Pogue
Pogue or POG (/poʊɡ/ POHG) is American pejorative military slang for non-combat or non-infantry personnel.
History
[edit]"Pogue" may have entered the American military lexicon during the Civil War through "póg," the Irish language word for "kiss." In this telling, the word "pogue" was popularized by deployed Irish-American sailors who were envious of onshore personnel who still enjoyed the affections of their sweethearts.[1]
By World War I, "pogue" was used by U.S. Marines to refer to a male homosexual.[2] In World War II, its definition shifted to Marines thought to be soft or unfit for duty.[3] By the time of the Vietnam War, "pogue" referred to rear echelon support personnel.[4] Paul Dickson's War Slang humorously defined "pogue" during Operation Desert Storm as "anyone who arrived in the Gulf after you."[5]
In the modern Marine Corps and Army, the oft-used acronym "POG"—standing for "Person Other than Grunt," with "grunt" being slang for an infantryman—may have originated as a backronym for "pogue."[1][6] Though the term is usually considered condescending and derisive, opinions vary about its level of offensiveness.[7]
In media
[edit]In Gustav Hasford's 1979 semi-autobiographical novel The Short-Timers, he illustrates the Marine infantryman's contempt for pogues: "Sergeant Gerheim is disgusted by the fact that I am to be a combat correspondent and not a grunt. He calls me a poge [sic], an office pinky. He says that shitbirds get all the slack."[8] In Stanley Kubrick's 1987 film Full Metal Jacket, an adaptation of Hasford's novel, Sergeant Joker is chastised for wearing a peace button by a character listed in the credits as "Poge Colonel."[9]
Related terms
[edit]A closely related U.S. Army term is "REMF," standing for "Rear Echelon Motherfucker,"[10][11] which gained popularity during the Vietnam War.[12] Another term is "fobbit," a mixture of "forward operating base" and "hobbit,"[13] originated during the Iraq War, lampooning support personnel who rarely leave the safety of the "Shire."[14]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ a b Grove, David (February 5, 2020). "The Fascinating Beginning of the Term 'POG'". Military.com. Retrieved May 17, 2025.
- ^ Elting, Cragg & Deal 1984, p. 234.
- ^ Dickson 2000, p. 199.
- ^ Dickson 2000, p. 184.
- ^ Dickson 2000, p. 321.
- ^ Dickson 2000, p. 274.
- ^ Dodds, Sean (May 2, 2019). "5 Reasons Why 'POG' Is Not a Slur". Military.com. Retrieved May 17, 2025.
- ^ Hasford, Gustav (1979). The Short-Timers. New York: Bantam. p. 25. ISBN 0-553-23945-7. Retrieved May 17, 2025.
- ^ Abrahms, Jerold J. (2020). "The Philosophy of War in Dr. Strangelove". In Colombani, Elsa (ed.). A Critical Companion to Stanley Kubrick. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington. p. 120. ISBN 978-1-7936-1376-9. Retrieved May 17, 2025.
- ^ Elting, Cragg & Deal 1984, p. 259.
- ^ Dickson 2000, p. 286.
- ^ Dalzell, Tom (2014). Vietnam War Slang: A Dictionary of Historical Principles. London: Routledge. p. 128. ISBN 978-0-415-83940-2. Retrieved May 17, 2025.
- ^ Ricks, Thomas E. (February 16, 2009). "Freaking out the FOBBITs of Afghanistan". Foreign Policy. Archived from the original on June 29, 2018. Retrieved May 17, 2025.
- ^ Basbanes, Nicholas (September 17, 2012). "Review: David Abrams' 'Fobbit' is an impressive Iraq war satire". The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved May 17, 2025.
- Elting, John R.; Cragg, Dan; Deal, Ernest L. (1984). A Dictionary of Soldier Talk. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. ISBN 0-684-17862-1. Retrieved May 17, 2025.
- Dickson, Paul (2000). War Slang: American Fighting Words and Phrases from the Civil War to the War in Iraq (2 ed.). New York: Bristol Park. ISBN 978-0-88486-407-3. Retrieved May 17, 2025.
External links
[edit]
The dictionary definition of pogue at Wiktionary
