Embrace the Suck

An expanded edition of 2007’s Embrace the Suck, this pocket guide to milspeak is the perfect gift for anyone who is in the military, veterans, or who plans to serve.

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

Bombardier Books; 2nd edition, Revised and Expanded (2018)
Compiled and Introduced by Col. Austin Bay

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First published in 2007, Col. Bay’s dictionary of “Milspeak” – military jargon, technicalese, slang, and whatnot – drew its title from the modern soldier’s term, “the Suck”, for what Clausewitz called “friction”, that is, the inevitable dysfunctionalities and surprises – both great and small – that crop up in war that must be understood and accepted if the war fighters are to succeed.

In preparing this second edition, Bay has added a new introduction, which reviews post-2007 developments in military conflicts, and includes a number of sketches that illustrate equipment such as radios or flash glasses, as well as ideas such as “Road Toad”, a soldier assigned to road guard duty, and even a few maps.
Read a sample of terms | More Info on the Book | Read StrategyPage’s Full Book Review

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

This comprehensive field manual, complete with descriptive and humorous illustrations, includes more than 500 colorful entries. Read a sample

Embrace the Suck is the perfect gift for the soldier, sailor, marine, or airman in your life—or for the Beltway Clerk* who yearns to speak like one.
*Derisive term for a Washington political operative or civilian political hatchet man. May refer to so-called “Washington defense experts” who’ve never served in the armed forces.
–Bombardier Books

500+ entries, including:

Beltway Clerk: A derisive term for a Washington political operative or civilian political hatchet man – in other words, someone who trades on his supposed political connections. May refer to so-called “Washington defense experts” who have never served in the armed forces.

Embrace the suck: The situation is bad, deal with it.

Voluntold: Derisive slang for “I was ordered to volunteer.”

Back to the taxpayers: Navy slang for where a wrecked aircraft gets sent.

Dome of obedience: Slang for a military helmet. Also called a brain bucket or Skid Lid.

Echelons above reality: Higher headquarters where no one has an idea about what is really happening.

Abrams: U.S. M1 tank. Most common version in Iraq is M1-A1. Has a 120-millimeter main gun, one M2 heavy machine gun mounted at the commander’s station, an M240 machine gun at the loader’s station, and one M240 machine gun coaxially mounted to the right of the main gun.

ACM: Anti-Coalition Militia. Basically anybody shooting at U.S. and coalition soldiers.

ACU: Army Combat Uniform (new-style camouflage uniform with Velcro nametags and unit patches).

AFU: All Fucked Up. Pronounced “ah-foo.” (“Man, look at him…he’s AFU.”)

Back door draft: The “Stop Loss,” i.e., being held past the end of your enlistment so that you can deploy to Iraq or Afghanistan. Imposing Stop Loss means halting all military separations and retirement during times of war, extended deployments, or National Emergency. See: ETS.

Embrace the Suck — first edition
(Pamphleteer Press, 2007)
Compiled and Introduced by Col. Austin Bay