Pogue

This article is about the noun. For information about the Celtic punk band, see The Pogues. For the surname, see Pogue (surname).

Pogue or POG (/poʊɡ/ POHG) is American pejorative military slang for non-combat or non-infantry personnel.

U.S. military support personnel, like these Army culinary specialists, may be referred to by some combat personnel as pogues.

History

"Pogue" may have entered the American military lexicon during the Civil War through "póg," the Irish language word for "kiss." In this telling, the word "pogue" was popularized by deployed Irish-American sailors who were envious of onshore personnel who still enjoyed the affections of their sweethearts.^[1]

By World War I, "pogue" was used by U.S. Marines to refer to a male homosexual.^[2] In World War II, its definition shifted to Marines thought to be soft or unfit for duty.^[3] By the time of the Vietnam War, "pogue" referred to rear echelon support personnel.^[4] Paul Dickson's War Slang humorously defined "pogue" during Operation Desert Storm as "anyone who arrived in the Gulf after you."^[5]

In the modern Marine Corps and Army, the oft-used acronym "POG"—standing for "Person Other than Grunt," with "grunt" being slang for an infantryman—may have originated as a backronym for "pogue."^[1][6] Though the term is usually considered condescending and derisive, opinions vary about its level of offensiveness.^[7]

In media

In Gustav Hasford's 1979 semi-autobiographical novel The Short-Timers, he illustrates the Marine infantryman's contempt for pogues: "Sergeant Gerheim is disgusted by the fact that I am to be a combat correspondent and not a grunt. He calls me a poge [sic], an office pinky. He says that shitbirds get all the slack."^[8] In Stanley Kubrick's 1987 film Full Metal Jacket, an adaptation of Hasford's novel, Sergeant Joker is chastised for wearing a peace button by a character listed in the credits as "Poge Colonel."^[9]

Related terms

A closely related U.S. Army term is "REMF," standing for "Rear Echelon Motherfucker,"^[10][11] which gained popularity during the Vietnam War.^[12] Another term is "fobbit," a mixture of "forward operating base" and "hobbit,"^[13] originated during the Iraq War, lampooning support personnel who rarely leave the safety of the "Shire."^[14]

See also

• FNG syndrome

References

1. Grove, David (February 5, 2020). "The Fascinating Beginning of the Term 'POG'". Military.com. Retrieved May 17, 2025.
2. Elting, Cragg & Deal 1984, p. 234.
3. Dickson 2000, p. 199.
4. Dickson 2000, p. 184.
5. Dickson 2000, p. 321.
6. Dickson 2000, p. 274.
7. Dodds, Sean (May 2, 2019). "5 Reasons Why 'POG' Is Not a Slur". Military.com. Retrieved May 17, 2025.
8. Hasford, Gustav (1979). The Short-Timers. New York: Bantam. p. 25. ISBN 0-553-23945-7. Retrieved May 17, 2025.
9. Abrahms, Jerold J. (2020). "The Philosophy of War in Dr. Strangelove". In Colombani, Elsa (ed.). A Critical Companion to Stanley Kubrick. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington. p. 120. ISBN 978-1-7936-1376-9. Retrieved May 17, 2025.
10. Elting, Cragg & Deal 1984, p. 259.
11. Dickson 2000, p. 286.
12. Dalzell, Tom (2014). Vietnam War Slang: A Dictionary of Historical Principles. London: Routledge. p. 128. ISBN 978-0-415-83940-2. Retrieved May 17, 2025.
13. Ricks, Thomas E. (February 16, 2009). "Freaking out the FOBBITs of Afghanistan". Foreign Policy. Archived from the original on June 29, 2018. Retrieved May 17, 2025.
14. Basbanes, Nicholas (September 17, 2012). "Review: David Abrams' 'Fobbit' is an impressive Iraq war satire". The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved May 17, 2025.

• Elting, John R.; Cragg, Dan; Deal, Ernest L. (1984). A Dictionary of Soldier Talk. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. ISBN 0-684-17862-1. Retrieved May 17, 2025.

• Dickson, Paul (2000). War Slang: American Fighting Words and Phrases from the Civil War to the War in Iraq (2 ed.). New York: Bristol Park. ISBN 978-0-88486-407-3. Retrieved May 17, 2025.

External links

•   The dictionary definition of pogue at Wiktionary