Military Humor - Military Jokes

Military Jokes

• Military jokes might be sometimes quite blunt, e.g. British soldiers used to make a joke about the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) military decoration, to say of a comrade wounded down the belly that he had received DSO, DSO meaning "Dickie Shot Off."
• In other jokes however, the lack of seriousness is more subtle. Often these are in-jokes and not everyone understands them; e.g., the following reference to "Camouflage Uniform Wear Policies":
  • Marines: Work uniform, to be worn only during training and in field situations.
  • Army: Will wear it anytime, anywhere.
  • Navy: Will not wear camouflage uniforms, they do not camouflage you on a ship. (Ship Captains will make every effort to attempt to explain this to sailors.)
  • Air Force: Will defeat the purpose of camouflage uniforms by putting blue and silver chevrons and colorful squadron patches all over them.
• Cadences often contain humorous lyrics, or can be modified to be humorous. Examples:
  • My girl's got big ol' hips / Just like two battleships...
  • They say that in the Army, the biscuits are mighty fine / One rolled off the table, and killed a friend of mine...
• Sometimes the joke is made by civilians about the military. In the Philippines during President Ferdinand Marcos martial law years, Chief of the Armed Forces General Fabian Ver was a feared figure. In the midst of the tense times, Filipino people used to joke that the general was so fiercely loyal that if Marcos would have ordered him to jump out of the window, General Ver would have saluted and said, "Which floor, sir?"