Jarhead

Watched Jarhead a few days ago. You can watch that trailer here. IMDb users give it a rating of 7.3. You can purchase the DVD from Amazon.com. The movie is actually based on the book written by Anthony Swofford – Jarhead : A Marine’s Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles. Actually, I entered this movie pretty much uninterested. However, the movie turned out a lot better than I expected. I wouldn’t say the movie was touching, but it felt really real, though I’m not sure how real it is.

jarhead posterjarhead poster

Spoilers: (Show)

Funny thing was as I was driving home today, the radio was talking about the origin of Hoo-Ah (or Hoorah). If you watch the movie you’ll notice they say it at least a few hundred times in the movie. I dont recall if it was a Marines term only, or if it was any soldier term, but the best origin of this term supposed comes from the acronym HUA which which stands for Heard, Understood, and Acknowledged. Hoo-Ah in can mean anything from okay to a scream of joy. I originally thought it originated from the word Hooray (which apparently originated from the word Huzzah which sailors used). But it appears there are many theories on how this utterance originated.

Here’s an interesting article from Marine Corps Times: “Hooah”: A singularly odd word goes everywhere soldiers do

By Nick Wadhams
Associated Press

BAGHDAD — In the Army, which has so many acronyms, expressions and opaque phrases that it seems to deserve its own language, there is one word that is quite possibly uttered more than any other.

That word is “hooah.” Pronounced HOO-ah. Alternatively spelled hua and huah.

Attend a company command meeting and you’ll hear hooah uttered as often as a 15-year-old says “like” or “you know.” Head to the post exchange and buy a Hooah Energy Bar or Hoo-Ahhs wet wipes or HOOAH2O water.

It’s not just in Iraq. At U.S. bases around the world, hooah seems an inseparable element of Army life.

Just don’t try to define it. And definitely don’t try to figure out where it comes from.

“I believe it came from hurrah. It basically means everything from ‘yes’ and ‘yes, sir,’ to ‘that’s great,”’ said Capt. James Lowe, public affairs officer for the 506th Regimental Combat Team. “You could use it as a generalized cheer. It’s one of those multipurpose phrases — when in doubt, say hooah.”

That doesn’t even begin to cover it.

They shout hooah to get motivated, and they whisper it when they concur with something someone just said. Hooah means you understood something, or is the proper reply when someone says “thank you.” On the other hand, it may also be used to say “thank you.”

Hooah is a catchall phrase that will get you out of any situation, particularly when receiving a scolding from a higher-ranking officer.

“You use it when you’ve got a flame on your butt and you’re just trying to extinguish it,” said Capt. Brian Buckner, 30, of Sumter, S.C.

Take this conversation, overheard recently outside the mess hall at Camp Rustamiyah, on Baghdad’s eastern outskirts:

Soldier 1: How you doing?

Soldier 2: Fine. How you doing?

Soldier 1: Hooah.

For the different branches of the military, each vastly competitive with and jealous of its distinctions from one another, hooah has become something of a sore point. Marines and sailors have their own saying, more of a “hoo-RAH” or a “hoo-yah,” which they claim is entirely separate in origin.

The Air Force brass once reportedly got so irked about sharing “hooah” with the Army that it tried to get airmen to shout “Air power!” instead. But “Air power!” did not have the same potency as “hooah,” and has been largely abandoned.

Sgt. Joe Carter, a 23-year-old from Kennett, Mo., recalls how, after arriving at basic training, he and other young Army recruits attended a motivational talk from their commander.

“When we first got there, the commander gave a speech, and at the end he told us, ‘I want to hear a loud and thunderous hooah!”’ Carter said. “We were real pumped and amped up.”

Yet the use of hooah by the uninitiated is generally frowned on. Carter recounted that a drill sergeant barred him and his fellow recruits from saying hooah until they had finished the basic course and earned the right.

And civilians uttering hooah are generally looked upon with either disdain or the astonishment of a person who has just heard a koala bear recite lines from e.e. cummings.

As with any good word, the origins of hooah are highly disputed.

Some claim it derives from the military acronym HUA — Heard, Understood, Acknowledged.

Another tale: When Army Rangers landed at Omaha Beach on D-Day in 1944, a sergeant ordered them to scale the cliffs looming above them and neutralize the German pillboxes perched on top. One soldier, aghast at the idea, responded, “Who, us?” Soldiers ended up following the order, in what became one of the most celebrated acts of World War II.

Then there’s the theory that hooah comes from hurrah and hooray, themselves believed to be bastardizations of the sailor’s cry “huzzah,” which dates back to the 16th century.

With the Internet widening the forum for debate, blog entries suggesting definitions of hooah have been met with dozens upon dozens of comments from those who think they know better.

With all the derivations that exist, a few souls have tried to come up with an official meaning. One such half-serious, half-humorous definition, listed by the Urban Dictionary, reads in part: “U.S. Army slang. Referring to or meaning anything and everything except ‘no.’ Generally used when at a loss for words.”

Lt. Col. Brian Winski, commander of the Army’s 1st Squadron, 61st Cavalry Regiment, who sometimes says “hooah” so often it seems to have entered into his subconscious, isn’t entirely satisfied with that definition, but says it will have to suffice.

“That’s about right if you have to really box it in,” he said. “I guess that’s about as close as you could get.”

Another interesting phrase they used was pink mist. This was the phrase to mean head shot. It took me awhile to figure out what the heck pink mist was, but as it turns out, it’s the blood that splatters out behind the head, creating a pink mist.

One Reply to “Jarhead”

  1. On “Pink Mist”

    If you watch a two part episode of Gray’s Anatomy, where a Man comes in with a unexploded home-made bazooka shell in his chest. Halfway through, someone was explaining that when a bomb of sufficent size goes off, all thats let is “Pink Mist”.

    A friend of mine, who’s brother in-law is very famous bomb-squad guy, Confirmed this. Hope it helps

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