Grunt envy

This article was originally published in the Sierra Vista Herald on 15 March 2015 under the title, "Exploring 'gruntology'".

Living in a military town, you may be aware that different military services have unique grunting noises that military personnel use in certain situations.  When I was in the Air Force, I was mostly ignorant of this fact as we did not have any specific grunting noises we had to make back then.  However, when I began to encounter people from other branches, I noticed them making some odd sounds.  I initially just chalked it up to a chemical imbalance of some sort or the side effect of having too small of a vocabulary, but over time I began to recognize there was meaning in these noises.  Now, I understand that each branch of the military has a service-specific grunt that comes complete with a proud heritage and improbable story of origin.  The study of these sounds and their origin is known as gruntology. 

According to Yahoo Answers, which is never wrong about anything, the Air Force says hoorah, the Marines say oorah, the Navy says hooyah, and the Army says hooah.  These sounds must make for some great conversations at joint service picnics. However, I’m not sure any of this is right. 

Being in an Army town, I know the soldiers say hooah, or huah, or hua, with the spelling, depending on who you ask.  I remember they were making a sound similar to that when I was on active duty, but I don’t know what the proper spelling was.  It seemed soldiers used in a variety of situations with different meanings depending on circumstances.  If they said the word like a question accompanied by a thumbs-up gesture, it meant the soldier was asking you if you were having a good day.  Or at least an Army day.  At other times it was used in the place of yes or yes sir or sometimes a lot more. 

“Private Flounder, did you clean out all the garbage cans and polish my riding boots?” Asked Colonel Niedermeyer. 

“Hooah!”  Replied private Flounder to Colonel Niedermeyer, with great enthusiasm. 

In this case, Private Flounder was telling Colonel Niedermeyer that he dumped the contents of all the garbage cans into his riding boots and then shot holes in them with his rifle.  A complete paragraph of useful information provided in a single grunting noise.  Brilliant military efficiency. 

The Marines have a similar grunting noise that is often spelled, oorah or hoorah, but to me always sounded like aahh-ooh-rah. The Marines pronounce the first syllable with a unique nasal tone that immediately sets it apart to the ear of a trained gruntologist.  I once spent a year at the Marine Corps base at Quantico and became familiar with the different pronunciations and meanings of their service-specific grunts. 

The first thing in the morning, I was often greeted by Marines in the hallways of our hallowed learning institution with a curt, “Urr.”  At first, I took this to be a warning, like the growl of an angry dog, but I soon realized this was just Marine shorthand for “Good morning.”   The rest of the time, they communicated with variations of oorah depending on the circumstances and their level of excitement.  If you were asking them a simple question requiring an affirmative, you’d get the two-syllable “oorah” answer.  If you were asking them to do something absurdly difficult or dangerous, you’d more likely get the full three-syllable “aahh-ooh-rah” response, sometimes accompanied by them dropping to the ground and doing pushups.

I’ve read the grunt sound, hooyah, came from the Navy SEALS, but that it is now becoming popular in the rest of the Navy.  However, when I was working with naval personnel once upon a time, they preferred the more pirate-sounding, “aaarrr.”  Sailers usually emitted the sound when you asked them if they wanted to do something that was dangerous, morally questionable, or personally degrading.  There was no change in pronunciation, but the more excited they were, the longer they dragged out the “rrrrs.”

The Air Force doesn’t have a service grunt which has caused the organization to have a bad case of grunt envy.  They have tried over the years to come up with something grunt-worthy but have consistently failed.  A little over a decade ago someone tried to get the phrase “air power!” accepted as the service grunt.  However, it violated all the requirements of a service grunt—it was composed of actual words, it couldn’t be used to answer any question, and it didn’t have a macho-stud-hoss sound to it. Their best solution was to steal the Army’s hooah because they used to be part of the Army, but I don’t think anyone said hooah during the days of the Army Air Corps.  Airmen could use the sound that pilots make when they are pulling Gs, but that would sound like they were making a bowel movement. It is probably best if airmen don’t say anything at all. Leave the grunting in the other services where it belongs.