All else equal military “up-country” would be the less inhabited areas of a country. And separately the less friendly areas.
"We left the safety of Fort Bogus to head up-country to forward operating location Alpha 25 in the disputed region of Abd-el-nowhere.
Which song?
John Hammond’s “Come to Find Out” has the line “And I’m going up country, where I’m barely known.”
Steve Craig’s “Up Country” starts with
I’m going up country
To the house of the sun
To the great volcano
You know the one
When Willie Dixon escaped from a prison, he "later said that there was an old blues line running through his head as he traveled north: ‘I’m going up country, I won’t be back no more.’”
And then there’s the Canned Heat song, but the title and line are is “Going up the country.”
Putting them together, I see similarities. All of them mean escape from a bad situation, with return cut off or impossible. The destination is unknown but possibly better or safer. “Up” may be a direction - Canned Heat’s singer is running from the draft north to Canada - or it may be spiritually “up” - analogously to heaven being above.
Or I may just be reading into them because I found some songs using “down” in that way.
G. W. Stoneking’s “Goin the Country” is a dialog.
- So what we going do now?
Well I don’t know, but your gal left ya, and I got no more dough.- So why not we go down to the country?
Anyplace but here must be the trigger for a million songs.
What possible connotation would the phrase “down range” have besides referring to a weapons range (IOW a place where one trains in the firing of a weapon) or a ranged weapon (IOW a weapon capable of launching a projectile some distance)?
If one is “down range”, it seems to me the implication is that you are in a dangerous location (i.e the end of the range towards where the projectiles are being fired).
Or… maybe in a hostile country where weapons fire might be expected? Possibly even at you, as if you were at the wrong end of a shooting range? Like, down range?
Maybe more like “down range” is towards the enemy or target and “up range” would be towards friendly positions.
It’s all in the line of fire. It’s all down range. I didn’t make the metaphor, I’m just explaining it.
It’s not supposed to be usefully specific it’s just cool guy military jargon. Like going “Outside the wire” means leaving the relatively safe environment of a FOB regardless of if there is actual wire involved.
You know, I was reading the beginning of this and then skipped to the end to see when the last post was and your statement about “cool guy military jargon” caught my eye. I agree on one level, but on another, as I sit watching the PBS Vietnam War Stories episode, I’m reminded that part of what makes a military work is unit cohesiveness. Just like in the business world… or trades, or guilds, or whatever. Lingo and jargon serves as part of the glue that establishes the cohesiveness the cool military guys need in combat.
tl;dr: Language/speech is such an amazing thing in terms of our evolution and a tool of unfathomable power.
I read Ortiz’s book a while ago and wanted to look this up again. At the time, I’d asked a former Marine SAW gunner (someone who would make it a point to figure this out) about the US military use of “indian country” to refer to hostile territory generally and he confirmed that was correct. I do not recall if the subject of indian country being shortened to in country came up, but it makes sense that it might have been shortened occasionally. E.g., “that whole area is in country…” but not e.g., “we’re headed into in country”, that just sounds stupid. And reciprocally, when in-country was used to mean e.g., people who were physically located in an area defined as a country, it doesn’t make sense to try to make it mean indian country.
tl;dr: Yes, indian country and in-country are both used and usually do not mean the same thing but it is possible the former could be shortened to the latter in certain circumstances.
I suppose most anything is possible. I can’t think of many things less possible than this, though. If someone shortened the word Indian beyond “injun” to merely “in”, not a single other person in earshot would have any idea what he’s talking about.
Agreed.