Friday, January 19, 2007

What’s a blow-through? Have you ever met a road toad? Ever use a blue canoe?Want to know how to use mysterious acronyms like FIGMO, FAG and FIDO? These and many other indispensable terms are defined in Austin Bay’s Pocket Guide to Milspeak, a collection of current troop slang, military acronyms and other expressions derived from the Iraq War theater. Read this salty little volumeand we guarantee that you’ll be swearing like a soldier in no time.

Col. Austin Bay: Iraq war vet, renowned blogger, syndicated columnist, novelist, radio commentator. No writer is more respected on military
matters.

Now Col. Bay has turned his talents toward creating this first dictionary of “Milspeak”--the soldier's argot that is rich in irony, brutally efficient in conveying the immediacy and dangers of warfare, and can be a shorthand way for separating combat soldiers from fobbits.* The perfect gift for the soldier, sailor, marine or airman in your life—or for the Beltway Clerk** who yearns to sound like one. Also includes a select glossary of Pentagonese drawn from theofficial Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms.