Jeep Show Glossary

Know Your WWII Slang

World War II slang and abbreviations that appear in Jeep Show.

Battery Acid: Powdered lemonade drink mix in K-rations. Widely derided by American soldiers.

Brass: Officers.

Canned Cow: evaporated milk.

Chickenshit: Stupid orders, senseless requirements, make work, bureaucratic pettiness on the part of officers.

Chow: Food.

Deuce-and-a-half: 2.5-ton 6×6 cargo trucks manufactured by General Motors.

Doodlebug: German V1 rocket. Terror weapon.

ETO: European Theatre of Operations in WWII.

K-Rats: K-rations.

K-rations: Pre-packaged individual meals for designed for short-term use in combat or other situations out of the reach of field kitchens. Breakfast, lunch and dinner came in different-colored wax-coated (for burning to heat water for coffee) cartons.

SHAEF: Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force (Where Eisenhower worked).

SNAFU: Situation Normal, All Fucked Up. Team SNAFU was a hastily-organized unit composed of survivors from overrun infantry companies, dismounted tankers and artillerymen, as well as clerks, bakers, mechanics and other rear-echelon soldiers pressed into combat to support the 101st Airborne Division’s defense of Bastogne.

Snowdrops: MPs, so named for their white helmets.

Spam: The ubiquitous canned chopped pork ration.

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