Welcome to SNAFUBAR! Here in the SNAFUBAR, we explore American military history and America’s national myths, or stories or traditional narratives. We’ll talk about some mishaps, about errors, both strategic and moral. And we’ll focus, a lot of the time, on tension points, on those places where our beliefs and our behaviors don’t quite match up. We’ll look at the ways that our national culture romanticizes (even fetishizes) the military, while not always providing the support that service-members need to carry out their objectives, and not meeting veterans’ needs when they return from service, especially when that service involves combat. We are happy to have you along as we discuss a variety of different topics and historical periods. This week, we are diving into the topic of military lingo, a way of speaking that is embedded in everyday life of former and current military personnel. It's also really popular among civilians too! It turns out, a lot of the phrases and metaphors we use everyday got their origins in the military. In this episode, there are plenty of topics and stories that will make you stop and think about the language we use to describe our lived experiences. What do these words and metaphors we live by reveal about how navigate and understand the world around us? Why do Americans use military lingo and language in everyday conversation? Of course, we will find time to laugh and reflect on our own experiences, highlighting some key historical and social developments that might be partially responsible for introducing military jargon into our everyday lives. We hope you enjoy this episode! SNAFUBAR is hosted by Sara Hart, who teaches Religious Studies at Cal Poly Humboldt, and Jeff Crane who is an Environmental Historian and Dean of the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at Cal Poly Humboldt. Research and writing for the show is done by Liam Salcuni, Lecturer with the History Department at Cal Poly Humboldt, and Roman Sotomayor. SNAFUBAR is produced by Abigail Smithson and brought to you by the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at Cal Poly Humboldt. Works Cited: Garard, Olivia. “Every Brief Ever.” War on the Rocks. October 27th, 2020. https://warontherocks.com/2020/10/every-brief-ever/. Greene, Joseph I. The Infantry Journal Reader. Doubleday, Doran, and Company, 1944. https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.78561/page/n5/mode/1up Lakoff, George., Johnson, Mark. Metaphors We Live By. University of Chicago Press, 1981. Martill, Jr. O. W., Mock, Alfred J., et al. Military Review: Professional Journal of the US army, (1974):https://cgsc.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/api/collection/p124201coll1/id/393/page/0/inline/p124201coll1_393_0. McGurk, Marshall, “When Understanding Goes M.I.A: Lost in Metaphors, Idioms, and Analogies,” Harding Project Substack. March 26th, 2024. https://www.hardingproject.com/p/when-understanding-goes-mia-lost Murray, Thomas E. “The Language of Naval Fighter Pilots.” American Speech 61, no. 2 (1986): 121-129, https://www.jstor.org/stable/455158?seq=1.
