Uncle Bill:, Assuming your citations and quotes are reliable, I stand corrected. My WAG, however, is defended with full vigor and enthusiasm.
I think that it started with al pacino in “scent of a woman”. the volleyball hoo-ah or whatever, is, i suspect, the sound that one emits is the same as the ugh, grrrr, etc…or any others that come from a guy splitting a gizzard trying to make a spike shot. my money says that it didn’t reach quasi-official status until the movie came out.
As well it should be defended with vigor. Google will tell you whatever you want to read, either side of the story. I had never heard his claim was challenged until you brought it up. Interesting.
Just wanted to add my 2 cents on the Army Hu-ah. I went through basic and AIT in Ft. Benning-Home of the Infantry, Hu-ahh! (sorry, had to do it)- in 1990 and the term was well entrenched at that time. It was also commonly used at my first permanent post among us grunts with 3AD in Germany.
Scent of a Woman, if you’re curious, came out in 1992.
My wife says that when she went to Army basic training in Ft. Dix in 1987 she heard it in use there.
We said it (Hoo-rah) in Navy basic in the mid nineties, mostly during PT. Afterwards I rarely heard it from Naval servicemembers, except from people just out of boot camp, and they stopped saying it pretty quickly.
However, in the few incidents where I saw and saluted a Marine officer, their reply was either Hoorah! or, Hoorah Sailor! I always thought we stole it from the Marines.
Hijack: When I was in joint commands or schools I heard Army people using a Scooby-Dooish expression when they didn’t understand a question, it sounded like “Uh-umm?”
That is exactly the same usage as the Cherokee ho-wa, which really makes me wonder about the Indian connection.
I’m sure the “Indian chief” story is a bunch of hooey, but it wouldn’t surprise me if some Native American, or someone with a knowledge of Cherokee, imported the phrase into the military.
Also I think the use of “hu-ah” and its variants as a substitute for “OK” argues against “hurrah” as the source of the expression. The Cherokee “ho-wa” is a synonym for “OK,” but as far as I can determine “hurrah” has not been (historically) synonymous with “OK.”
Do you mean “Uh-ROOO?” delivered in the Scooby voice? You don’t have to be military to hear that one a lot.
The little slogan greeting cracks me up. When my husband had his last overseas tour in Germany, I got a civil service job working for 2 Bde, 1AD in Erlangen. 2 Bde used to be known as “The Helmsmen,” but that changed to “Iron Brigade” during my time there. With the changeover, all enlisted military personnel were instructed by the SGM (that’s Sergeant Major, to you civilians), to salute and greet all officers with “Iron Brigade, Sir.”
The guys had all KINDS of variations of that. The different units in 2 Bde were renamed to related versions of Iron Brigade, one of them was “Iron Knights.”
I heard about one EM who saluted officers with “Iron Nuts, Sir.”
His company commander stopped in mid-stride and said, “WHAT did you say?”
“Iron Nuts, Sir.”
The CO grinned and said, “I THOUGHT that’s what I heard!” and carried on.
~VOW
No…Try to imagine Scooby Doo, scratching his head and scrunching his eyebrows after having something explained to him that he didn’t understand, and going “Huh-uh?”
Next, try to envision a dozen Army privates doing the same thing simultaneously. I’m not saying this is a common Army thing. But it was common at the school I was in. I heard it hundreds of times.
“when General Cota said, “Lead the way, Rangers!” the Rangers from 2nd Bat reportedly said, "WHO, US!?”
Yeah, sounds like 2/75!
(just kidding)
I was in the library yesterday and copied the relavant page:
Well, it sure beats what the troops use to do in the late 60’s and early 70’s—which was to mutter “bull shit.” It’s very impressive, 500 or 600 young men muttering as the formation is dismissed. Just the sort of thing to fill a commander with confidence.
Lest I create the wrong impression here, they were good soldiers, did their job, kept themselves and their equipment clean and working, made extraordinary sacrifices for their comrades and were willing to be lead if lead with intelligence. They did, however, have a low tolerance for balderdash and let it be known when the threshold was reached. I can’t imagine any of them running around bellowing “whoo-ha” at anyone except in derision.