatory) Ignorant Fucking Naval Academy Graduate.
• Ikeatraz: Derogatory term used to describe the U.S.S. Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69).
• Irish Pennant: Loose thread on uniform.
• Iron Bottom Sound: A term used to this day to describe the waters between Guadalcanal, Savo Island, and Florida Island in the Solomon Island chain, because of the large number of ships sunk in that area during World War II. It is considered by the Navy as sacred waters, and, every year during the commeration of the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, a ship in the area will put out to sea, and drop a wreath in the area to honor the dead.
• INT WTF: Letters Pronounced Individually. INTerrogative What The Fuck. See WTFO. Usually used in a text/teletype medium where WTFO is over voice communications.
• I Want One Jammed In My Ass, Little Pricks Hurt 2. The USS IWO JIMA LPH-2
• IYAOYAS: Unofficial acronym commonly found on the uniforms of airedales who specialize in ordnance handling. Read as “If you ain’t ordnance, you ain’t shit” Pronounced “eye-OH-yahs” and yelled out during ceremonies; also known as “If you’re ordnance, your ASVAB sucked.”
• IYARYAS: Unofficial acronym used by Reactor Department to make fun of the similar phrase, IYAOYAS, used by ordinance. Note: Reactor department is well aware that both phrases are dumb, but it is highly effective at trolling.

J – Juliet Navy Terms and Slang

• Jack-o’-the-Dust: A ship’s cook in charge of keeping track of the ship’s food stores. Originally referred to the night baker who would often be seen by waking crew members covered in flour from his nightly duties.
• Jack Off Curtain: The small privacy curtain hanging on the outside of a rack. Usually the only small bit of privacy found on a ship. Also known as a “Splash guard.”
• JAFO: “Just Another Fucking Observer,” given to new recruits who are fresh in the fleet and have not cleared any training.
• JAG: Officer who is a member of the Judge Advocate General’s Corps.
• Jarhead: U. S. Marine.
• JARTGO: Just Another Reason To Get Out. “A grain of sand on the beach of reasons to get out of the Navy.”
• JANFU: Joint Army/Navy Fuck Up.
• JAM-Dive buddy: (Submarine Service) A submariner whom you have your way with in the event of a jam-dive casualty.
• JEEP- Junior Enlisted Expendable Personnel- Submarines- Slang for Casualty Assistance Team members — “Send in the JEEPs.”
• The Jellystone: USS Yellowstone.
• Jesus Nut: The assembly which keeps the rotary wing attached to a helicopter.
• Jim Jim: The nickname for the computer that aided avionics ratings through Basic Electronics and Electricity (B double E) and AVA’s self paced courses.
• JO: Junior Officer
• JO Jungle: Pronounced “J-O Jungle; term for the berthing assignments of Junior Officers which consist up eight racks and associated berthing facilities. Due to the [more] lax treatment of officers, termed a jungle because of their constant disarray.
• JO-JO: Pronounced “joe-joe.” Derragoratory term for a JO.
• Jody: (1) (generic name for) the guy who is imagined to be seeing one’s partner while one is underway. (2) Any of the songs (which all have the same rhythm/melody, and three notes) which are “talksung” during a quicktime march in order to keep cadence.
• Joe (Cup of Joe): (A cup of) coffee. One popular folk etymology suggests that the name derives from Navy Secretary Josephus Daniels’ reforms of the Navy, specifically his abolition of the officers’ wine mess and institution of coffee as the strongest drink available on Navy ships. For more, see joe.
• Joe Shit-in-the-rag Man / Joe Shit the Rag man / Joe Shit Charlie the Rag Man: An under-performing sailor.
• Joe Navy: Another term for a lifer with no life outside the Navy.
• Johnny Cash’s: The (defunct) Winter Working Blue uniform; so called due to the fact that they were all black (black being called navy blue) and Johnny Cash was the man in black.
• John Wayne: (1) A can opener supplied with “C” rations. Often still used by a “dirt sailor.” (2) Somewhat derogatory reference to a sailor that takes too many chances, or attempts to constantly play the hero. “John Wayne it.” (3) to John Wayne (a helmet): To leave one’s helmet’s chin strap undone, the way John Wayne often did in movies.
• John Wayne toilet paper: Toilet paper that is rough, tough, and takes shit from no one.
• JOPA: Junior Officer Protection Association. An ad-hoc organization of young division officers onboard some surface ships and in most aviation squadrons, assembled to provide a means of guidance and escape from overly-demanding Department Heads. When JOPA is unified it can control some wardroom social functions, but little else.
• JORG: Junior Officer Requiring Guidance (see “George”)
• JORP: Junior Officer Rest Period. See also SERP.
• Jughead: US Marine, so called because their “high and tight” haircuts make their heads look like inverted jugs in profile. Also “Jarhead.”
• Junior Chief: Pejorative term to describe junior enlisted person who is kissing ass for a promotion or on a power trip, or both.
• Junk on the Bunks: A type of inspection wherein a Marine places all of his/her issued clothing and 782 gear on a bunk (bed) so that an inspector can verify they have a full complement of uniform items (a full seabag).

K – Kilo Navy Terms and Slang

• Kamikaze: A hetero male Marine who is so gung-ho that he can only be sexually satisfied by another male Marine.
• Khakis: Term used to describe senior enlisted members (E-7 and above) or officers, due to the khaki-colored working uniform typically worn by them.
• Khaki Brigade: chiefs who start taking over an engineering casualty or going over to see what is going on. “Here comes the khaki brigade.”
• Khaki Clad Bastards: See Khakis.
• Khaki Sacker: See Brown bagger
• Kick start (a deck seaman): Surreptitious corporal punishment applied by driving one’s boot down the shin of the offending seaman to encourage better and faster work.
• Kid: in sailing times this referred to any bucket-like container used for a considerable variety of purposes – see ‘Spit-kid’.
• Kiddy cruise: officially a ‘minority enlistment’. Enlisting at 17. Active duty obligation expires the day before the enlistee’s 21st birthday.
• Killer Tomato: A large reddish-orange inflated ball used in gunnery practice at sea.
• King Neptune: Neptunus Rex, Ruler of the Raging Main, Ancient Order of the Deep. Signs the card of slimy pollywogs after crossing the line, making them Trusted Shellbacks.
• Kiss the Camel: To fall between ship and pier onto the camel, a floating log chained to the pilings as a fender. Such a mishap is frequently fatal.
• Klingon Death Watch (Submarine Service): The 6 hour watch following 12 hours of continuous drills.
• Knee-deep navy: Epithet (usually friendly) for the Coast Guard or coastal patrol vessels . Also knee-deep sailor, or just knee-deep(s).
• Knee-knockers: A passageway opening through a bulkhead. The lower lip of the opening sits at shin height.
• Knuckle Box: A medium sized, usually red, rectangular metal box widely used in the navy to move supplies to/from the ship. These boxes seem to have been designed by some sadist for maximum difficulty when carrying them aboard ship. They have small, useless metal handles on the side, and are perfectly sized so that one has to turn them at an angle to get through a knee knocker without grazing one’s knuckles.
• Knuckle Buster: A pneumatic tool for removing perfectly good paint from steel.
• Knuckle Dragger: A member of the engineering department or a mechanic on a nuclear powered vessel. Usually used to describe a Boatswain’s Mate on a surface vessel.
• KVAR: “Shows up as an apparent load on the system but does no actual work.” Borrowed from the SI unit for reactive power, used to describe a particularly useless Electrician’s Mate.

L – Lima Navy Terms and Slang

• Ladderwell: Stairs. (This is a holdover from when all climbing was done by ladders.)
• Lady Boy: A transsexual prostitute found most frequently in Thailand and the Philippines. They are more often than not quite beautiful and are often sought after by naïve junior sailors who neglect to check the downstairs plumbing until it’s too late.
• Lady Lex: Either of the two aircraft carriers named “Lexington.”
• LBFM (derogatory): Little Brown Fuck Machine: A foreign prostitute or B-girl, especially an Asian one.
• LBFMPBR (derogatory): Little Brown Fuck Machine Powered By Rice. See “LBFM.”
• LBGB (derogatory): Little Bitty Gook Boat: One of the small indigenous fishing boats occasionally run over by the craft of the Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club.
• LDO: Limited Duty Officer: generally a senior and highly qualified enlisted person (E6–E8) who has earned a commission through a competitive process and continues to work in their field. By definition a technical manager.
• LDO Security Blanket: Good conduct ribbon. Even though an LDO can choose to wear only his/her top three ribbons, they never do; because they always have at least three higher than Good Conduct and they need to have that one on display lest they be mistaken for a real junior officer. LDOs need their Good Conduct ribbons every bit as much as Linus needs his security blanket.
• Leading Airman/Seaman/Fireman: “Honorary” title for an individual who cannot seem to make PO3 within the first six years of his enlistment.
• Leave: Vacation time
• LES: Leave and Earning Statement. A monthly review print-out of one’s pay record, time-in-service, amount of leave on the books, and other important record keeping information.
• LHO: Large Heavy Object. Useless piece of machinery.
• Liberty: Free time away from work or the ship, usually after working hours or in port. Differs from leave (see above) in that one must stay close to one’s home station and it is generally much shorter.
• Liberty Boat: Boat assigned to transfer sailors to and from their ship when in a port that requires the ship to drop anchor instead of pulling pierside. Trips to the beach are generally low key. Trips back to the ship in the wee hours of the night are usually very entertaining.
• Liberty Hound: A sailor who conspires to or is able to take extra liberty, or who enjoys liberty more than anything else. Also sailor(s) who head for the quarterdeck immediately after “shift colors.”
• Liberty Risk: A sailor who loves liberty a little too much, so much so that he puts himself in danger by drinking too much, getting into fights, or pissing off the locals. Such a sailor will likely be restricted to the ship at the next liberty port.
• Lieu-fucking-tenant: Illustrates Navy practice of including a swear word INSIDE another word.
• Lifer: A name given to both officers and enlisted men who love the Navy and make it clear they want to be in for 20 or more years; lifers will try to convince others to re-enlist. Also lifers say things like “there is nothing a sailor needs that is not in his sea-bag”; this usually is a comment implying a sailor does not need to see his spouse or children, more rarely acronym associated with people coasting through their Navy career, stands for “Lazy Incompetent Fuck Expecting Retirement”, or “Lowly Indignant Fuck Evading Reality” see also “The ROAD program.”
• Lifer cup: A coffee cup stained brown by repeated use. Never washed, except as a prank by disgruntled juniors.
• Lifer Dog: (See “Lifer,” above) “Call me an asshole, call me a cocksucker, call me a son-of-a-bitch; just don’t call me a Lifer Dog.”
• Lifer Locker: Lounge used by E-6’s onboard ship.
• Lifer Stripe: The stripes located just above the cuff of the right sleeve on the service dress uniform that indicates four years of service per stripe.
• Light off: To literally light the fire in a boiler. Incorrectly, but nearly universally, applied to turning anything on.
• Like a Big Dog: Doing something in a big way; Something larger than life that is happening; Being aggressive, mean with a loud growl.
• Limp Dick: A sailor who can’t do the simplest job. “Schmuckatelli is a Limp Dick.” Can also be used to describe someone or something that stopped functioning. “So what happened on your watch?” “Well, one alfa main feed booster pump went limp dick so we put one bravo online.”
• Limp Wristing: An unsatisfactory amount of physical effort put into shutting a valve.
• Living the Dream: A sarcastic term used when someone is asked how they are, they reply with this which sounds upbeat and a positive term, and they are actually miserable. “How are you doing today PO Jones” “Living the dream Captain”
• LMN: Lima Mike November. Lick My Nuts.
• Load: (Always referred to as “the load.”) Generally refers to the ship’s engineering plant being online, e.g. producing adequate electricity, steam, etc.
• Lobster: A female sailor. So called because most of the meat of a lobster is in its tail.
• Loop, Looper: An officer, usually a LT or LCDR, who is an admiral’s aide. So called because of the gold braided loop that they wear around their arm.
• LOST: Line Of Sight Tasking: when a senior officer, usually the XO, tasks the first poor bastard JO who walks across his path with some time-consuming, inane project that he knows absolutely nothing about.
• Love Cookie: A deposit of semen left on a sailor’s pillow.
• LPOD: Last Plane On Deck: The time when all aircraft should be on the ground.
• Love Boat: (1) A sub tender crewed primarily by female sailors; see also “Tuna Boat.” (2) Nickname for the CVN-69.
• LSO: Landing Safety Officer or Landing Signals Officer. On a carrier, this officer stands just to the port side of the landing area and talks to each pilot as he makes his approach for an arrested landing. On a “small boy,” the LSO sits under a bubble on the flight deck and talks to helo pilots as they attempt to land in the Rapid Securing Device, or “trap.” Both types of LSO are referred to as “Paddles.”
• LSD: Dock landing ship, or Large Sitting Duck, so called due to their slow speed and absence of any significant offensive weaponry. “I survived a six-month trip on LSD”, commonly heard slogan from sailors who have made a deployment aboard such a vessel.
• LST: Tank landing ship, or Large Slow Target, a now disused type of amphibious warfare ship.
• L.T.D.B: “Living the Dream, Baby.” Often used sarcastically in reference to Naval lifestyle.
• Lucky Bag: Collected unclaimed personal items, or such things confiscated as gear adrift, which were auctioned to the crew on paydays.
• Lucky Charms: Nickname for w:Tripler Army Medical Center, which due to its coral pink color and location in the Moanalua hills of Honolulu, is used as a navigational aid for ships sailing into Pearl Harbor.

M – Mike Navy Terms and Slang

• MAA: Master-at-Arms. A rate in the Navy similar in duties to a police officer.
• MAD Boom surfing: Struggling to complete or barely passing required evolutions in training on the P-3 Orion Patrol Aircraft. Named for the Magnetic Anomaly Detector that sticks out from the tail of the aircraft. Variations include clinging to the MAD boom or water-skiing from the MAD Boom.
• Mae West: (Old) term for a life jacket, due to the resemblance of the chest floats to the busty actress.
• Mad Shitter (AKA Phantom Shitter): A sailor who does not flush a toilet. A prankster who defecates in public areas of a ship.
• Mail Buoy: A fictitious bouy that mail for a ship is left on. Usually new sailors are given a mail buoy watch for the entertainment of the more seasoned sailors.
• Magic Smoke: Substance that makes naval electronics work. Equipment failure is usually caused by letting the smoke out.
• Mags: Place to store ammunition and weapons in warships and fortifications.
• Make a Hole: An informal way for an Enlisted person to get through a passage way that is blocked by other personnel.
• Mamasan: Proprietor of a bar or other such establishment where sex may be procured or negotiated. Generally found in the Western Pacific. A “madame.”
• Manatee: A dependent wife, usually in Pensacola or Jacksonville that is Manatee fat even though her husband has maintained the same basic size during their marriage. Related to the Whidbey Whale.
• Mandatory Fun: Any command sponsored social event that everyone HAS to attend, or get into big trouble.
• Mando Commando: Sailor assigned mandatory physical training (Mando PT or FEP) for being overweight or failing the Physical Readiness Test.
• Marching Party: In boot camp, an after-hours regimen of intensive training exercises, supervised by the command’s special warfare personnel. Officially referred to as “Intensive Training” or “Advanced Intensive Training.”
• MARF: Acronym used by a superior to a roving watchstander, means Make Another Round, Fucker. Also Modifications and Additions to Reactor Facility, an unusual and impractical research reactor in NY, later turned into a training platform (also phrased as My Ass is Royally Fucked.) (FOAD is what most nuke students wish the platform would do.)
• Marine: A Sailor who failed to evolve.
• MARINE: Acronym for Marines Always Ride in Navy Equipment…or Muscles are Required Intelligence Not Essential… or My Ass Really Is Navy Equipment..or My Ass Rides In Navy Equipment…or Muscles are Required Intelligence Not Expected.
• Marine Dinner Tray: Derogatory description (to the “eldest service branch”) of an enlisted sailor’s 13 button flap on the front of his dress blue uniform trousers.
• Marine Mattress: A female who likes to “socialize” with the Marines.
• Marine Shower: No soap and water, just deodorant and cologne
• Marine Table Cloth: See Marine Dinner Tray
• Masagi Girl: A prostitute (typically Chinese) found in the Honch. So-called because they urgently whisper “Masagi?” as sailors wander past in search of libations.
• M.A.S.H.: Make A Sailor Hurt: (used in boot camp to describe) any physical training on the time of the Company Commander. Such training usually resulted in the recruit hitting the rack with several aches and pains he would not normally have had.
• Mast: Common abbreviated form of “Captain’s Mast” or “Admiral’s Mast.” A form of non-judicial punishment in which a sailor finds himself standing tall in front of the old man when he has really screwed the pooch. Green felt is usually abundant.
• Mast Crank: A fictitious crank, usually impersonated by a Bull Gear crank from engineering, which is to be collected by a junior enlisted to crank down the mast while passing under a short bridge. It is typically made to disappear 30 seconds before it is needed, sending junior enlisted crewmembers into a panic that the mast will hit the bridge under which the ship is about to pass.
• Material condition: Status open or closed, of various fittings, hatches, etc, which are denoted by a letter. Generally X(X-ray): always closed, Y(Yoke): closed while underway, Z(Zebra): closed while at GQ. (“Set material condition Zebra throughout the ship” is part of the standard GQ alarm.)
• Mat Man: Electronics Maintenance Man.
• Maverick Can: The perfect place to sleep in a weapons magazine.
• “M-Crud” MCRD: Marine Corps Recruit Depot
• Meat Gazer: Unlucky individual designated to make sure the urine in a “Whiz Quiz” actually comes from the urinator’s body. This is accomplished by spending all day meat gazing, or looking at dicks while guys are pissing. Also a man who stares at or is perceived to stare at another man’s genitals in a communal shower.
• Meat Identifier: A side dish during chow that helps in identifying usually nondescriptive looking main dishes. i.e. Applesauce: Indicative of pork chops, Horseradish: Prime Rib Beef…etc.
• Meatball: (1) Fresnel Lens Optical Landing System, a visual landing aid used by naval aviators landing on a carrier. Aviators “call the ball” as a reference guide to their positioning in the landing sequence. (2) The pennant flown to denote the ship has won the Battle “E” competition.
• MEDCRUISE: A float (operational cruise) in the Mediterranean Sea. Atlantic Fleet equivalent to a Pacific Fleet WESTPAC.
• Mess Crank or Mess Bitch (pejorative): A sailor who works on the mess deck, not rated as a cook.
• Mess Decks: Chow Hall or Eating Establishment on board ship.
• Mess Deck Intelligence: Rumors (mostly false) that spread throughout the ship like wildfire. Often concern radical changes to the ship’s schedule. See “Rumor Control” or “Scuttlebutt.”
• Mess line: The straight line of the buttoned shirt over the fly of the trousers. Also, a joke played on new sailors, who are told to obtain a coil of it (line being the Navy word for rope).
• Mid: Midshipman at the US Naval Academy or Naval ROTC; “Middie” is considered derogatory.
• Midnight Ops: The best time to get something done when there are not as many witnesses around.
• Midnight Requisition: To “borrow” (with varying degress of consent) a needed item from another unit. Often condoned when essential to get underway.
• MidShitHead: Enlisted common term for a Naval Academy or ROTC Midshipman on their summer cruise on a ship or a command, gaining real Navy experience between academic class years.
• Mid-Rats: Short for midnight rations. Food served to the midwatch. Generally a lazy navy cook phones it in by opening an industrial size can of ravioli and dumps out a couple loaves of white bread and calls it good. Punishment for being on the 0000-0400 watch.
• Mid-Watch: Watch from 0000-0400 (2345-0345), usually results in no sleep before or after this watch.
• Mighty Battle Pig: Nickname for USS WS Sims (FF-1059) — “Mighty Battle Frigate.”
• Mighty Mo: Nickname for the USS Missouri (BB-63), now a museum ship at Pearl Harbor.
• Mike boat: see “8-boat.”
• Missile Sponge: Usually a frigate or destroyer with limited air defense capability stationed on the outer ring of a battlegroup, as they are the ships most likely to be hit in a convoy.
• Miss Shit Can: The USS Michigan (SSGN-727).
• Mobile Chernobyl: USS Enterprise (CVN-65), due to it being the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. See “Quarter Mile Island” below.
• Monkey Butt: same as civilian usage; rash or other anal condition caused by less than sanitary field conditions.
• Monkey and a football: Short for “A monkey trying to fuck a football, and the football is winning.” An utterly epic goat rope (quod vide), more serious even than a clusterfuck.
• Monkey cum: White scrubbing liquid used to clean grease pencil from status boards.
• Monkey fist: A Turks head knot tied in a rope to add weight and mass to a heaving line.
• Monkey Mate: Derogatory term used by Boiler Technicians to describe their brethren in the much cooler Engineroom on the other side of bulkhead from their Fireroom. “Being a Monkey Mate is a lot easier than being a BT.”
• Monkey shit: (1) A mix of a clay and fibers, used to plug up small holes around cables as they pass through a bulkhead. (2) A type of putty used to seal the large steel access panels to the air casing on a steam boiler.
• Monkey Watch: A “fake” security watch created for new members when going through the Suez Canal on an Aircraft Carrier. The fake watch is intended for the amusement of the crew. The new sailor is told this is “The Most Important Watch” on the ship. The watchstander is dressed in protective gear carrying a 10 to 12 foot pole. When the Aircraft carrier goes through the canal, the crew member’s job is to look for monkeys trying to jump on the ship. There are no monkeys trying to board the ship. The morale boost comes from watching a fresh sailor running back and forth across a flight deck with a 10 foot pole, while crew members call out monkey sightings.
• Motrin: A magical pill dispensed by hospital corpsmen capable for minor owies or to hypochondriacs; “take two aspirin and call me in the morning.” Also called Vitamin M and Grunt Candy, the latter especially when dispensed to Marines.
• Mouse House (Submarine Service): (1) (Ballistic Missile Submarine description of) those areas which are usually occupied by Missile Technicians. (2) MCC (Missile Control Center).
• MR: Machinery Repairman rating. Machinery Repairmen are skilled machine tool operators. They make replacement parts and repair or overhaul ship’s engines and auxiliary systems. Also referred to “Monkey Rapers”.
• Mung (Submarine Service): Any dark green/brown plant residue with snot-like consistency found in/on scuppers (mostly in engineering spaces).
• Mustang: An Officer who came from the Enlisted ranks. Many LDOs and CWOs only consider their programs to count as “mustangs”, although there are many other programs that lead to enlisted personnel getting a commission.
• Mystery Shitter: An intoxicated sailor who returns from the beach and is unable to safely reach the head, defecates in random locations prior to climbing into his or her rack to sleep it off.

N – November Navy Terms and Slang

• NAMI Whammy: Slang for the incredibly in-depth two-day flight physical given to all prospective aviators at the Naval Aeromedical Institute at NAS Pensacola. Called the Whammy b/c many aspiring naval flight careers are ended before they even begin due to some unknown ailment.
• NAMTRADET: Naval Aviation Maintenance Training Detachment. Specialized training for Avaition maintainers.
• Nasty City: Slang for National City, California, just outside the gate of Naval Station San Diego. Its cheap dive bars were a noted hangout of “West-Pac Widows.” Also answers to the name “National Shitty.”
• NAVCIVLANT/NAVCIVPAC: Described as where a soon to be departing sailor from active duty’s next station will be.
• NAVCOMM: Navigator/Communicator. Usually the junior NFO on a patrol aircraft.
• NFG: Non-Functioning Gear: Used typically on Tags placed on electronics indicating malfunction description. Also called No F’n Good.
• NFO: Naval Flight Officer: flies alongside the pilot as weapons officer. Also referred to as a “talking kneeboard.” No Fuckin’ Option is term used for NFOs who would rather be pilots, but don’t qualify.
• NAVY: acronym used by disgruntled sailors for “Never Again Volunteer Yourself”,”Need Any Vaseline Yet.”(Naval Air wing) “No Aviator Values You”.
• Naval Infantry: Derogatory term for the U.S. Marines, although historically some of the original colonies/early states had “naval infantry” or “naval militia.”
• Navy Shower: Not a form of punishment. While underway, fresh water must be manufactured. A common-sense way of saving it is to wet down while taking a shower and then TURN OFF THE WATER. Lather up and wash. Finally, TURN ON THE WATER to rinse off. Continual disregard WILL attract a punishment shower with scrub brushes.
• Navy World: RTC Orlando was referred to as “Navy World” on its water tower due to Disney World and Sea World being close by.
• NEC: The Navy Enlisted Classification (NEC) system, of which the NEC coding system is a part, supplements the enlisted rating structure in identifying personnel on active or inactive duty and billets in manpower authorizations. NEC codes identify a nonrating wide skill, knowledge, aptitude, or qualification that must be documented to identify both people and billets for management purposes.
• Night-Ops: The throwing of trash or other unneeded items overboard at night to avoid the longer process of properly getting rid of it.
• NMOP: (common on Boomer Subs) No More Patrols Ever. Some times worn on T-Shirts by sailors who are on the last patrol and getting out or going to shore duty. (see EAOS above and Short timer below.)
• NON: “Needs of the Navy” a priority over anything to do with one’s family or person; as in God, Country, Family.
• Non-Qual Navy: Derisive term used by Naval Aviators, Submariners, and SEALs to describe the Surface Navy.
• NQP: “Non-Qual-Puke”: A non-qualified crewman who is not yet able to stand watch. Also applies in the Submarine Service to a crewman who is not yet qualified in submarines.
• No Balls: An expression used to suggest that a person does not have the balls/guts to do what he (or she) is boasting he (or she) will do.
• NO Boat: The USS New Orleans (LPH-11).
• No-Fuck, Vagina (pejorative): The city, rather than the base, of Norfolk, Virginia. For the base, see “Black Hole.”
• No Load: A useless sailor. One who does not pull his share of the load. Named for the maintenance catapult shots where only the shuttle is moved down the track with no aircraft attached. Also possibly named to represent a generator that is providing no power to the system and therefore not taking on its share of the load. (Onboard Submarines, often used as part of the phrase “Air Breathing No Load,” meaning a useless sailor or rider who is using up resources and providing nothing in return.)
• Non-Comm: A non-commissioned officer, E4-E9.
• Non-skid: A rough epoxy coating used for grip on weather decks.
• Nonskid Wax: A fictitious substance used for waxing non-skid decks, something junior sailors are sent looking for.
• Non-Qual (Submarine Service): A sailor who has not yet earned his Submarine Warfare Qualification (Dolphins).
• Noodle: Commonly referred to as a goofy, borderline retarded sailor with a big head (like a meatball) and a small body like a noodle. Sometimes used especially of the sailors from the USS Mathers.
• Noodle-winger: Helicopter pilot.
• Norfucked: What you are when you get orders to Norfolk, Virginia. “[I/You] just got Norfucked!”
• Noted: Usually passed down from an officer to a blue shirt, when the blue shirt tells the officer of something that will have little or no positive effect on the officer, but may have a great effect on the blue shirt. “Sir, if we do this thing now I can go home as soon as it’s done.” Officer: “Noted.” Can also be said to an officer, but beware of over-usage.
• No-Shitter: A sea story which is mostly (never completely) fictional, and unverifiable as well. Examples: “Hey, this is no shit, but I once blah blah blah…” or “Hey this is a no-shitter, I got a buddy who once blah blah blah…”
• NUG: New Useless Guy. Term referred to newly reported sailors with no qualifications or experience. Usually tasked with dirty and nasty jobs often referred to as “Shit Work.”
• Nugget: First tour aviator
• NUB:

1. Non-Useful Dody) A sailor who has not completed any qualifications and is therefore of no use to their division.
2. A sailor that has not yet earned their Submarine Warfare Qualification (Dolphins).

• Nuke (or “Nuc”) (Submarine Service, CVNs): Engineering Department crewmember responsible for turning main shaft via atom-splitting. Also refers to ordnance type that is neither confirmed nor denied, which may or may not be handled by a different Department (See “Weaponettes,” below). Also describes nerds (generally anyone who is/was a candidate for Naval Nuclear Power Training Command).
• Nuke it out (or simply “nuke it”):

1. To overthink an easy task. Alternately, often used by nukes to suggest someone ought to put forth at least a little thought before giving up on a problem.
2. The act of solving a problem by applying numbers and units and various known and assumed quantities to calculate an approximate answer.

• Nuke Milk: A disgusting powdered milk used when the fresh milk runs out. Said to be preserved by irradiation.
• Nuke Striker: Perjorative term used by nukes to describe a coner that asks endless questions about the operations of the nuclear power plant. Strikers are sailors that enlist without a guaranteed rate (job), with the intention of floating around until they find a department where they fit in.
• Nuke Waste: A term for sailors who fail to complete the Nuclear Power training program and are subsequently assigned into a different, non-nuclear rating for the remainder of their enlisted contract. May be used simply as a description of the sailor’s background or as a pejorative depending on context. Some “Nuke Waste” treat it as a sort of dubious badge of honor, others remain bitter about it for the rest of their Navy career.
• Numb Nuts (Derogatory) Nick Name for the USS Nimitz (CVN68)
• Nut to butt: Standing in line, close quarters, body to body, each man’s chest pressed to the back of the man ahead, or “nut to butt.”

O – Oscar Navy Terms and Slang

• OBA: Oxygen Breathing Apparatus. Used mostly to supply breathing air to shipboard firefighters before civilian firefighter equipment was approved and adopted. Before OBAs the Navy developed and used RBAs–Rescue Breathing Apparatus.
• OBE: Overcome By Events. Moot.
• OBNOB: Only Black Nuke Onboard. Self-explanatory. Usually only found on submarines due to a significantly smaller number of nukes stationed onboard a submarine vis-à-vis a carrier.
• Occifer (derogatory, pronounced “ossifur”): Any officer, especially a junior officer.
• Officer’s Candy: Urinal cakes.
• Officer’s Country: The area of the ship where the Officer’s berthing area and Wardroom are located; Enlisted men are not allowed into Officer’s Country without permission, with certain rating exceptions.
• O-Gang: The wardroom. Officers are O-Gangers. See also A-Gang.
• O I (wish I was asleep): Derogatory remark made by any non-OS rate whenever a OS complains about how bad they have it while underway, because OS’s are almost always “Port & Starboard” when underway. OS’s constitute “OI Division.”
• Oil King – An enlisted engineer responsible for fuel, lube oil, boilerwater and feedwater testing and also their quality, quantity, and transfers around the ship. Back when there existed a rating called Boiler Technician (BT), they most commonly were the Oil Kings. It wasn’t unheard of to see a Machinist Mate also occupy the position.
• Old Man: The Commanding Officer or Admiral in command. The term is used, regardless of the officer’s age or gender, when the officer has gained the respect of subordinates. RADM Grace Hopper is a female “Old Man.”
• Old Salt: A naval veteran. See also “Salty,” below.
• On my six: Naval aviation expression referring to having someone or thing at my back, on my tail, directly behind me, relative to the hours of a clock; 12-dead ahead, 3-starboard or to the right, 6 aft or behind and 9-port or to the left.
• O-N-O-F-F actuator (or switch): The on/off button or switch on any device, usually used in the context of a subordinate not grasping how to power a device up or down.
• One-eyed Jack: See “Barney Clark” A. tasty treat served at midrats consisting of a slider topped with a fried egg.
• OOC: Pronounced “oh oh see.” Used to describe a piece of equipment that no longer functions and is “out of commission.”
• OOD: officer of the deck
• Operation GOLDENFLOW: A command-wide urinalysis test.
• OPS: Operations Officer: Head of the Operations Department on board a ship or shore command. The Operations Officer is usually third in command behind the Captain and the Executive Officer.
• OS trainer (derogatory): A large popsicle; so called because Operations Specialists are expected to “brown-nose” with officers more than other ratings.
• Oscar: The buoyant dummy used during man-overboard drills. Named for the Oscar flag that is flown during a man overboard evolution. If a sailor is “nominated for an Oscar”, someone has suggested that sailor be thrown overboard.
• Oscar Sierra: Radio brevity code for a nuclear weapons mishap. Supposedly from the first letters of the words “Oh Shit.”
• Ouija Board/Wee-Gee Board: Flat board with small airplanes, bolts, etc. that can be moved around to indicate aircraft position and status on an aircraft carrier
• Out of sight hi/lo: Steam boiler casualty in which the water level in the steam drum gauge glass goes out the top/bottom, requiring the boiler to be immediately shut down to prevent water hitting the turbine blades (hi) or melting boiler tubes (lo). If operating on one boiler at the time of the casualty, the ship then goes “dark and quiet” as all power and propulsion is lost.
• Overhead: Ceiling.

P – Papa Navy Terms and Slang

• P-way: A passageway or a hall.
• Package Check (Submarine Service): A common form of greeting where one man shakes another man’s crotch. This is done not only to test the ‘mettle’ of the one receiving the greeting but also as a sign of comraderie. However, ever since hazing became increasingly unpopular over the last few years this greeting has occurred less often. Much more common in the submarine service due to the impossibility of discharge while underway.
• Paddles: Code word for the LSO (see above)
• Paint Chit: One of the sources for power on a ship, especially on large ships like carriers or battleships. Sailors must go to the “Paint Locker” with properly signed chits to receive paint and painting equipment. This is especially true if the paint being requested is classified as hazardous material, requiring special ventilation and lockouts. Workers in the Paint Locker can literally turn someones life into a living hell, by running them all over the ship to get the proper signatures on their paint chit.
• Papa Chuck: The P-3C Orion patrol aircraft. Also called “Four fans of freedom,” a desirable platform for airedales who have no wish to spend any time whatsoever at sea.
• Paper Assholes: Gummed Reinforcements (office supplies); Paper Ensigns.
• P.A.P.E.R.C.L.I.P.: People Against People Ever Reenlisting Civilian Life Is Preferable. Term used to show dissatisfaction with enlistment or unity amongst a brotherhood of bitter and disaffected sailors, specifically submariners. Often symbolized by the wearing of a paperclip on the uniform in varying levels of prominence to indicate the sailor’s level of disgruntlement. May also be burned into the skin. C.L.I.P. also used as Civilian Life Incentive Program.
• Pass in Review: The ceremony of graduation from boot camp into Navy life. Pass in Review ceremonies are always held on a Friday, meaning that there is a Pass in Review held every week, except during federal holidays i.e. Christmas, New Year’s Day, Easter, etc.
• Patrol Sock: See “Cruise sock.”
• P.B.: Short for Pacific Beach, California, suburb of San Diego
• P.C.O.D.: “Pussy Cut Off Day”: The last day of a long deployment on which male sailors can get laid and still obtain Venereal Disease cures from the Hospital Corpsman, and have those cures be effective, before returning to their partners at home.
• PCU: Pre Commissioning Unit: What a ships company is called before a ship is commissioned. These personnel go on to become Plank Owners.
• PD-8: Fictitious valve requested to be found by junior sailor in order for an engineering qualification to be signed off. Valves are named with the initials of the system they belong to, ie Seawater valve 1 is SW-1. PD-8 is actually a chemical additive used in the evaporator to aid distillation of fresh water. As opposed to other in-joke shipboard goose chases, this one can go one for weeks while the nub spends his free time poking around the distillation plant.
• Peanut Butter Shot: A painful shot normally given in the back of the hip or gluteus maximus.
• Pecker-Checker: The Hospital Corpsman.
• Pencil whip: (1) Filling out a form with mostly imaginary data or fluff. (2) Editing a poorly worded memo or document for clarity.
• Penis Anus: Puget Sound Naval Shipyard (PSNS).
• Penis Machinist: The Hospital Corpsman.
• Periscope liberty (Submarine Service) : Looking through the periscope to see the world outside after being underwater for a long time. Surface equivalent: “Eyeball Liberty.”
• Permanent Help: Slang for a PH (Photographer’s Mate) in a fighter squadron.
• PFA: Physical Fitness Assessment: new name for PRT. Situps, pushups and a run/bike/swim/elliptical trainer.
• PFM: “Pure Fucking Magic”, term applied to when things work, but one doesn’t know how or why — but they work. Other usage: “PFM circuit” for electronics in depot level repair only equipment whose inner workings are not required to be known. See also “Black box” and “Transistor Theory”.
• Phantom Shitter: A freaking weirdo that thinks it’s funny to shit in the shower, or to take a shit in the shitter and not flush.
• Phrog: CH-46 Sea Knight helo. Also referred to as the “Whistling Shitcan of Death” or a “Flying Anvil.”
• Piece: Rifle, as used in manual-of-arms (rifle drill)
• Pier 20: Derogatory term used to describe the U.S.S. Mt. Whitney(LCC-20), as it rarely goes to sea.
• PIERPAC: Pretending to be on deployment while moored to a pier. (like WESTPAC referring to a Western Pacific deployment.)See Fast Cruise.
• Pier-Queer: Air Force term for “Sailor.” (The Navy term for Air Force personnel is simply “Queer.”)
• Pier tender: A ship that never gets under way. See “USS Neversail.”
• Pigs in a Bucket, Fuck it: Colorful rhyming term used when a sailor wants to forget what they have heard, seen, or done.
• Pillows of Death: Canned ravioli, usually burned, served for midrats.
• Piped Aboard: (of a CO, VIP or other dignitary) Recognized upon entering a ship or land installation by the Boatswain’s Mate blowing 2 notes (low, then high) on a boatswain’s pipe, followed by sets of two bells, depending on the rank. After the musical introduction, the dignitary’s rank and sometimes name is announced, followed by “Arriving” or “Departing.” The Commanding Officer and embarked Admiral are piped aboard with the Ship’s name or the Group name. For other dignitaries, the office is used (e.g. “Department of Defense, Arriving”). Senior officers may be “bonged on board” as a courtesy; in this case, the introduction refers to their rank and service only, e.g. “Colonel, United States Marine Corps, arriving.” The CO of the particular ship [and the embarked Flag Officer] or installation gets a “stinger”, a single bell ring after “arriving”/”departing.” Bells may be used alone (without a pipe) in the absence of a boatswain’s mate.
• Pirate Navy: Small boy crafts generally referring to the smallest of the vessels, such as Minesweepers, Coastal Patrol boats, and sometimes Frigates.
• Piss Cutter: A folding uniform cap.
• Pisser: (1) A urinal (not a toilet). (2) An unpleasant situation “that’s a pisser.”
• Pit: (1) A sailor’s rack or bunk. Usually used among those who aren’t particularly pleased with shipboard life. (2) Main engineering space aboard ship to include the Fire Room (boiler room), Machinery Room (Engine Room) or a combined room (Main Machinery Room) containing both boilers and main engines.
• Pit Sword: A sword-shaped device that protrudes below the ship to measure its speed.
• Pineapple Fleet: The Pacific Fleet, usually refers to the Seventh Fleet (in the western Pacific) and specifically to ships stationed in Pearl Harbor. Somewhat confusing term, as Pearl Harbor is considered part of the Third Fleet’s area, not the Seventh.
• Ping: To emit a pulse of sound energy from a SONAR transmitter.
• Ping Jockey: Term used to describe Sonar Techs
• Plank Owner: Term used for original crew personnel assigned to ships company during commissioning. Plank Owners are “Piped Aboard” when shown proper certification.
• Plastic Fantastic: F/A-18 used in the 1980s.
• POD (Plan of the Day): An official document issued by a command that states all activities occurring that day, from 0000 to 2359. Also contains the Uniform of the Day. Also called the Possibilities of the Day or Plan of Deception because the plan can change without notice.
• POG: (Person Other than Grunt) A term often used by Marine Infantry (Grunts) to refer to anyone who is not them. Specifically anyone in an Admin Field. Originally, “pogue”.
• Pogey Bait: Candy, sweets, ice cream, etc., so called because such items are used as “bribes” for a pogue.
• Pogue: A homosexual who may be called a “twink”, usually under-aged. This term may be used pejoratively (see Pogey bait), as no one but Marines are interested in pogues or baiting homosexuals.
• Polish a Turd: Make the most of a bad situation.
• Pollywog: An individual who has not crossed the Equator, who must go through rituals, that sometimes cross the line to be hazing, to become a shellback. This practice can be traced back hundreds of years and is conducted in many countries’ Navies across the globe. See crossing the line.
• Poopsick: Anything undesirable, specifically feeling seasick
• Poopysuit: Blue overalls worn when deployed out to sea. May also refer to the anti-exposure suits used by aircrews in the case of a water landing in cold environments.
• The Pond: The Deep Blue Sea. Where deep-water sailors ply their craft, “The Pond” may be Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, or Other. Used in slang expressions such as “Talk to me when you’ve got some Time On The Pond.”
• PQS: Personnel Qualification Standards, a card carrying various qualifications for a warfare badge or similar. Must be signed off by a superior or expert.
• Porcupine Balls: Beef Porcupines. A.K.A. Nairobi trail markers.
• Port: Left side of the boat or ship (when facing the bow). Left side of an aircraft when facing the nose from inside. Place of arrival for ships.
• Port and Starboard: A rotation of two duty sections or watch teams, one designated port, and the other starboard. Generally not considered to be a good situation. (Usually six hours on duty, six hours off duty. During the six hours off you eat and sleep. The usual cycle is: get up, eat, go on watch, get off watch, eat, go to bed. This results in about four hours of sleep per cycle.)
• Port and Report: A watch stood without relief. One designated Port, and the other… there is no other, only Port once again, hence the term re-Port.
• Portable Air Sample (Submarine Service): A snipe hunt gag inflicted on “newbies.” Normally, portable air samples are regularly collected by a hand-held device operated by a highly qualified crewmember. In this snipe hunt gag, however, a plastic garbage bag is inflated like a balloon and sealed, sometimes with “official” forms taped to the exterior; the newbie is then dispatched to take this important atmospheric sample to the Executive Officer (NEVER the Skipper). Depending on that particular XO’s sense of humor, the newbie could possibly come back with interesting counter-orders.
• Portable Pad Eye. A pad eye is a recessed anchor point found in the decks of U.S. Navy Ships. They are a permanent fixture. Typically, as a hazing ritual, sailors fresh out of boot camp are sent out on a wild goose chase to retrieve a, “Portable”, Pad Eye.
• Port Orca: A husky (large) female. Derives from Port Orchard, Washington, across Sinclair Inlet from PSNS.
• PosMo: Positive Motivation. Punishment for screwing up or being a Rock. Also known as Extra Military Instruction (EMI).
• Powder Monkey: Term referring to a sailor sent back and forth for an item, usually tasked to retrive something from below-decks; derives from young boys who served on wooden ships that retrieved powder for broadside firing.
• Power School: Naval Nuclear Power School (NNPS), a key part of the training pipeline for Submarine and CVN nuclear power plant operators.
• Power troll: A name for any officious person, usually used by engineers. Comes from the Powertrol valve used in AFFF firefighting systems.
• PPC: Patrol Plane Commander. Usually the senior pilot on a patrol aircraft, having been previously designated a 2P (second pilot). 3Ps are relatively new pilots in a patrol aircraft. No-Ps are pilots who have not qualified for 3P.
• Pri-Fly: Primary Flight Control. A room located high in an aircraft carrier’s island where the Air Boss and Mini-Boss run all flight operations within a five mile radius of the ship.
• PRT: Physical Readiness Test. A sailor is required to perform a certain number of situps, pushups, and a 1.5-mile run in a given time (which varies based on age and gender). Replaced with the PFA.
• PT: Physical Training. A required exercise regimen.
• The Pubic Mound: USS Puget Sound.
• Pucker Factor: Tension caused by high stress during a difficult or dangerous evolution. So named because one’s sphincter tends to tighten up or “pucker” involuntarily during such times. Example: Pucker factor was high when he landed that Turkey single engine with complete AC power failure at night.
• Puddle Pirate (derogatory): A members of the US Coast Guard.
• Puka: any small space or opening. From Hawaiian.
• Pull chocks (verb): To leave.
• Pump and Dump: A term in Boot Camp, normally used by RDCs allowing Recruits time to use the Head. This was normally either 5 or 10 minutes in duration (never long enough). Sometimes used to call for pumping bilges and waste tanks overboard outside coastal limits. Originally used in reference to the daily order for a ship underway to go out past the 50-mile-from-shore line in order to legally pump oily water from bilges and dump trash, this can no longer be done.
• Punching Holes: When a submarine is underway submerged, as in “Punching Holes in the Ocean”.
• Pushbutton: Term applied to a 6 year enlistee with advanced schooling. The Enlistee is immediately granted E-3 rank upon completion of basic training, and E-4 rank upon completion of “A” school. Frequently the Enlistee also has an opportunity to extend to 8 years, and immediately gain E-5 rank within 2-3 years total service, like “pushing a magic button to gain rank.”
• Pussy patch: Transdermal scopolamine patch for seasickness.
• Pussy pills: Seasickness pills.

Q – Quebec Navy Terms and Slang

• Q: (prefix denoting) (1) The BEQ [Bachelor Enlisted Quarters]/Unaccompanied military personnel housing. (2) The Quartermaster rating.
• Quack: Hospital Corpsman
• Quadball: Any sailor with a 0000 NEC. See “Quadzip” below.
• Quadzip: Four numeral zero’s in a row. Example: 100007 would be read aloud as “one quadzip seven.” Also refers to sailors who have yet to attend any schools that assign NEC (Navy Enlisted Classification) codes upon graduation. The untrained sailors have a quad zip NEC of 0000.
• Qual card (Submarine Service): Qualification card. A card with all areas of expertise that must be obtained to become qualified on a number of watch stations, certain systems or areas of the ship, along with a space for the signature of the person verifying the cardholder’s expertise. Submarine sailors must complete a number of qual cards. To earn the right to wear dolphins, everyone on board a submarine must have completed a qual card covering the entire ship.
• Quarterdeck: Ceremonial area of the ship used while in port for either boarding, or disembarking the ship, usually found at the main deck level, mid-ship.
• Quarter Mile Island: CVN-65, USS Enterprise, and all eight of her reactors.
• Quarters: A gathering of all the people in the organization. Quarters can be for the entire command, or just the department, division, or branch. Quarters is used to present awards, pass information, and make every sailor squeeze into their ill-fitting, rarely-worn uniforms at least once a year. “Quarters” also refers to the daily morning muster for each division, announced as “Quarters…Quarters…All hands to Quarters for muster, instruction, and inspection.”
• Queer: Nickname for the EA-6B Prowler. Also Air Force Personnel.

R – Romeo Navy Terms and Slang

• R2D2: Dome-shaped Phalanx CIWS system, after the visually similar Star Wars droid. Also called “R2D2 with a hard-on.”
• Rack: Bed.
• Rack Burns: Reddish marks seen on the face of a sailor who has just emerged from sleeping in his/her rack. Scorned upon if he/she was not supposed to be there.
• Rack Hound (derogatory but usually with a hint of envy): Sailor that spends more than his/her fair share of time in the “Rack.” Usually spoken when seeing somebody with Rack Burns. “You are such a Rack Hound!”
• Rack Oyster: when you bust in your hand and slurp your own semen for a late night snack primarily used on frigates “you want to go to MidRats?” “I’m good bro, I had a Rack Oyster before watch”
• RADCON Math:

1. Term used by Nukes to describe a method of estimation to arrive at an answer.
2. Used to prove a desired numerical answer with substantiated math, either correct or incorrect. Example: Watch Officer-“What is pH?” ELT-“What do you want it to be?”

• Radioactive Rudolph: Reindeer meat brought onboard in Scandinavian Ports, especially soon after the Chernobyl meltdown. Now, just Rudolph.
• Radio girls: Derogatory term for Radiomen used by personnel in engineering ratings who do not believe they do any “real work.” OSs, STs and other Twidgets that don’t, for example, stand any rate-related watches in port (in the days of steam ships especially) get even less respect.
• Radioing the logs (Submarine Service): Recording engineering log data via mental telepathy (see “Xoxing Logs” below). (Surface ships sometimes use the term “blazing the logs” or “gundecking.”)
• Rain Locker: Shower.
• Raisin: Recruit or junior sailor, predominantly heard at Naval Training Commands. This is used in boot camp to refer to those boots who have received their dungaree uniforms so recently that they haven’t been ironed, just washed, they are therefore wrinkled, like a raisin. Usually used by seasoned boots to refer to sailors with one or more weeks less time in service. Fleet equivalent is “Nub,” “Newbie,” or “Hey Shitbird.”
• Ramp Strike: When an aircraft gets drastically low while attempting to land on a carrier and strikes the “round down,” or stern of the ship, with devastating results.
• RAS: Replenishment At Sea: The act or process of moving cargo and fuel from a supply ship to a warship via cable while underway.
• Rate Grabber: Enlisted member with the goal of (and succeeding in) making rate (promotion) quickly.
• Rating: Refers to an Enlisted man’s job description, i.e. Radioman, Electronic’s Technician, etc., usually denoted as part of the rank insignia, found in the center of the rank device on the summer, and winter uniforms only.
• RATT Shop: Place for flight deck personnel to cool off in the AC and take a nap while they get their “RATT” fixed.
• ‘Rats: Short for “mid-rats”
• Ready Roller: a sailor who wakes up, “rolls” out of his rack- without washing or brushing- “ready” to head to the Mess Hall to start his day. Ready Rollers are generally thought of in a negative scense due to their poor hygene and lack of respect for themselves, while in close quarters or proximity to other shipmates.
• Ready Room: Large space aboard a carrier that is the focal point for each of the squadrons in the airwing. Each squadron has one on the O-3 level, and each pilot has his own seat. Used for a variety of reasons such as training, “AOM’s,” “Roll-ems,” etc…
• Rednose: An individual who has crossed the Antarctic Circle.
• Red-Roper: Slang for a Recruit Division Commander (RDC), in reference to the red rope worn around the left shoulder. Used to be called “Company Commander.”
• Red-Tag, also known as “Tag Out” (verb): (1) (of a Calibration AT with no nuclear training) to do something to a piece of nuclear reactor machinery which should put part of the plant down. (2) To de-energize a piece of electrical equipment or to cease usage of any tool or machine.
• Red-Tag (noun): The tag placed on a piece of electrical equipment to prevent it being energized and injuring someone.
• Red Wagon:
• Reefer: (1) A refrigeration ship carrying frozen foods. (2) A large freezer of the type found on most ships, usually in auxiliary spaces. (3) Issued wool peacoat.
• Render honors to port/starboard: A custom in the Navy to honor a ship passing with a salute, it is also used when passing by the Arizona Memorial, an announcement is made “Prepare to render honors to port/starboard,” a Bo’sun’s pipe signal is then given to stand at attention, to salute, to drop the salute, and finally to “carry on.” Honors are rendered from the junior to the senior by referencing the Lineal Number of the Commanding Officer.
• Rent-A-Crow: A sailor advanced to E-4 because they graduated top of their “A” school class. The Navy “rents” them for an extra year in return for promoting them. The term is also used of sailors who enlist in Advanced Electronics or Nuclear training tracks, as these also require a 6 year commitment.
• Reveille: An announcement over the 1MC at 0600 local time, bugle call, trumpet call or pipes call, most often associated with the military; it is chiefly used to wake military personnel at sunrise. The name comes from “réveillé” (or “réveil”), the French word for “wake up.”
• Rick, Ricky: A “recruit” or sailor-to-be who is still in boot camp.
• Rickety Rocket: USS Richmond K. Turner (CG-20) Commissioned 1963, decommissioned 1995, sunk as a target 1998 by USS Enterprise Battle Group.
• Ricky Boxing: Masturbation. The term is used in boot camp to refer to male masturbation. Compare “Ricky Fishing.”
• Ricky Fishing: Masturbation. The term is used in boot camp to refer to female masturbation. Compare “Ricky Boxing.”
• Ricky Forklift: A boot camp term for a dust pan.
• Ricky Girlfriend: A male sailor’s hand, used to masturbate.
• Ricky Crud: (1) A one-night sickness which sailors acquire in bootcamp after receiving their smallpox vaccinations. (2) The constant cold that sailors suffer from in bootcamp because they spend 8 weeks confined with 80 people from all walks of life.
• Ricky Dive: Fast, effective method of cleaning in boot camp, consisting of wearing smurf suits inside-out and sliding, or being dragged, on the floor to pick up dust.
• Ricky Heaven: A number of restaurants and entertainment venues found in a single building at boot camp, so called because only graduates of boot camp may go there.
• Ricky Iron: Using one’s right hand to press one’s uniform flat.
• Ricky Lawnmower: Nailclippers, used to trim stray threads from uniforms. See “Irish Pennant.”
• Ricky Ninja: Within minutes of lights out, the entire division is asleep, except for the Ricky Ninjas, dressed in their ski masks and sweaters, sliding from rack to rack, Gullivering, dirty-dicking, and spitting in the RPOC’s canteen.
• Ricky Ray-Gun: The cheap, disposable flashlights Recruits use while standing night watch in the barracks.
• Ricky Sweep: Use of a bare hand to gather dustbunnies and other dirt from a deck.
• Ricky Rocket: A boot camp “energy drink” made from an assorted mix of sodas, sports drinks, coffee, sugar and artificial sweetners used to help keep the recruit awake. Also known as “Go-Go Juice.” Or half a glass of coffee, half chocolate milk and a shit ton of sugar.
• Rider: (1) Most often associated with the submarine service; an individual aboard a submarine not a member of the crew who is assigned to the sub for a period of time to perform a specific mission; usually intelligence related. (2) On surface ships, any member of the ship’s company who is not assigned to the Engineering Department. “There are two kinds of people on a ship: Engineers and Riders. When the Engineers cause the ship to move through the water, everyone else goes along for the ride.”
• Ring Knocker: A graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy. Used pejoratively if the officer in question is overly proud of this fact.
• River Rat: Crew member of a brown water boat or patrol craft.
• Roach Coach: A snack or lunch truck that stops at each pier where the ships are berthed. Usually announced over the 1MC — “Navy Exchange Mobile Canteen is on the pier” or at great risk to the announcer: “The Roach Coach is making its approach.”
• Road Mark: Also referred to as a “Street Mark,” a form of point deduction during Boot Camp, when a sailor is either out of step during marching, failure to salute an officer, or an RDC, or any other form of noticeable infraction, the infraction usually results in a deduction of five points form the company’s overall score.
• R.O.A.D. Program: Retired On Active Duty, refers to someone who is approaching retirement so they don’t care about getting any real work accomplished.
• Roast Beast: Roast Beef, or any meat served aboard the ship that even the cooks who prepared it don’t know what it is.
• Rock: Term used to describe a sailor that acts as though he hasn’t learned anything.
• Rocket Locker (Submarine Service: The Missile Compartment on a boomer.
• Rocks and Shoals: is an informal reference to the Articles for the Government of the United States Navy, which was replaced in 1951 by the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
• Roger That: A term of understanding and acceptance when given an order or other information. Can be used with varying inflection and tone without consequence to signify enthusiasm or disgruntlement without stepping outside the bounds of professionalism.
• Roll-em’s: Movie night, usually shown in the ready room or the wardroom
• Rollers: Hot dogs.
• Rope and Choke: Highly advanced and ultra accurate way the Navy determines the body mass index of people who are deemed too heavy for their height. Consists of an overweight fitness “guru” measuring one’s waist and neck.
• Ropeyarn: Original-Taking an afternoon off, usually a Wednesday, to take care of personal matters, such as repairing one’s uniforms. Today- taking an afternoon off to take care of ‘personal matters’.
• Rot-Cee: Slang for ROTC, Reserve Officer Training Corps. Also “Neurotic” for a midshipman in the Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps (NROTC).
• Rot-Cee Nazi: Derogatory slang term for an ROTC member who has let power go to his or her head; primarily used when such ROTC members board a ship for training, and start pushing around enlisted sailors, who hold higher ranks and/or have had more time on active duty.
• Round Turn: To put some elbow grease into it; to work hard at it and make a strong effort to finish the job
• Rotor Head: Sailor who flies or maintains rotary-winged aircraft (helicopters).
• Royal Baby: Originally the fattest man on the ship, chosen as part of Neptune’s court during Shellback initiation, which includes kissing his belly.
• RPOC: Recruit Chief Petty Officer (RCPO or RPOC). A recruit chosen in boot camp to “be in charge” when the Company Commander, or other authority figure, are not present.
• R.T.F.M.: Read The Fucking Manual, or “Read Those Fine Manuals” if you are talking to your mother.
• Rubber Hooeys: Condoms
• Rumor Control: The often wildly inaccurate rumors that concern fictitious changes to the ship’s schedule. Usually takes the form of “Hey, did you hear (insert ship name here) had a fire in their main machinery room and can’t get underway so our cruise got extended by a month?” See also “Mess Deck Intelligence.”

S – Sierra Navy Terms and Slang

• Sack-o’-Lantern: A scrotum stretched across a battle lantern that has been energized. Smiley-face art optional.
• Salt Cookies: Sugar cookies when the boat’s Culinary Specialist confuses salt for sugar.
• Saltpeter: Chemical supposedly added to “bug juice” aboard ship to stifle libido.
• Salt and Peppers: Refers to the old style working white uniform, where the sailor wore a white shirt, and black pants. Today, Salt and Peppers are worn by cooks that work in a ship’s wardroom.
• Salty: Old and experienced (or simply old and sea-worn, as in “my salty hat”). Can also refer to the traditionally profanity-laced language patterns of sailors.
• Sandblower: A person of very short stature.
• Sandbox, The pier liberty facilities at Jebel Ali. Sandbox Liberty means travel outside the port of Jebel Ali is not authorized. All one gets is a “beer on the pier.” See “Gerbil Alley.”
• Sand Crab: Civil servant working for the Navy. As in “side walking, bug-eyed beach creature”
• San Dog: A sailor stationed in San Diego, or the base itself.
• Savy Sue: The nickname of the USS Savannah AOR4, given by her ships’ company.
• Screaming Alpha: A sailor who is on fire and is running around screaming. Alpha fires leave ash. Bravo fires burn flammable liquids. Charlies are electrical fires, and Deltas burn exotic materials, often metals like magnesium.
• Scrambled Eggs: Gold embroidered decoration on a Commander’s/Captain’s cover. Admirals have Double Eggs. The similar silver clouds and lightning bolts addition to an Air Force Major’s/Colonel’s hat is called Farts and Darts.
• Screw: Propeller
• Screwing the Pooch: Making a huge mistake. “You really screwed the pooch this time.“
• Scullery: The washroom on board a ship for eating implements such as knives, forks, trays, and cups.
• Scupper: (1) (Surface Navy) Opening in a bulwark which allows water to drain overboard. (2) (Submarine Service) A funnel-like device used to collect rogue liquids (usually from overflowing tanks in engineering spaces), as free openings to the outside are frowned upon in submarine design.
• Scupper Trout: Sewage solids which have washed overboard, or have been pumped overboard. Also called “Cornbacked Gator” or “Brown Trout.”
• Scuttle: A smaller, sealable, opening in a larger, heavier door or hatch.
• Scuttle (verb): To discard something over the side of the ship.
• Scuttlebutt: (1) A drinking fountain. (2) Generally reliable but incomplete information about a subject. (3) A rumor (because rumors are spread when crew members gather around water fountains). This is the only thing in the universe that can travel faster than light. (4) Chief Kitchen’s office in Slidell, LA.
• SCWS: Seabee Combat Warfare Specialist
• Sea and Anchor Detail: Every sailor has an assigned duty station to be manned when the ship is either pulling into or out of port. On submarines it’s called the Maneuvering Watch. (Coast Guard: Special Sea Detail.)
• Seabag: A large green canvas bag issued to the sailor during boot camp as part of his uniform issue, the nearest civilian equivalent would be a suit case or several pieces of luggage, the seabag is constructed to hold close to 150 lbs.
• Seabag Inspection: Formal uniform/personal item inspection for an E-4 and below sailor upon check in to a new command. In reality, consists of an E-5 signing a piece of paper and giving the warning, “if you go up for mast, I will testify under oath that I inspected and saw every item.”
• Seabag locker: A room, usually on board ship, where extra uniforms, or item materials are placed until needed.
• Seabee: A member of the Construction Battalions
• Sea chest: A trunk or storage container used for a sailor’s personal property.
• Seachest: Ballast intake/discharge portals below the waterline of a ship.
• Sea Daddy: Senior, more experienced sailor who unofficially takes a new member of the crew under his wing and mentors him. Senior Enlisted Advisor, a CPO in charge of one’s career.
• Sea Lawyer: (1) A sailor or his buddy, making eloquent but completely spurious arguments at Captain’s Mast, or in response to some disciplinary action. (2) An argumentative, cantankerous or know-it-all sailor. A sea lawyer is adept at using technicalities, half truths, and administrative crap to get out of doing work or anything else he doesn’t want to do, and/or to justify his laziness.
• Sea Otter: SeaOpDet-er; a member of a Sea Operational Detachment (SEAOPDET).
• Sea Pussy: A yeoman or personnelman — akin to a secretary — who does clerical work. See “titless wave.” Also, a wet dream induced by ship’s motion.
• Sea Stories: Often exaggerated or embellished tales from previous deployments or commands told by seniors to juniors. Sea Stories almost always involve alcohol. (1) Good sea stories should involve creative embellishment, inasmuch as one should tell it better than the guy one heard it from, with oneself (or an un-named “buddy”) as the new star. Add some contemporary details and those youngsters are mesmerized, as they should be. Should always begin with “No shit, this really happened,” or “This is a no shitter.” (2) Reminiscence among older sailors, not necessarily with embellishment but often times a mutual exaggeration and perhaps colorful language: “Remember the time we were in the Gulf of Thailand for that …?” “Yeah that was fucking crazy; we came damn near…”
• Seaman Schmuckatelli: Generic name for a sailor, used in a similar manner as “Joe Blow” or “John Q. Public.” Example: “You’re working on an electrical system without tagging it out, when along comes Seaman Schmuckatelli, who energizes the circuit and ZAP, you’re fried calamari.”
• Seaman Timmy/Fireman Timmy: Used in similar fashion as “Seaman Schmuckatelli” except with a slightly more negative connotation of a sailor who is not too bright, or could be expected to do something stupid without any malicious intent. Can also be used to refer to any sailor not expected to be very bright, who is young and naive, or one who has screwed up in some way: “And you’ve got Seaman Timmy on the .50 cal.”
• Sea Warrior: Used by naval personnel whom have never set foot on a ship, usually in response to being called shipmate.
• SEAL: The United States Navy’s Sea, Air, Land Teams, commonly known as the Navy SEALs, are the U.S. Navy’s principal special operations force and a part of the Naval Special Warfare Command and United States Special Operations Command. There are currently two Coast Guard SEALS, who completed SEAL training before the program was cancelled.
• Secure: To turn off, end, or make tighter, e.g. “secure the forward diesel” or “secure from general quarters”; can also be used to to prepare something for sea, as in “secure for sea.”
• Senile Chief: Slang for Senior Chief
• Service Dress Beer: With the pre-NWU utility uniforms, the act of removing the shirt and untucking the T-shirt to hide the name tape above the pants pocket, in order to purchase alcohol on an off-base establishment. When leaving base, only “essential” stops could be made in utilities, of which alcohol was not one of them. Like many such measures, this fooled absolutely nobody.
• Service Dress Bozo: Service Dress Blue uniform with a bow tie worn by a junior officer to a formal event for which he was too cheap to buy a formal mess dress jacket.
• SERP: Senior Enlisted Rest Period. The Chief is going to his rack for an hour or so after chow, sometimes includes a “drink.”
• Set Zebra: Sex involving double or triple penetration.
• Seven to forever: the 0700-1200 watch, which is longer than the normal four hour watch.
• Sewer Pipe Sailor: Diesel Submariner
• Shaft Alley Sally: A loose and easy female shipmate that would be willing and ready to get it on down in machinery spaces and/or shaft alleys. (hence nickname)
• Shallow Water Sailors: Coast Guard
• Shallow Water Surface Pukes: members of the Coast Guard, from the viewpoint of a bubblehead.
• Shark shit: A sailor who has fallen overboard and is lost forever.
• Shark bait: A package of bright green dye, attached to a life vest. Used to attract the attention of a rescue helicopter in the event of a man overboard by the victim in the water.
• Shillelagh / Shillalah: A piece of fire hose, sometimes soaked in saltwater, used as a cudgel to hit wogs on the buttocks during Shellback initiation.
• Shellback: An individual who has crossed the Line/Equator.
• Sherwood Forest (Submarine Service): The Missile Compartment on a boomer. Used more by the press.
• Shinbuster: Same as knee-knocker.
• Ship over: Re-enlisting
• Shipmate: (1) Any fellow sailor. (2) (derogatory) Any junior enlisted about to get chewed out.
• Shipwreck (derogatory): Any fellow sailor.
• Shit in a Seabag: Stuffed green peppers; chiles rellenos.
• Shitbag (also Shitbird, Shitbrick, Shithead, Shitstain, Shitstick, Shitrat, Shitweed): (1) (not necessarily derogatory) Any fellow sailor. (2) (derogatory) A sailor who has been awarded punishment at mast, or any less-than-par sailor.
• Shitbird: (1) (derogatory) A shipyard worker (when in port). (2) A useless sailor (compare “Dirtbag”, above).
• Shitbomb: Extremely unpopular topic brought up at the end of a (usually long and boring) meeting that requires a lot of work from everyone present. The worst ones are “drive-by shitbombs,” where someone pokes their head in, “throws the shitbomb” and leaves.
• Shit Can, Shitcan: Either the name for a trash can, or the act of throwing something into the trash. As in “Shit can that chit, you’re not getting any liberty.”
• Shit Can Liner: Plastic bag to put in a shitcan.
• Shit Locker: An ass, or rear-end. “Nice shit locker!”
• Shit River: The extremely polluted (mostly with sewage) canal just outside the Subic Bay main gate.
• Shit-on-a-shingle: Creamed chipped beef on toast.
• Shit Storm: Severely unpleasant aftermath. As in, “They just found a dead rat in the deep fat fryer and now the cooks have a shit storm on their hands.”
• Shit Street: Hotel street in Honolulu.
• Shit Suit: Aka “Poopy Suit” A white disposable set of coveralls used mainly for sewage use, painting, bilge diving, or void inspections.
• Shitter: (1) A toilet (not a urinal); also known as a crapper. (2) A reference to the restroom or locker room in general. See “Blowing Shitters”
• Shitty Kitty: Derogatory nickname for the USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63). Also “Shitty Hawk.”
• Shoe: (1) (when used by Navy SEALs) Anyone in the Navy who is not a SEAL. “Look at those stupid shoes with their haircuts and fat bellies.” (2) (when used by Naval Aviators) Surface Warfare Officers, so called because of their noticeable black shoes.
• Short arm inspection: The inspection a ship’s corpsman performs on a sailor’s penis, looking for visible signs of any venereal disease, if the sailor suspects he may have contracted one.
• Short Seabag or Without a Full Seabag: Reporting aboard without a full uniform; deficient in aptitude or intelligence.
• Short Timer: A sailor with less than 90 days until discharge or transfer and an attitude to match.
• Short Timer’s Chain: A chain that hangs from the belt of a “short timer” for all to see, with one link representing a day, signifying too short to care, and usually starting with 30 links. Verbal equivalent is “__ days and a wake-up.” The chain may also be taken from the small brass chain keeping a sound power phone jack cover attached to the jack housing.
• Shower Party: An involuntary scrub-down of a submarine crew member who hasn’t been practicing good hygiene.
• Shower Tech: Sonar Technician (Submariner)
• Shutterbug: A Photographer’s Mate (PH).
• Sick in Quarters (SIQ): When a sailor is too ill or incapacitated to perform his duties, he is thus required to report to his rack (quarters), where he will remain until healthy again. For personnel aboard ship, this means to remain in bed, while onshore this may simply mean to stay home for the day. Only qualified medical personnel can recommend SIQ, and only the command can authorize it.
• Sierra Hotel: Phonetic letters for SH, which stands for “Shit Hot.” Refers to anything impressive or greatly exceeding what is required.
• Sig (Submarine Service): A signature on a qualification card. There are many, many “qual cards” in the Sub Service, especially if you’re a Nuke or a Weaponeer. (see “Nuke” and “Qual card” above, “Weaponeer” below).
• Sig: NAS Sigonella, Sicily
• Sigs: A Signalman (SM); a former rating, now merged with Quartermaster. May also refer to the Signal Bridge on the intercom.
• Sims: Simulators
• Single-Digit Midget: Sailor with less that ten days left before their EAOS (end of active obligated service).
• Single up: To remove one ‘loop’ line of a doubled-up line, so that only a single line remains. During the act of getting underway, an order to “Single up all lines” is given, because the lines that are used to keep a ship moored to the pier are often doubled up, such that removal of first one ‘loop’ of line, then the other, is necessary before a ship can move away from the pier.
• Sinker: Loss of contact with a submarine being tracked by a surface ship when the submarine submerges. Also refers to a friend who has become non-responsive. “John and I were buds on the <ship name> but then he went sinker and I never heard from him again.”
• Sinking Sarah: USS Saratoga, which had issues with sinking while tied up alongside the pier.
• Skate (noun): A sailor who avoids work in general while not being detected.
• Skate (verb): To get out of work undetected, e.g. while being assigned to a 15 man working party.
• Skate Golden (verb + adverb): To “skate” out of work while being assigned to a 5 man working party undetected.
• Skater: A skate (see above).
• Skateboard: A clipboard full of random papers carried as a skating prop, to provide a visual “excuse” for wandering around the ship.
• Skeds-O: Schedules Officer.
• Skidmark: The shit stains that one gets in one’s underwear (see Skivvies) that are the result of wiping with cheap government toilet paper.
• Skimmer, Skimmer Puke: Surface sailor (this term is also used in other English-speaking navies – the RN, RCN and RAN).
• Skipper: Term used in reference to the Commanding officer of any Ship, Unit, Platoon, or Detachment regardless of rank. Generally only applied to someone who has earned the speaker’s respect.
• Skittles: Sailors who work on the flight deck of a carrier. So named due to the different colored jerseys they wear. For the same reason, they are sometimes referred to as “Wiggles.”
• Skivvies: Underwear.
• Skivvy waver: Signalman (because of signal flags)
• Skosh: Perilously close to minimum acceptable levels. Example: The F-5 usually lands skosh on fuel. Derived from “sukoshi,” the Japanese word for “a little.”
• Skylarking: Messing around or not doing assigned work. Everyone else working while you watch the clouds go by.
• Sky pilot: A chaplain or priest.
• Slick Sleeve: A sailor in the E-1 paygrade who does not have a rating, and who has not yet graduated from Apprentice training. Therefore, his left sleeve is “slick”, or has no rate or rating insignia at all.
• Sliders: Mess deck/chow hall hamburgers/cheeseburgers, so named for their high grease content and purported ability to ‘slide’ through the alimentary canal. A cheeseburger is sometimes called a “slider with slabs.”
• SLJO: Shitty Little Jobs Officer. The most junior officer aboard ship, who has to handle the most demeaning or illegal duties demanded by HQ.
• SMAG: Engineering Laboratory Technician (ELT). Stands for either “Simple Minded Ass Grabbers” or “Sometimes Mechanic, Always Gay.” To ELTs, it’s “Superior Mechanic, Almost God.”
• Small Boy: Term referring to smaller class ships, such as destroyers and frigates.
• SMIB: Southern Maryland In-Bred. Refers to the locals in and around Naval Air Station Patuxent River.
• Smiles (Game of): A game in which two or more Sailors sit at a specially designed table or bar, typically in the Philippines, and receive fellatio from one or more prostitutes. The first Sailor to smile loses and is required to buy a round.
• Smokin’ and Coke’in’: Derogatory nickname used to describe an unauthorized break, where a sailor takes a smoke break, and grabs a soda out of a vending machine. Also termed as Smokin’ and Jokin’.
• Smoke Check: What results from wiring something incorrectly.
• Smoke Pit: Designated smoking area. This is almost always used when ashore.
• Smoke Test: Turn on recently repaired electronic gear; worst case scenario it smokes, indicating a catastrophic failure.
• Smoking Lamp: Is out or lit in specified spaces or throughout the ship; 1MC announcement specifying where smoking is permitted or prohibited during certain hours or operations.
• Smoking Sponson: Designated smoking area aboard aircraft carriers, usually right below the flight deck on the exterior of the ship’s hull. A great place to catch up on scuttlebutt and unwind after a long day.
• Smooth Crotch/Smoothie: A term for Reactor Control division for their tendencies to find ways to never conduct manual labor.
• Smurf: A recruit who is in his first few days of boot camp who hasn’t been issued uniforms yet, and thus wears a “Smurf Suit” (see below).
• Smurf Suit/Smurfs: Set of blue sweatpants and sweatshirt issued on arrival at boot camp; worn for the first several days and thereafter used mostly for PT.
• S.N.A.F.U. Situation Normal All Fucked Up, or Situation Normal All Fouled Up if you are talking to your mother. During WW2 the name referred to an animated cartoon character in a number of situations which showed servicemen how NOT to perform. These films may be found on YouTube.
• Snake Eaters: Special Forces personnel such as Navy SEALs, Green Berets, etc…
• Snipes: Sailors assigned to the Engineering rates, i.e. Machinists Mates, Boilermen, Enginemen, Pipefitters, Damage Controlman, Hull Technicians, Electricians, Gas Turbine Technicians.
• Snivel: To request time off or to not be scheduled, usually for personal reasons. Most schedule writers will have a “snivel log” for such requests, which may or may not be granted based on the needs of the unit and the sniveler’s standing with the schedules officer (Skeds-O).
• SPLIB: Special Liberty, Comp-Time.
• Spooks: Navy Cryptologic Technicians or other service equivalents. May also be applied to civilians from three-letter agencies riding a naval vessel.
• S.N.O.B.: Shortest Nuke on Board. Term used to refer to the lucky nuke who gets out of the Navy next. This term usually only applies to nukes who have not re-enlisted (i.e. “first-termers”). In rare cases, the S.N.O.B. voluntarily relinquishes his/her title to a “second-termer” that gets out of the Navy earlier who exhibits extreme disgruntlement and is generally accepted by the “first-termers” as one of their own. This person would be given the title of “Honorary S.N.O.B.”
• Snot Locker: The storage area for snot — a person’s nose.
• Socked-in: When the ceiling and visibility at an airfield or over an air-capable ship are below minimums for takeoff and landing.
• S.O.L.: “Shit Out of Luck”
• S.O.S.: Same Old Shit or Shit-on-a-shingle.
• Sonar Girls (Submarine Service): Sonar Technicians. So called because they have the least physically-demanding occupation (sitting in an air-conditioned space, watching a screen), and they have no grease or machinery to deal with.
• Sougee: To scour; sougee powder = generic term for scouring powder, although in yachting refers to a chemical cleaner.
• Sorry Sarah: USS Saratoga.
• Soup Sandwich: Any situation or individual that is FUBAR. Sometimes referred to by specific ingredients, e.g. Split-pea on Rye.
• Sparks: Radioman. From the rating badge which has 4 lightning bolts.
• Sparky: Electricians.
• Spit-kid: in earlier times, a wooden bucket-like container for sailors who chewed tobacco, who spat the result into it. In modern times it is an aluminum rubbish bowl.
• Splash: Name earned by a sailor who has had the good fortune to be recovered after accidentally falling overboard until the ship returns home from deployment.
• Splice the Main Brace: A party; generally involving alcohol. Also, a traditional naval toast. Refers to the brace cable used to hold the mainmast of a sailing ship upright. Splicing such a cable was a daunting task, and the sailor tasked with such a job was given an extra tot of rum for his trouble.
• Split Tails: (old term for) female sailors. Also “Shave Tails.”
• Spook: Usually a IS, CT, or some other kind of intelligence type.
• Spook Shit: Equipment that one doesn’t know the purpose, function or ownership of, which when it’s gone leaves as the only trace of its existence aboard ship an unused circuit breaker labeled “Spook Shit” in grease pencil.
• Spudlocker: Area below the ramp of an aircraft carrier. Landing in the spudlocker results in a broken aircraft and is often fatal. Also used for a potato (spud) storage room.
• Spunk: Cool Whip or anything like it.
• Square Circles: Surface ship operating within an assigned a patrol box.
• Squared Away: a military member that is has it all together.
• Squat to Pee: An ELT (Engineering Laboratory Technician, a water chemistry and radiation monitor on a nuclear powered vessel) or (Submarine Service) by extension, any submarine crewman that is not doing his fair share of the work.
• Squid: a HIGHER form of MARINE life.
• SS: Submarine, class of ship.
• SSBN: Submarine, Ballistic Missile, Nuclear, class of ship. Also called Boomers.
• SSGN: Submarine, Guided Missile, Nuclear, class of ship.
• SSN: Submarine, Nuclear, class of ship. Also called Fast Attack boats, also Saturdays, Sundays, and Nights, for their operating schedule.
• Stacking: The act of crapping on top of some one elses crap when the toilets are secured.
• Stain Us: Derogatory name for USS JOHN C STENNIS (CVN-74).
• Stand By: To wait, can also be to foreshadow chastisement or punishment from a superior.
• Stand by to stand by: Waiting to find out why everyone is waiting for something to maybe happen.
• Standard Navy Redundancy Standard. The near universal habit of repeating the last word in an acronym, e.g. MRC Card: literally Maintenance Requirement Card Card, LEO Ops: Law Enforcment Operations Ops; etc.
• Star tight: See “Gronk”
• Starboard: Right side of the boat or ship (when facing the bow). Right side of an aircraft when facing the nose.
• Steel Beach Picnic: Celebration on the weather decks of a ship. Usually involving near beer and barbecue.
• Stepping out: When a junior sailor often gets into a shouting match with a more senior enlisted man: I.e. a Seaman/Airman/Fireman, getting out of line with a Chief Petty Officer. Usually results in one of two things, either NJP, or a fist fight.
• Stepping in the shit: Refers to a sailor that has made a mistake so large, that it comes to the attention of the Commanding Officer, who instantly begins chewing him out on the spot, Usually remarked on before the Commanding Officer appears, e.g. “Oh, man, did you just step in the shit.”
• Stew burner: a Navy cook
• Storecritter: an old fashioned term for the storekeepler rating, now called logies.
• Striker: Sailor receiving on-the-job training for a designated field (or rate)
• Sticks: The levers in the Maneuvering Room of a diesel submarine that are used to change the settings for the main propuslion motors.
• Stroked Chit: Refers to a form of point deduction during boot camp, a stroked chit is a loss of five points to the company per grading period (one week) until Pass in Review.
• Stupid-: Adjective for remedial training. I had to attend stupid-shoot and stupid-swim after the other trainees were at the club drinking 15-cent beers.
• Sucking Rubber (Submarine Service): Extended periods wearing Emergency Air Breathing devices (EABs), a full-face air mask similar to that worn by firefighters, except fed from ship’s emergency air system rather than a bottle on one’s back. Also refers to wearing a gas mask such as the MCU-2P for protection against chemical, biological or radiological attack.
• Sucking Sarah: Derogatory term used to describe the USS Saratoga (CV-60), also called “The Sucking 60 from Dixie.”
• Summer Creases: A term used to mock someone with a wrinkled shirt. “I see you have summer creases in your shirt. Some’are here, some’are there, some’are everywhere.”
• Super goat: A chief warrant officer.
• SUPPO: Supply Officer on ship.
• Surge: A ship deployment from its home port usually lasting 3 to 6 months, as can occur outside of the normal cruise cycle due to operational commitments.
• Swab: Mop.
• Swabbie: Sailor.
• SWAG: Sonar’s/Scientific Wild Ass Guess.
• Swallow the anchor: Retire.
• SWEATEX: (1) Any evolution or situation, to be performed by an individual, a ship, or even larger unit, subject to scrutiny by a superior, such as a major inspection; (2) An evolution that involves one sailor working while his/her superiors are watching and waiting impatiently. (3) A task that has to be done yesterday.
• Sweat pump(s) / Sweat pump(s) on line/ on overload: See “sweat the load.”
• Sweat the load: Personal stress about being able to perform some task; to feel stress about a situation. see also The Load.
• Swims: Aviation water survival training. This 2-day class must be completed every few years by pilots and aircrew. Consists of classroom and pool instruction and culminates with the dreaded “Dilbert Dunker” and “Helo Dunker.”
• Swinging Dick: Spoken by Marines, and sailors to refer to healthy shipmates while on maneuvers, e.g. “I want every swinging dick on station, right this second.”

T – Tango Navy Terms and Slang

• TACCO: Tactical Coordinator. Usually the senior NFO on a patrol aircraft.
• “Tack on crow”: (Hazing) When promoted in rank, senior and equivalent ranks would tack the crow (solidly punching) patch on one’s arm as good luck so it does not “fall off.” Marines have an equivalent “tack” on each side. Can be “simulated” for a non-hazing by equal connotation. May be followed by a “wetting down.”
• TAD or TDY: Temporary Additional Duty or Temporary Duty
• “Take suction on a seat cushion:” alternative form of “pucker factor.”
• Tango Uniform: See Tits Up
• Tape Zebra: Maddening condition aboard ship, especially aircraft carriers, where passageways are “taped off” so that they may be waxed, dried, and buffed in the middle of the night. It seems that the passageways are purposely chosen to maximize delay and frustration when a pilot has to do an 0-dark-thirty preflight or some other duty. Junior enlisted sailors take special delight in denying officers access to these passageways, and relish in their disgruntled detours. Likewise, junior officers thoroughly enjoy when a man overboard or general quarters is called in the middle of the night, and they rush to get to the head of the line so as to crash through tape zebra and trample through the wet wax.
• TAPS: Announced over the 1MC at 2200 local time, “Taps, Taps…lights out, all hands turn into your bunks, maintain silence about the decks.” “Taps” is a musical piece sounded at dusk, and at funerals, particularly by the U.S. military. It is sounded during flag ceremonies and funerals, generally on bugle or trumpet.
• T.A.R.F.U.: Things Are Really Fucked Up.
• Target (Submarine Service): Term to describe any ship or boat on the surface.
• Tattoo: 5 minutes before TAPS
• TDU (Submarine Service): Trash Disposal Unit. Sophisticated AN-DEEP-6 weapons system.
• The Boat: Airdale term for the ship their airwing is attached to. “We’re going to The Boat for a few weeks.”
• The Hole: Main machinery space where an engineer works. “What do you do onboard?” “I work in The Hole.” Also “The Pit”.
• Three Frame Rule: Refers to a sailor or situation that is inherently dangerous. A frame on a ship is its ribs and they are set a certain distance apart so if your ships frames are 3’ apart the rule is 9’. As in: “BM2 keeps parting lines on the capstan. I’m putting a three frame rule on him. I don’t want to die.”
• Three steel balls: Meant to be humorous but oddly accurate reference to a sailor or situation acting like a sailor: “Put a sailor in a room with three steel balls. Come back an hour later: one will be missing, one will be broken, and one will be in his pocket.” In an alternative version one will be pregnant.
• Tiger Team: Junior enlisted of all ratings (E-3 and below) who are tasked to clean the engine room prior to inspection, such as GITMO Refresher training or evaluation.
• Tin can: Destroyer. Designated Driver, from DD.
• Tin Chicken: US Merchant Marine Officer Insignia on a US Naval Officers uniform, often worn above the SWO pin. The beak of the eagle can be used as an emergency bottle opener.
• Titivate: To spruce up or clean up the ship and its company.
• Titless Wave: Male clerical personnel such as yeomen, storekeepers, personnelmen, and other desk jockeys, pencil pushers, etc. See “sea pussy.”
• Tits Machine: Old-school term for a kick-ass aircraft, usually a fighter, that consisted of little more than an airframe, minimal avionics, and a huge engine or two. The F-8 Crusader was universally accepted as a tits machine. The F-14 Tomcat was also widely accepted. Today’s modern electronic video game fighters like the F/A-18 will never be in the same ballpark.
• Tits Up: Broke-dick, inoperable, dead (from some piece of equipment being “flat on its back”). Sometimes referred to as “Tango Uniform”
• TLD (Nuclear): Thermo-Luminescent Dosimeter. More Affectionately “Tiny Little Dick.” Worn by nukes and submarine crewmembers to measure radiation received over time. Often a good source of humor for when the topsiders ask what they are for.
• Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club: Those elements of the Pacific Fleet which operated in the referenced waters 1965-1975.
• Topsider: Anyone who is not a nuke, or Engineer. On other surface ships.
• Torpedo Sponge: Similar to “Missile Sponge”, this refers to the smaller ships in a convoy, whose duty it is to protect the carrier, to the point of taking the torpedo hit for the carrier if needed.
• Training Anchorage (TRANCH): A frustrating, fuel-saving method of practicing battle tactics electronically among ships while at anchor, usually within sight of an attractive liberty port.
• Training Aids: Logically, these are items used to assist by demonstration some point in a training lecture. On submarines, there are also Sonar Training Aids which are any meaty foods with a phallic shape.
• Training Videos: Porn videos.
• Transistor Theory: Naval explanation for how electrons travel backwards and holes actually carry electrical current. Just press the I Believe button. (Often referred to by civilian instructors when explaining to baffled sailors the haphazard components that seem to work by sheer magic such as transistors, zener diodes, joint effect field effect transistors, shockley diodes, metal oxide field effect transistors, etc.) Akin to PFM (pure fucking magic).
• Trap: A fixed-wing arrested landing on an aircraft carrier. In the helo world, the Rapid Securing and Transfer (RAST) on the deck of a “small boy.”
• Trice Up a rack. “All hands heave out and trice up.” Or jump out of your rack and make it. (Originally referred to hammocks, in days of yore before berthing spaces.). More correctly, the “trice” is the bottom (third) rack, being built to fold up against the bulkhead/stanchion (see above), so when the command “Trice-up” was given, the rack would be folded up, allowing compartment cleaners to sweep and swab under that bottom rack.
• Triced Up: Trapped in a rack more cramped then usual, as a result of shipmates opening one’s rack while one is sleeping in it (after they discover one forgot to secure it shut before getting in). (It is usually impossible to be triced up in a top rack, as top racks usually have no ceiling.)
• Trident: Special Warfare Insignia earned by Navy SEALS. See “Budweiser”. Also the name of the current submarine-launched nuclear missile and its systems.
• Trons: Those in the AT Rate, primarily O Level, who work in Navy avionics.
• Tronchaser: Those in the AT (primarily I Level) rate who work on Navy avionics.
• TSC: Tactical Support Center, shore-based briefing/debriefing/analysis and operational control center for VP (patrol aviation) missions. See also ASWOC.
• Tube steak: Hot dogs (also, called “dangling sirloin”).
• Tubes (Submarine Service): (nickname for) the senior torpedoman (now MM-Weapons) onboard. This individual is in charge of the torpedoes and the torpedo tubes, hence the name.
• Tuna Boat: A sub tender or other non-combat ship that is crewed primarily by female sailors. See also “Love Boat.” “We’re going to have great liberty this port: A tuna boat just pulled in!”
• Turd Chasers: Nickname for individuals assigned to the Hull Maintenance Technician (HT) and Seabees Utilities Man (UT) rating because their shipboard and base duties include plumbing. An E-7 HT is an HTC, “Head Turd Chaser”.
• Turkey: Slang for the F-14 Tomcat
• Turn ‘n’ Burn: “Hurry up! Let’s get going!” The term alludes to the practice of bombers over enemy territory turning after they have dropped their bombs and igniting their afterburners so as to exit hostile territory more quickly.
• Turn-to: Get to work.
• TWAT: (old term for) a TWT.
• Tweak and Peak: To fine tune something (uniform, rack, hair, etc); usually for inspection preparation.
• Tweeker: (1) (Submarine Service) An electronics rating; any engineering rating not gronking a wrench. (Rarely applied to rates such as ET and AT who “tweak” electronic components to make them work again.) (2) The small screwdriver used to tweak and peak electronics. Sometimes also be referred to as a P3. (3) (Aviation) An AT who spends most of his time complaining about how cold it is in the AIMD tunnel to those that work in open air spaces in or around the desert.
• Tweener (Submarine Service): Affectionate term for Missile Technicians on Ballistic Missile Submarines. Usually called out during the “Coner” and “Nuke” throwbacks, since the Missile Compartment is “between” the Forward (Coner) and Engineering (Nuke) spaces.
• Twidget: Sailor in the Electronics or Electrical fields of job specialties.
• Twig: Medical Service Corps officer. So named for the slanting stem attached to their device.
• Two-block: To have all the work one can handle. Derived from when the blocks on a block and tackle are together and can not lift any higher. “My guys are two-blocked.”
• Two-Digit Midget: Sailor with 99 or less days until his/her “End of Active Obligated Service”, or EAOS.
• TWT: Traveling Wave Tube Amplifier : A component used in DECM/ECM equipment.
• Tweak: An Aviation Electronics Technician or AT.

U – Uniform Navy Terms and Slang

• UA: Unauthorized absence: (Navy term for) AWOL.
• Uncle Sam’s Canoe Club: The US Coast Guard.
• Uncle Sam’s Confused Group (USCG): The US Coast Guard. So called because it is the 5th branch of the armed forces, yet falls under the control of the Department of Homeland Security.
• Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children (USMC): The Marines.
• Uncle Sam’s Yacht Club: The US Navy.
• Underway Sock: See “Cruise sock.”
• UNODIR: Unless Otherwise Directed; enables trust-based management by exception (MBE).
• Unicorn: An officer with a particularly rare designator (i.e. METOC)
• UNREP: Underway Replenishment: The taking of supplies from a supply ship by maneuvering alongside it and passing lines between it and one’s own vessel. Differs from “VERTREP.”
• UNSAT: Unsatisfactory: Below standards.
• Up the hawse hole/pipe: An enlisted man going officer. See “Mustang”.
• USS Backyard: A sailor’s home of record, to which he or she happily returns upon discharge.
• USS Belcrash: The USS Belknap (CG-26). So called in reference to her collision with the USS Kennedy in 1975.
• USS Forestfire: The USS Forrestal (CV-59). So called due to the number of fires that have broken out on board ship.
• USS Immobile Bay: USS Mobile Bay (CG-53). So called due to the time spent pierside during work ups for deployment after Mobile Bay failed INSURV inspection in 2011.
• USS In-Port Royal: The USS Port Royal (CG-73). So called due to time spent in port after running aground near entrance to Pearl Harbor.
• USS Lastship: The ship a sailor was on previously. Used when a sailors try to tell stories about their previous ships, or how things were handled on their previous ships. Compare “USS Ustafish.”
• USS Lake Cham Pain: The USS Lake Champlain.
• USS Neverdock: Any ship that seems to stay out at sea for unusually long periods of time. For sailors, this is usually their own ship.
• USS Neversail: (1) Any mock-up ship found in boot camp. Also called USS Recruit. (2) Any real ship which seldom leaves port, for example a sub tender.
• USS Oriskany CVA34, Carriers today are designated as CV, During the VietNam error the A added to CV stood for attack carrier.
• USS Loungechair: The fictional ship sailors serve on when they retire.
• USS Notagain (DD 214): The fictional ship which sailors who are separating from the Navy specify when they are asked which command they are going to, or which former sailors specify when new personnel ask which ship they are on. “DD 214” is the form that must be filled out before a member of the military may be discharged. “DD” was also the type designation for pre-missile destroyers.
• USS Slurpeefish: The USS SAN FRANCISCO. So called because the ship’s hull is number SSN 711.
• USS Ustafish (Submarine Service): The boat a sailor was on previously. Pronounced “used to fish”, the term is a reference to the time when attack boats were named after fish. Compare “USS Lastship.” “We don’t want to hear about your Ustafish stories.”
• USS Zippo: Derogatory name for USS Forrestal (CV 59) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_USS_Forrestal_fire

V – Victor Navy Terms and Slang

• VA Veterans Administration / Department of Veterans Affairs: A department of the US Federal Government that assists military veterans with medical care, educational benefits for college of technical training, home loans, burial, etc.
• VA: Fixed wing attack Aircraft Squadrons. No longer in use, see VFA
• VAQ: Fixed Wing Electronic Attack aircraft Squadrons.
• VAW: Fixed Wing Carrier Airborne Early Warning aircraft Squadrons.
• Vampire Liberty: A day off one gets for donating a pint of blood.
• VASTARD: Sailors that work with the AN/USM247(V) Versatile Avionics Shop Test (VAST) operational from 1972-2006. Used for testing Weapons Replaceable Assemblies (WRA’s) on E-2C Hawkeyes, F-14 Tomcats, and S-3 Vikings. Typically these shops are found on aircraft carriers just forward of hangar bay 1 on the 01 level. Part of the Aircraft Intermediate Maintenance Department (AIMD), IM3 (Avionics) division.
• VBSS: Visit, Board, Search, Seizure: Marinetime boarding actions and tactics.
• VC: Viet Cong: Guerilla forces in South Vietnam allied with the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) during the Vietnam War. Also called “Charlie” from phoenetic “Victor Charlie.”
• VC: Fixed Wing Composite aircraft squadrons.
• VD: Venereal Disease, also know as the clap, Gonnorea or syphillis.
• Veal Wheels: Veal Parmesan. A.K.A. Elephant Scabs.
• VERTREP: Vertical Replenishment: The taking of supplies (resupply) from a supply ship via helo pick-up and drop-off. Historically, the CH-46 Sea Knight (see “Phrog”) was used for such resupply, although any aircraft with a cargo hook installed can do. Differs from “UNREP.”
• Very well: Expression of acknowledgement a senior gives a subordinate.
• VF: Fixed Wing Fighter Aircraft Squadrons. No longer in use, see VFA
• VFA: Fixed Wing Strike Fighter Squadron, made up of Legacy F/A-18C or D model Hornets or F/A-18E,F or G model Super Hornets.
• Vitamin M: Motrin, which is occasionally used to combat the various aches/pains/headaches associated with military service. Compare “Corpsman Candy.”
• VP: Fixed Wing Patrol Aircraft Squadrons.
• VS: Fixed Wing Anti Submarine Squadrons. With the retirement of the S-3B Viking all VS squadrons have been decommissioned.
• VT: Fixed Wing Training Squadrons.
• VX: Fixed Wing Experimental Aircraft Squadrons.
• Vulcan Death Watch: 12 hours of drills separated by 3 rotations of watches. If one is on Vulcan Death Watch, one is up oncoming as drill team, on watch then offgoing as casualty response team, potentially followed by another 6 hour watch.
• Vultures’ Row: The place from which people can watch flight operations without being in the way, typically the O-7 to O-9 level on an aircraft carrier’s island.

W – Whiskey Navy Terms and Slang

• Walking, Talking Road Mark: Used during boot camp to refer to a recruit that is a complete loss at military bearing, appearence, and formalities, a recruit that causes his company to constantly lose points at inspections, drills, etc. These recruits usually end up getting ASMO’ed to a company that is earlier in training.
• War Chicken: A derogatory term for the Special Warfare Insignia earned by Navy SEALS.
• Wardroom: Officer’s mess, or dining room. Also used to collectively refer to all the officers at a command.
• Warm Blood: An individual who has not crossed the Arctic Circle or Antarctic Circle, who must go through rituals, that sometimes cross the line to be hazing, to become a Blue Nose or Red Nose, respectively. See crossing the line, shellback, and pollywog.
• Warrant: A warrant officer. In the navy warrants are generally older and more experienced in a particular area of expertise than a commissioned line officer, much like an “LDO.” Warrants are competitively selected from the senior (E7–E9) enlisted ranks. By definition are technical specialists.
• Watch: A period of duty, usually of four-hours duration. The day at sea has long been divided into watches, which are called: Midwatch or Balls to 4 (0000 to 0400); morning or rev (reveille) watch (0400 to 0800); forenoon watch (0800 to 1200); afternoon watch (1200 to 1600); dog watches (1600-1800 and 1800-2000); and the first watch (2000 to 2400). (Submarines) Usually eight hours but sometimes four or twelve. (0000 to 0800) “Mids”, (0800 – 1600) “Days”, and (1600 – 2400) “Swings.” Over-manned watches have a “Kick” which splits Days or Swings into two four-hour watches. Under-manned watches are Port and Starboard with an 8-4-4-8 daily rotation. Watch sections may or may not rotate with anything resembling a schedule.
• Watch condition: Ship’s readiness condition:(Denoted by Roman numerals) I: maximum readiness (GQ) all hands at their battle stations, material condition Zebra set (maximum damage control readiness.) IA: (“One Alpha”) Modified GQ to conduct amphibious operations. IE or Modified GQ, relaxed GQ condition during extended GQ period, primarily to allow chow; II: Similar to IA, for extended Naval Gunfire Support; III: Wartime cruising, higher state of readiness with some battle stations manned; IV: normal (peacetime) underway watch.
• Water wars: Water fights in the engineering spaces, including the use of hot brine, disassembling ventilation ducting, rigging temporary air hoses, and dumping trash cans full of water on the deck. An important component of the war on boredom.
• Water Wings: Derogatory term used (usually by Naval Aviators), for the Surface Warfare Officer qualification badge.
• WAVES: Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Services.
• WAVE Cage: A female only open-bay BEQ, also known as a “meat market” by some Sailors. Buildings 29 and 91 at NTC/SSC San Diego, the female A-School barracks, for example.
• Wayspouse: Sailors’ spouses waiting on the pier, if sufficiently overweight that they could be used as navigation waypoints.
• WEFT: Typically it stands for “Wings, Exhaust (or Engine, for prop aircraft), Fuselage, Tail” and is a method by which ship’s lookout stations can visually identify aircraft within the vicinity. However, since training for this tends to be spotty at best, identification of aircraft is often incorrect, leading to the second definition: “Wrong Every Fucking Time.”
• Weaponeer: A member of the Weapons Department.
• Welded to the Pier: A Ship being in an extended period of refit at a shipyard or naval base, which prevents it from making ready for sea for several months or longer. Can also refer to a ship that rarely goes to sea.
• WESTPAC: While this usually refers to the western Pacific area of operations, it can also refer to a type of deployment in which a unit heads to multiple locations throughout said area. Often used in, “Damn, we just did a six-month WESTPAC, barely got home for a week, and now we’re heading out again?”
• WESTPAC widow: Sailor’s wife looking for a temporary fling, often with another sailor.
• Wet Suit Camel Toe: A disturbing sight caused by a (usually older and) fatter rescue swimmer attempting to squeeze into his wet suit for SAR duty. Often seen entering and exiting helos that are providing SAR services.
• Wet Willie: Joke played on a sleeping sailor by licking a finger, and sticking it into the unsuspecting sleeping sailor’s ear to mimic the feel of a penis being inserted into the ear, usually met with several groans by onlookers.
• Wetting down: Party celebrating a promotion/advancement or warfare qualification. Traditionally the metal device is dropped in a beer glass, and “wet down.”
• Wheels: A Quartermaster (QM).
• Wheel Book: Green covered pocket-sized government issue notebook carried by most Petty Officers and Chiefs.
• Whidbey Whale: A dependent wife that is Orca fat even though her husband has maintained the same basic size during their marriage
• Whistling Shit Can of Death: CH-46 Seaknight Helicopter, described as such because of the whistling sound the engines make, and because the CH-46 has been prone to failures, and has killed its share of air crews.
• White Rats: Tampons which appear after a sewage leak in the female head. Also, a sound powered telephone amplifier.
• Whiz Quiz: “Piss Test,” urinalysis.
• Widow/Widower: Describes wives (and now husbands) with spouses on deployment. Single, for all intents and purposes, until the day their spouse returns from deployment. Prefaced by the type or theater of service the deployed spouse is in, e.g. “WESTPAC widow” or “Boomer Widow.”
• Wings: Naval Aviator or Naval Flight Officer breast insignia. Also the Enlisted Aviation Warfare Specialist breast insignia.
• Wing-nut: See airdale.
• Wire Biter: An electrician.
• Wizzard: Topsider insult for a nuc. Refers to nucs’ insistance to dress like Morpheus from the Matrix and propensity for playing Magic (The Gathering) and World of Warcraft endlessly.
• Wolf Ticket: Highly suspect information. Can refer to malicious “scuttlebutt,” exaggerated “no-shitters,” or blatently phony sea stories.
• Woop: A cadet at the US Military Academy (West Point).
• Workups: 1- to 6-week periods preceding a deployment during which the ship and/or its airwing practice and prepare. Widely known workups involving the carrier and the airwing are TSTA, COMPTUEX, and RIMPAC. Airwing only workups include trips to NAS Fallon and NAS Key West.
• Wrinkle Bomb: A uniform worn by a sailor that is wrinkled so badly that it looks like the sailor slept in it. See “Raisin.”
• “Wrong answer, RPOC!”: What Company Commanders in boot camp would scream at the RPOC when he/unit screwed up. Immediately followed by, “Push up, position, Shitbags!” Example: “WHY THE FUCK DID YOU LET THEM MARCH BACK FROM CHOW?!?” “I thought you wanted us back early for the inspection, Sir!” “Wrong answer, RPOC!”
• WTF (pronounced “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” using the phonetic alphabet): “What the Fuck?” What just happened? Can also be in written form WTF K (with a line over the K) meaning “WTF Over”
• Weaponette (Submarine Service): A member of a submarine’s Weapons Department (used by members of the Navigation/Operations Department or Engineering Department, usually when they want their stolen tools back).
• Wog: Short for “pollywog”, as in “wog ceremony.”
• Wog Dog: Sailor acting as a vicious dog and part of the “Royal Party” during Shellback initiation.
• Word Shitter: Another name for those embossing label makers. They “shit” words out when one squeezes the handle.
• Working Party: When there is loading of supplies, the Quarterdeck will call for a “working party” to be manned by each division of the ship, the number depending on the task.
• Would you like a kick to help you get airborne?: Seen on a numerical list of epithet substitutions, especially transmitted over radio, which has to stay clean.
• W.U.N.A: World´s Ugliest Naval Aviator.

X – X Ray Navy Terms and Slang

• XO: Executive Officer: The second-in-Command of a ship, aviation squadron or shore command, second in authority to the Commanding Officer.
• XOI: Executive Officer’s Inquiry: A step in the non-judicial punishment process in which the wayward sailor appears before the executive officer (XO). After hearing the details of the case, the XO may recommend dismissal or refer it to the Commanding Officer (CO) for “Mast.”
• XO’s Happy Hour: A daily, hour-long mandatory cleaning evolution. Usually introduced by XO on the 1MC.
• X-Ray Fitting : (1) A hatch, scuttle or the like which in normal condition is closed both in-port and at-sea. (See material condition) (2) (see “Fan room”) A room where contraband may be hidden or for sexual relations while at-sea (3) Historically, where a chief petty officer would take subordinates to “make” them comply (using several punches to the face).
• Xox (verb): To enter engineering log data suspiciously similar to the previous hour’s log data. Derived from “xerox.”

Y – Yankee Navy Terms and Slang

• Yacht Club: U.S. Navy.
• Yardbird: A civilian shipyard worker.
• YARFO: “You Ain’t Reactor? Fuck Off.” This slogan was adopted by Reactor Departments on CVNs in response to the Aviation Ordnance slogan “IYAOYAS.”
• YGFBKM: “You’ve Got to Fucking Be Kidding Me!”
• YGTBSM: “You’ve Got To Be Shitting Me!”

Z – Zulu Navy Terms and Slang

• Zero: Officer. Usually applied to a young junior officer, such as an O-1 (ENS / 2ndLt), and O-2 (LTJG / 1stLt) or an O-3 (LT / Capt).
• Zippo: (1) A flame thrower attached to a small boat, or a boat so equipped. (2) (Derogatory) Nickname for the USS Forrestal (CV 59) after the fire on 29 July 1967 that killed 134 sailors and injured 161 on the aircraft carrier.
• Zoom Bag: Navy flight suit, generally fireproof Nomex.
• Zoomie: (1) An aviator; generally refers to a USAF pilot or navigator/combat systems officer. (2) (especially in the plural, “zoomies“) On a nuclear ship, a (nonstandard) unit of radiation, such as is present in a compartment containing or near nuclear weapons or a naval nuclear reactor. “I wouldn’t go back there unless you want to get some zoomies!” Also used of radiation picked up on one’s personal dosimeter (the radiation measuring devices worn by weapons- or nuclear-trained personnel). “How many zoomies did you get today?” (3) A cadet at the US Air Force Academy.
• Zone inspection: A formal inspection of spaces conducted by a team headed by the XO.
• ZUG: Negative. An obsolete / unofficial procedure signal. Retired RMs may often use ZUG in place of “no” or “negative.”
• ZUT: CW (Morse radiotelegraphy): “forever.” An obsolete / unofficial procedure signal. Retired RMs may have a ZUT certificate or even a ZUT tattoo.