Robert Kaplan - Hog Pilots, Blue Water Grunts

p-way:passageway on a vessel.

QMC:quartermaster chief.

QRF:quick reaction force.

quartermaster chief:a petty officer responsible for a ship’s helm and its navigating apparatus.

rack:U.S. Navy term for bunk.

RAMOD:of a submarine, to reach and maintain ordered depth.

Red Flag:principal large force exercise of the U.S. Air Force.

rhino:prison wagon retrofitted with heavy armor for use in Baghdad.

ROE:rules of engagement.

ROK:Republic of Korea (South Korea).

ropeyarns:running errands on a ship.

RPG:rocket-propelled grenade.

RTN:Royal Thai Navy.

SAC:Strategic Air Command. U.S. Air Force command responsible for U.S. bombers and the ballistic missile nuclear arsenal during the Cold War (1946–92).

Sahel:a belt of savannah and scrub south of the Sahara Desert.

SAM:Soviet-made surface-to-air missile. See SA-2.

SARNEG:search-and-rescue number encryption grid. It enables a downed pilot to send his GPS coordinates in code without giving away his location.

SA-2:the most widely used surface-to-air defense missile. It was developed by the Soviet Union in 1959.

savannah:a plain of coarse grasslands and scattered trees in a tropical or subtropical area of seasonal rainfall.

SAW:squad automatic weapon. A lightweight, portable machine gun.

screw:propeller on a submarine.

Seabee:member of a Navy construction battalion who builds land facilities in combat zones.

SEAL:commando team of the U.S. Navy. Acronym for “sea, air, land.”

SF:Special Forces. Highly trained branch of the U.S. Army that specializes in unconventional warfare. Popularly called Green Berets, though they don’t often refer to themselves as such.

shack:to bomb.

side boy:enlisted seaman who stands at the gangway as a sign of respect to a visitor entering or leaving a vessel.

SM:standard missile.

smart:equipped with its own electronic guidance system so it can fine-tune.

SOCOM:Special Operations Command.

SOF:Special Operations Forces.

Special Forces:see SF.

SSBN:sub-surface ballistic nuclear submarine.

SSN:sub-surface nuclear submarine.

Stryker:U.S. Army eight-wheeled light-armored vehicle with an MK-19 grenade launcher and a .50-caliber machine gun that can transport eleven soldiers at sixty miles an hour for 330 miles without refueling.

STS:Sonar Technician Submarines.

TAO:tactical actions officer.

TBS:The Basic School. The Marines’ officer school in Quantico, Virginia.

TCP:traffic control point.

TDA:target designation area.

tender:ship that services another vessel.

thermocline:layer in the ocean or other large body of water where the temperature decreases rapidly with depth.

thermoluminescent dosimetry:measurement of radiation levels in the body using a heated crystal that emits light.

TIC:troops in contact.

TM:Torpedoman.

TOC:tactical operations center. Command post where staff direct combat and support operations.

topi: originally from India, a lightweight, insulated, brimmed helmet made of pith of cork, worn as a sunhat.

triple-A:anti-aircraft artillery.

TTFACORB:targets, threats, friendlies, artillery, clearance, ordnance, restrictions, battle damage.

UAV:unmanned aerial vehicle.

Un-Rep:in the U.S. Navy, an underway replenishment—the Navy equivalent of air-to-air refueling.

USAID:United States Agency for International Development.

USARAK:U.S. Army, Alaska.

USFK:U.S. Forces, Korea.

USNS:U.S. Naval Ship. Designation for U.S. Navy ships with crews of both sailors and civilian merchant seamen.

VETCAP:veterinary civil action program. Free veterinary care for livestock and pets in the area where it is set up.

VLS:vertical launch system. A missile-firing system used aboard submarines and surface ships that enables them to carry more missiles than they would otherwise.

wadi:in arid regions of Southwest Asia, a streambed that is dry except during the rainy season.

Warthog:see A-10 Thunderbolt.

wattle:pole interwoven with thin branches or twigs and thatch, used in building huts.

weaps:weapons officer.

wet transmission checks:checks on the circuitry of torpedoes while they are in tubes pressurized with seawater.

WMD:weapons of mass destruction.

XO:executive officer, second-in-command.

zeriba: in Africa, an enclosure made of thornbushes for protection.

zero:to adjust a firearm so that it will be in range of a target.

ZULU time:military time, numbered in hours to twenty-four and expressed in four digits—for example, 2300 is 11 p.m. Equivalent to Greenwich mean time not adjusted to daylight saving.

1. Robert D. Kaplan, Imperial Grunts: The American Military on the Ground (New York: Random House, 2005).

2. Samuel H. Preston and Emily Buzzell, “Service in Iraq: Just How Risky?” The Washington Post, Aug. 26, 2006.

3. Gen. Charles C. Krulak, “Cultivating Intuitive Decisionmaking,” Marine Corps Gazette, May 1999.

4. Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet, trans. Margaret Jull Costa (1982; New York: Serpent’s Tail, 1991).

5. Everett Carl Dolman, The Warrior State: How Military Organization Structures Politics (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), p. 160.

6. Leon Uris, Battle Cry (New York: Putnam, 1953), p. 3.

1. Tacitus, The Annals of Imperial Rome, trans. Michael Grant (London: Penguin, 1956), ch. 15.

2. Herodotus, The Histories, trans. Aubrey de Selincourt (Middlesex, Eng.: Penguin, 1954), 2: 32.

3. Douglas Porch, The Conquest of the Sahara (New York: Knopf, 1984), p. 65.

4. See Zachary Karabell’s review of The Sword and the Cross by Fergus Fleming, Los Angeles Times Book Review, May 30, 2004.

5. See Adam M. Smith, “At Last unto the Breach: The Logic of a U.S. Military Command in West Africa,” Orbis, Spring 2004.

6. See Craig S. Smith, “U.S. Training African Forces to Uproot Terrorists,” The New York Times, May 11, 2004; and Brian Love, “Libyans Find al-Qaeda-linked Militant Camp,” Reuters, July 5, 2004.

7. See Olivier Roy, The Failure of Political Islam (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1994), pp. 31–35.

8. National Intelligence Council, Global Trends: 2015 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2002). See also A. Smith, “At Last unto the Breach.”