Funny Names and the Military
There are all kinds of funny names out there. Most of them are just head scratchers, the kind that are usually foreign and sound like they smell funny, but there are always a few that unintentionally are just hilarious. Add a military rank in front of them, and they usually sound even funnier. I encountered a few of those names while in the military, and they are listed below for your amusement.
- A young woman who was in the process of getting kicked out the Navy when I was in-processing after my broken service – Seaman Recruit Heine – (pronounced hiney – or it may have even been spelled that way; I don’t remember.)
- I worked for a lieutenant commander for several months who really didn’t like me, and she made sure I knew it; I thought it appropriate that her last name was Means (although I would have left off the “s”).
- I worked with another officer in that same office who was not terribly fond of me either, and who was, in fact, somewhat rude to me; he was Lieutenant Rudrud (rude rude).
- One of my instructors in Air Force ROTC was Major Wempe (pronounced wimpy). He was a pilot, and his pilot nickname (perhaps to compensate for his real name?) was Hammer.
- The commanding officer of the Naval detachment at Monterey when I was there in 1993 was Lieutenant Commander Joseph Blow.
- And the best – I’m not making this up, because I went to language school and C school with this guy. Can you imagine walking around and being addressed in the manner below, and not being able to do anything about it? Because it’s actually your rank and name?! Seaman Craver
Okay, I don’t normally solicit comments, but if you know of any real-life examples of funny names in the military, please post them below. Something about the juxtaposition of military rank and funny names is particularly amusing, so please limit your comments to military folks, unless it really is a super-duper funny name, for which of course I will make an exception. For example: I saw this name on a mailing list once: Ima Jean Feeler. (What part of the jeans do you think she is feeling? The heine? Yeah, I thought that part too.)
Tags: military
Uncategorized | Angel | 
September 26, 2011 7:45 pm
2 Comments
Other Links to this Post
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
Subscribe
By Greg Tamblyn, October 4, 2011 @ 10:41 pm
Well, of course it’s made up, but my all time favorite is from Catch 22 (Joseph Heller):
Major Major Major Major.
Very funny book.
By Angel, October 5, 2011 @ 8:44 am
I loved Catch 22! I thought of Major x4 when I was writing this post.
And don’t get me started on how scary close that book is sometimes to the real life military. Of course, it’s also pretty dang close to descriptions of a lot of non-military situations too … I guess it’s a human thing.
Though I haven’t met any, I know there has to be at least a few Sergeant Sargents out there.