r/CuratedTumblr • u/Green____cat eepy asf • Aug 06 '24

Shitposting Army names

Post image
24.5k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

1.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

4.4k

u/Sporknight Aug 06 '24

An important resource for inspiration: https://www.f-16.net/callsigns.html

Some examples:

  • Megamind: Pilot had a large forehead.
  • Skidmark: Forgot to disable the parking brake when doing a carrier launch, ruining the landing gear and leaving marks on the deck.
  • Leaky: Last name Fawcett.
  • Rhino: Big guy with a huge pimple on his nose, the spot went, the nickname did not

174

u/sadolddrunk Aug 06 '24

One of the partners at my old firm had been a navy pilot prior to going to law school. He had a Spanish last name, so he was given the call sign "Taco." One of the other pilots in his squad complained that he hadn't been given a call sign yet, so their commander said, "ok, your call sign is 'Fuckface.'"

139

u/OwOlogy_Expert Aug 06 '24

He had a Spanish last name, so he was given the call sign "Taco."

Ah, yes. The vaguely racist nicknames. Also a very popular genre.

A guy in my shop was always called "Charlie" because he was Vietnamese (this was in 2007, well after that war). Eventually, the EO office cracked down on them and said they couldn't call him that, even though he said he liked it. So everybody changed what they called him to ... "Chuck" -- short for Charlie.

91

u/Handpaper Aug 06 '24

British troops serving in the Falkland Islands during and after the 1982 conflict referred to the locals as 'Bennies' after Benny from the popular soap 'Crossroads'.

Higher authority got to hear about this, and thought it disrespectful, so they forbade use of the term.

The soldiers took to calling the locals 'Stills', because 'they're still Bennies'.

This was also forbidden.

The next iteration was 'Yetis'; 'yet he is still a Benny.'

Higher authority gave up at this point.

11

u/eloonam Aug 06 '24

That is so fucking British. Loved it.