All across America and around the world, this
is Veterans Radio. This is Veterans Radio. Welcome
to Veterans Radio. I am Jim Fossone. I'm the
officer of the deck today. We've got some great
programs for you. I think you'll find very interesting.
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there as well. We post new ones every Tuesday,
so you can get a new story, a new interview,
something you didn't know before by going to
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reached at vetbizcentral .org. Let's move on
to our programs. We're talking today with our
new amateur historian here on Veterans Radio,
Joe Neusendorfer. Joe, welcome to Veterans Radio
and tell us a little bit about yourself. Thanks,
Jim. I have been a historian for 50 years. I
have written hundreds of history articles on
various subjects, curated local history exhibits,
and lectured on such subjects as architecture,
engineering, surveying, and early Native Americans.
My interest in military science stems from my
service as a USA Air Force veteran and a keen
interest in specialized subculture, language,
and professional experience in communicating
technical information. Joe, what military slang
term are you going to explain to us today? Today's
term is sort of interesting. It's called a cup
of Joe, which commonly describes a cup of coffee.
There is a great body of historical information
pointing to a military origin for this term.
As the story goes, the phrase has been in wider
use since World War I, and that the original
term coined by sailors in the US Navy was actually
a cup of Joseph Daniels. It was meant by Swabies
as an insult to leadership. Over time it became
simply a cup of Joe. Josephus Daniels was secretary
to the U .S. Navy under President Woodrow Wilson.
Looking to impose stricter moral standards on
naval life, he made changes in 1914 by increasing
the number of chaplains cracking down on prostitution
and naval bases and banning alcohol. In his biography
of Daniels, author Lee A. Craig explains how
this last decision led to the creation of the
slang term as a substitute, stewards increase
their purchase of coffee, among other beverages,
writes Craig in his book, Josephus Daniels, His
Life and Times. This term's origin crediting
Daniels as its detractors among some historians
who have a theory that coffee became known as
Joe because Joe itself is a slang term for a
common fellow guy or chap. So this common Joe
leaves you it up to you to do further research
with your friends over a cup of Joe. Hey, thanks
Joe and I think I'm gonna go get a cup of coffee
and I think I think we all learned to drink that
You know hot black awful coffee somewhere in
the military So thanks for thanks for giving
us a little history lesson today. You bet Hey,
Joe, what military slang term do you have for
us today? Today's military slang turn is Mustang.
No, we are not talking about a sporty car Mustang
is a military slang term used in the US Armed
Services that refers to a commissioned officer
who began his or her career as an enlisted, non
-commissioned service person prior to being commissioned
as an officer. Mustang officers are generally
older and theoretically more experienced than
their peers in grade who have entered the military
via commissioning from one of the service academies,
according to Wikipedia. The original definition
of Mustang was a military officer who had earned
a battlefield commission. They were especially
prevalent during World War II and the Korean
War. A Mustang is characterized by former enlisted
service prior to transitioning to officer rank.
As a military slang term, there is no official
U .S. government definition or set of criteria
to determine which officer can properly be called
a Mustang. As the term varies in usage and criteria,
from service to service. By the end of World
War II, it was understood across the armed services
that a Mustang was an officer with service in
the enlisted ranks before commissioning. The
slang term refers to the Mustang horse, a feral
or wild animal and therefore not a thoroughbred.
A Mustang after being captured can be tamed and
saddle broke but it always has a bit of wild
streak and can periodically revert to its old
ways unexpectedly, and therefore the owner needs
to keep an eye on it at all times. However, since
a Mustang was formerly a wild and free animal,
it may be very well be more smarter, more capable,
and have better survival instinct than the thoroughbreds.
A notable Mustang officer was William McKinley,
1843 to 1901. He enlisted as a private in the
Union Army in 1861. Promoted to the rank of Sergeant,
he then received a battlefield commission for
valor under fire at the Battle of Antietam, and
mustered out of the Army as a Major. Subsequently,
he became the 25th President of the United States.
Other noteworthy Mustangs were Audie Murphy,
1925 -1971. He was the most decorated soldier
of World War II. Staff Sergeant Murphy received
a battlefield commission in France in 1944. Subsequently,
he became an actor. He received the Medal of
Honor and later held a major's commission in
the U .S. National Guard. Another famous Mustang
was Chuck Yeager, 1923 to 2020. He just died
last year. He enlisted in the U .S. Army Air
Forces in 1941 and began as an aircraft mechanic.
He soon entered pilot training and served as
an officer upon receiving his wings. He later
earned a commission as a second lieutenant and
was a noted combat pilot during World War II
and as a test pilot during the post -war area.
To include being the first to successfully exceed
the speed of sound, he retired from the U .S.
Air Force as a brigadier general in 1975. Another
famous Mustang that we can recall from recent
political discussions is Tulsi Gabbard born in
1981, currently a major in the Hawaiian National
Guard and representing the second congressional
district in the U .S. House of Representatives.
She enlisted as a medical specialist with the
29th Infantry Brigade Support Battalion of the
Hawaiian National Guard serving a 12 -month deployment
in Iraq in 2004. Commissioned as an officer in
March 2007, She's then deployed to Iraq for a
second tour of duty with the 29th Brigade Special
Troops Battalion of the Hawaii Army National
Guard as the military police platoon leader in
January 2019. In January 2019, she began a campaign
for U .S. President. So let's give a veterans
radio salute to all of our Mustangs, past, present,
and future. You know Joe I've known a lot of
Mustangs a lot of them muster out as majors because
they have their time in and both enlisted in
an officer corps and they hit the 25 year mark
but everybody who I ever have known who's been
a Mustang is Pretty damn proud of it and they
should be shouldn't they? Absolutely, absolutely
Joe. Thanks for bringing us this information
today Hey, Joe, what military slang term are
you gonna explain to us today? Well, Jim, today's
military subject is dog tags. Dog tag is an informal
term for a specific type of identification tag
worn by military personnel. The tags' primary
use is for the identification of casualties.
As such, they have information about the personnel
written on them and convey essential basic medical
information such as blood type and history of
inoculations. They often indicate religious preferences
as well. Dog tags are usually made of a corrosion
resistant metal. They commonly contain two copies
of the information either in the form of a single
tag that can be broken in half or as two identical
tags on the same chain. This purposeful duplication
allows one tag or half tag to be collected from
a personnel's deceased body for notification
while the duplicate remains with the body if
the conditions of battle prevented from being
immediately recovered. The term arose and became
popular because of the tags resemblance to animal
registration tags. The earliest mention of an
identification tag for soldiers comes to us from
the ancient Spartans who wrote their names on
sticks tied to their left wrists. Additionally,
the Romans had a specific kind of soldier identification
at the moment of enrollment. The legionary identification
was a lead disc with a leather string worn around
the neck with the name of the recruit and the
indication of the legion of which he was accrued
part of. During the American Civil War, some
soldiers pinned paper notes with their names
and home addresses to the backs of their coats.
Other soldiers stenciled identification on their
knapsacks or scratched it in the soft lead backing
of their military belt buckle. Manufacturers
of identification badges, good old Yankee ingenuity,
recognized the market and began advertising in
periodicals. Their pins were usually shaped to
suggest a branch of service and agree with the
soldier's name and unit. Machine stamp tags were
also made of brass or lead with a hole and usually
had on one side an eagle or shield and such phrases
as war for the union or liberty, union and equality.
The other side had the soldier's name and unit,
and sometimes a list of battles in which he had
participated. The U .S. Army first authorized
identification tags in War Department General
Order No. 204 dated December 20, 1906, which
essentially prescribed basic information. It
was dubbed the Kennedy Identification Tag, named
after Brigadier General Kennard R. Will Wiggins,
Jr. The U .S. Army changed regulations on July
6, 1916, so that all soldiers were issued two
tags, one to stay with the body and the other
to go to the person in charge of the burial for
record -keeping purposes. In 1918, the U .S.
Army adopted and allotted the service number
system, and the name and service numbers were
already stamped on the identification tags. In
closing, most military veterans, even when the
tags were eventually lost, permits misplaced,
still remember their service number because of
the tags we had hanging around our necks for
years. Mine was Joe Nussendorfer, United States
Air Force, number 17587039 and I'm signing off.
Joe, thanks for that information and I gotta
say if you, you know, if you've got to rummaging
around don't lose your dog tags and don't lose
your grandfather's dog tags or your father's
dog tags. My dad was a Navy vet in World War
II and we were just going through some of his
materials and we found his dog tag, which doesn't
look like anything like the dog tags, shape,
color of today. And that's what kind of makes
it so special. They are unique historical family
records. It's absolutely true. So thanks for
bringing us this information. I hope we've inspired
some people to find and keep and display properly
the dog tags that their families have earned.
Thanks, Joe. I hope you enjoyed these military
slang discussions. We're recording some more
of them with our veterans radio historian Joe
Neusendorfer. veteran from the United States
Air Force and all -around good guy. So listen
for some more of these in the future from Joe
and thank you for listening to Veterans Radio.
And I want to thank everybody for listening to
Veterans Radio today. I am Jim Fossone. It's
been a pleasure to be your host. I'm a veterans
disability lawyer at Legal Help for Veterans
and you can reach us at 800 -693 -4800. or LegalHelpForVeterans
.com on the web. You can follow Veterans Radio
on Facebook and listen to its podcasts and Internet
radio shows by going to VeteransRadio .net. And
until next time, you are dismissed. They're experts
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