Soldier slang

  You think of Desert Rats as vermin, not soldiers.
  Military references to Zippos call up images of cigarette lighters, not flamethrowers.
  Half the lingo used in classic war movies leaves you scratching your head.
  Fear not.
  There is a way to decipher the classic soldier slang of World War II. "FUBAR" by Gordon Rottman compiles the colorful and off-color language used by the fighting men and women on all sides of the 20th century's greatest armed conflict. It's full of the cynicism and dark humor soldiers and sailors developed to downplay the horror of what they faced daily.
  German soldiers who survived a heavy artillery barrage would say: "Das war prima," or "That was first-rate."
  Aussie soldiers looking to avoid unwanted duty were "dodging the column."
  Japanese Imperial Army soldiers called themselves "shomohin," which translates as "expendable article."
  Russian soldiers called Berlin "Berloga," or "lair of the beast."
  It's not a politically correct compendium — the language of war is charged with contempt for the enemy and often serves to dehumanize the individual likely to be on the other end of a soldier's rifle. But as readers run through Rottman's alphabetical lists of the words that were common parlance for our veteran fathers and grandfathers, we get a faint taste of some of the realities that tested their mettle.