Profanity banned at an Army battalion
The 43rd Adjutant Battalion at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, released a memo declaring a profanity-free campus. This prohibition is in effect during duty hours and includes profanity, vulgar language, and rude gestures. The memo stated that this kind of language is inconsistent with Army Core Values.
From Military Times:
The 43rd Adjutant Battalion issued a memo last month instructing military personnel to refrain from uttering expletives, the Army confirmed.
An April 17 memo — with a subject line that read “profanity free campus” — made it clear that the use of profanity, vulgar language or rude gestures or remarks is prohibited for soldiers operating during duty hours at the unit, which is stationed at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri.
“Such language does not align with the Army’s core values and undermines the integrity of our Soldiers and our formations,” read a copy of the memo shared on Reddit.
The memo specified that bad language will not be tolerated during meetings, briefings or training exercises, and cannot be used when speaking with peers, trainees or superiors.
Clothing will not be allowed to depict any offensive language either, the memo stated.
“This is a policy to correct actions that took place within the unit based on results of an investigation conducted earlier this year,” said Fort Leonard Wood spokesperson Tiffany Wood.
Additional Reading:
Ceder, R. (2025, May 19). Army battalion bans use of profanity. Military Times. Link.
FIRST
Another FIRST on a NON WOT since I can’t make the WOT First since I have recliner time and no Magic 8-Ball to help me out.
Don’t they understand shit happens?
Cue Pfc. Hudson:
Did anyone tell the Sergeant Major? Man, he is going to be pissed when he finds out.
ETA- Although I just noticed they are clerk typists. So likely SHE is going to be really pissed off.
I, uh, don’t think she will have an issue with this policy. My guess is the initiative came from her office. . .
https://home.army.mil/wood/units-tenants/43ag/bn-csm
I really want to know the story behind her CAB. She’s the ultimate staff weenie, and I’ve spent time as a staff weenie (S3). Here’s her BN:
https://home.army.mil/wood/units-tenants/43ag
And don’t forget the coveted Air Assault Badge. It is good to know that those at the tip of the spear (aka “the mooky end of the stick”) will have instant access to critical clerical support.
Those emergency 4187’s ain’t gonna submit themselves!
What kind of pansy-assed fucking bullshit is this?
The 43rd Adjutant Battalion.
Ghey.
https://home.army.mil/wood/units-tenants/43ag/bc
The BC was a rocket artillery guy but weaseled his way into the S1 of the artillery units he was in. At least it looks way to this old Marine who isn’t completely sure how stuff in the Army works. Anyway – leaving artillery to do adj stuff? Ghey. . . .
He was AG, branch detailed FA. Apparently AG needed him back after his PL time, nothing but S1 after that.
1-77 Field Artillery Battalion, why does that sound familiar…
I could rattle off the names of several Sergeants Major and a Battery Full of FIRST Sergeants/Senior NCOs of the 5th Battalion 77th Field Artillery that would tell these pu$$y mofos to go piss up a rope. Buncha E-4 Mafia Types (if such an organization did exist) would just say FOAD…out loud.
I also just read this on their website:
What you may have seen in the movies, such as harassment and hazing of brand new arrivals, is NOT the way you will be treated. You, in turn, must respect your Army superiors and pay attention to them. They are here to help ease your transition into the Army.
Definitely GHEY.
“…They are here to help ease your transition into the Army. “
I beg to differ. If profanity was not banned I would be sorely tempted to use some here.
Fuck it. What utter Bullshit!
In my defense, I aver that BS is a colloquialism, not profanity.
We understand. There will be a new epidemic caused by internal combustion.
There is a whole battalion of these Remington Raiders. What do they type? Memos to each other?
They type up “Let’s make everybody hate us equally” memos apparently.
Can’t spell gay without AG…
Hey, watch your fucking mouth.
I can’t take you mother fucking people anywhere.
God please let them put up signs that say “no cussing”.
You will note that “subordinates” were not included in the memo. This is because it is against Army regulation to curse at a subordinate.
See? The leftists are determined to make pansies out of ‘mericans. Stand your ground, dammit!
Woke crap. It ain’t the military without some dirty language! As I can attest to my Father and Brother who were both in the Navy, and it showed…
Yeah, good luck with that.
Not Army, so I had to look up what an Adjutant Battalion does. It sounds like Army HR, and its run by a bunch of uptight assholes. How is this enforceable? I’ve seen swear jars, but a 4-strike policy? The worst part is the-stick-up-his/her-ass-officer implementing this program probably curses like a sailor. Hey, SECDEF…we want war fighters not prissy school girls!
Right! If these a hs are offended, they can be issued ear plugs. I like those made using pineapples.
“The worst part is the-stick-up-his/her-ass-officer implementing this program” rather, she (I think? don’t want to assume gender) could find no other way to keep people from responding to her (did it again) with one of the following –
FOAD
DILLIGAF
EABOD
-and a few creative names for various parts of her (again assumed) anatomy.
They should read the FAQ here…
I’m…….speechless.
And so will the SOLDERS of this Adjutant Bn be speechless.
No swearing? No profanity? No “gestures”?
W-T-A-F!!??
No. Just. NO! Not only “NO”, but “HELL NO”!
Swearing and “gestures” is the natural language of the military. How will the soldiers get the emphasis of their point across to the person at the other end of their communications?
Besides, I would demand that command define “bad language”. Would “I disagree with you” be “bad language”? Would the soldiers and staff be reduced to “FUDGE” and “OH SNAP!”
I could see an R Lee Ermey type going off, “WHAT IS YOUR MAJOR MALFUNCTION, JACKWAGON!!” (and then have every female and twink in the Bn faint)
Would that be considered swearing? Profanity? Bad language?
No.
This is unreal and unworkable. The Good Idea Fairy that thought this one up needs to be used as a pickleball-repeatedly-until its vacuum release valve is hit and some atmosphere is let into its cranium.
Swearing, profanity, and gestures is a major part of the Army’s core values. And these Fems, Twinks and Fairies want to further emasculate the Army?
(shakes head, walks away) What have these Social Experiments done to “my” Army?
First they came for the profanity. Then they came for
the pronouns. Next they will go after the adjectives.
Fuck ’em and their “four strike” policy. The first time a Soldier gets flagged for dropping an F bomb, the IG is gonna be on them like stink on shit. They’ve made their decision. Now let them enforce it.
Yeah…uh…NO!
No, or fuck no?
He has no fucks to give.
Good to see that someone is keeping up…and aware of the status in re my barren field.
RLTW!
That field ain’t exactly barren. It’s mined.
Shhhh….
Okay, time to issue some G Rated cadence to keep the troops motivated.
I know a person who identifies as a girl from a Mississippi town
She suffers from low self esteem because her father abandoned her
To compensate she is sexually promiscuous
She should seek therapy to her address her self destructive behavior
Feel free to add your own.
A yellow bird with a yellow bill, he landed on my window sill. I lured him in with a piece of bread and then I petted his widdle head.
–
This one should be ok. one of my favorites.
See the old lady sitting on the porch, napalm turned into a screaming torch. Napalm sticks to kids, napalm napalm sticks like glue, sticks to mommas and their babies too.
Used to do this one running by the base daycare center.
Nice fucking gesture to all those mothers !
I try to use foul language in the appropriate place. Like not near the wife.
Amen. Yes, I’ve been housebroke too around the wife.
It’s a classic
https://youtu.be/t9eybY9qFfY?si=lSOB55O3mLSUURpt
At Chanute AFB, Illinois in 1986 we were taught it this way.
Yellow bird
Yellow bill
Landed on my window sill
I fed it with a crust of bread
Then I stomped its little head
I guess I’m just a mean GI
I kick my dog
I beat my wife
I stay out late
Til half past four
Drinking beer
And running whores
Get out of my way
I’m coming through
If you don’t move I’ll stomp on you
Get out of my way
I’m coming through
If you don’t move I’ll stomp on you
Mike
USAF Retired
“Over time, cadences have developed to incorporate a jarring and borderline objectionable theme.”
https://www.jonathanmichaelfleming.com/yellow-bird-lyrics
I just love that euphemistic understatement.
Just sayin’…
New Wave ’80s version with ‘Nam footage:
In 1492 a man from Sicily
Was wandering the streets of Spain
Eating a bowl of Chile.
(Chorus)
His testicles were so round,
His penis hung to the ground,
The fornicating, copulating,
Son of a female cat Columbo
Three ships set sail that day
They all were triple deckers,
The queen waved her handkerchief,
Columbo waved his penis.
(Chorus)
Columbo had a first mate
He loved him like a brother
And every night in the pale moon light
He shared man on man love
(Chorus)
The cabin boy, the cabin boy
The dirty little nipper
He packed his rectum full of glass
And circumcised the skipper
(Chorus)
The cook, that rotten man
Was such a little demon
He served a menstrual stew
And flavored it with his semen
(The last line works as written)
Well, Columbus’ ships were not triple-deckers. One was a 30-year-old Carrack displacing about a 100 tons, and the other two were smaller Caravels displacing some 50 tons each.
Zheng He’s ships, the Chinese explorer who got all the way to East Africa in the 1420s, were much bigger than Columbus’.
Makes you wonder why the Chinese never colonised or set up trading posts along the East African coast.
I’m going to guess artistic license since I didn’t rewrite that part.
He went right up to the Queen of Spain
and asked for ships and cargo
He said I’ll be a son of a female dog
If I don’t bring back Chicago.
(Chorus)
He said the world was round-o
he said it could be found-o
that hypothetical self-pleasuring son-of a female dog Columbo
That is the cleaner Army version. The original is much filthier. There is whole long chapter where Columbo gets with the Queen and they spring forth babies. The landing in the Americas includes a rape of an Indian and number of other things happen. And let me tell you about the third mate, he’s got a long one.
That must have inspired The Sex Pistols ‘ Friggin in the Riggin’
The second mate was Andy
By Christ, he had a dandy
‘Til they crushed his cock on a jagged rock
From cumming in the brandy
The cabin boy was Flipper
He was a fuckin’ nipper
He stuffed his ass with broken glass
And circumcised the skipper
https://youtu.be/rMxALY5IaAs?si=y669fJRymJoiJ1fW
Will this policy be enforced among the Deplorable Garbage that frequents this den of ill repute?
No but it will become corporate policy for All Points Logistics.
No. Fucking. Way.
Fuck that noise.
https://youtu.be/acMmqY_bUEE?si=41TLPUemwqhYtMLb
“The everyday man’s poetry.”
I wasn’t allowed in polite company for 6 months after I got out. Had to learn not to say “fuck” every other word.
Yeah.
I had to have some old lady correct me one day.
Was kind of embarrassed. But I am glad she did. You do not even think about it….
I agree with this policy.
Too much fucking swearing in the Army.
And the leaders that came up with this brilliant idea may find out quickly one of the tenets of leadership:
Never give an order you know it will not be obeyed.
The easiest way to undermine your authority.
I might catch some flak for this, but:
“The foolish and wicked practice of profane cursing and swearing is a vice so mean and low that every person of sense and character detests and despises it.” -George Washington
No quibble from me with invoking The President. I would think it would be appropriate for the man at the top to keep his oratory free of villainous speech.
Also. . . .
When I want my men to remember something important, to really make it stick, I give it to them double dirty. It may not sound nice to some bunch of little old ladies at an afternoon tea party, but it helps my soldiers to remember. You can’t run an army without profanity; and it has to be eloquent profanity. An army without profanity couldn’t fight its way out of a piss-soaked paper bag. As for the types of comments I make, sometimes I just, By God, get carried away with my own eloquence.
George S. Patton
George Washington was a rich whitey man, who married an even richer socialite. He belonged to the colonial elite, and as all social elites, disliked the verbiage of the grunts manning the front lines.
To be fair, at least back then, the social elites led from the front.
Harry Truman was said to have stopped his retreating battery in WWI by “cussin'”.
As Spencer Tracy said in “Inherit The Wind”, “language is a poor enough form of communication, we need to use all the words we have.”
“An army without profanity couldn’t fight its way out of a piss-soaked paper bag.” –Patton
Try this in the Marines and you will hear the sound of Gunny’s heads exploding all over the world.
So there I was, a TSgt, TDY on an Air Force training base when along marched a platoon of Marines on their way to the school house. Each Marine in the platoon was a woman and, as they marched by, I thought of my teen aged daughter. I wondered if she would join and, if she did, I hoped she would conduct herself with the same discipline as the Marines presented. It must have been too quiet so every Marine sang out, “Kill, kill, kill, die, die, die, OO-RAH!” Oh yeah, I thought, she’ll fit right in.
Context is everything.
‘not just context, grammar is important too. Notice the difference in “Let’s eat Gramma” and “Let’s eat, Gramma”.
Fuckin’A Right!
Fuckin A Diddidly Bop.
Mr. Mattis was not immediately available for comment.
I swore like a sailor as a private, specialist, sergeant, cadet, lieutenant, captain, and junior major. Midway through being a major, when assigned as an instructor, I just stopped. Of my own volition. Had you ordered me not to, there would have been problems.
Since then I swore only for specific purposes. For example, one day in BN CMD, as I was responding to someone pushing back on my guidance, my CSM says to him: “I’ve only heard the boss say $%#* twice before. I think he’s serious.” The pushing back stopped instantly.
As for this policy? %#** retarded.
I stopped cursing in recruiting. It was also about the time I made major. Every single day was a shit sandwich so it no longer meant anything. The recruiters had been beaten down like pinatas and were pretty much numb to everything.
Many people have two vocabularies, one for Sunday-go-to-meeting and female company and another for work/socializing.
As a dead white male once said, “Hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue”.
Yeah. This will fucking work.
Hup two three four….
(fill in the second line of your choice)
United States Marine Corps?
To the Navy types present — imagine if they attempted this aboard ship? Within the BM community? In the Goat Locker?!
It could possibly result in an Oscar Drill or two..
When I was an instructor, we were all told to “watch our language”. The higher ups admitted they weren’t concerned with the occasional slips that come out (e.g. what the hell did you do?). I, for one, didn’t want the drama that comes along when someone goes from colorful to abusive.
I keep thinking back to the bus ride at Kim Hae IAP. There “was the usual “no smoking: sign; however, the driver had added “no swearing” to the sign. I asked him about it. The driver said he really wasn’t offended but it got out of control and he was sick of hearing it.
Just as most of us had lost our mouth filters in basic training; (I didn’t realize I had lit off a number of F-bombs in a restaurant in front of my parents; I thought I was just talking), some people never regain their filters.
Perhaps a better way of handling this would have been a remark, at a commander’s call or formation, made by the Commander or Shirt that the language around there was getting offensive and to please think of your audience before you speak. Of course, some folks in leadership positions can be counted on to use a nuke when a fire cracker would have sufficed.
1) I can understand the position behind this order
2) It is one the stupidest orders I’ve ever heard of.
Before AB Son went off to Basic Mrs. GB spoke with him about the language environment into which he was going. She spoke to him of how her father had worked oil field for 32 years, working up to Driller, yet never let the general cursing come out of his mouth.
I think I heard more curse words from my mother than from him. And I know I’ve used some language when particularly upset.
Given my druthers, I prefer George Washington’s philosophy to Patton’s – just as I prefer Washington’s character to Patton’s. But I’d never be so stupid a wuss as to proclaim a “profanity free campus” – that is rightly being mocked.
Sounds like an overreaction to someone calling someone else a chucklefuck or retard or retarded ass fucker or any combination virtually any military member or veteran has at the tip of their tongue.
That’s just how we say “good morning” in my shop.
A lad comes home after his first deployment to West Pac. After a few days his father takes him aside tells him— Look, son. I know you have been in the Navy and have picked up some “Navy speak”. But, now that you are home, it is a wall, not a bulkhead. It is down stairs not below decks, and dammit, don’t ask your mother to pass the fucking butter.
Grandma would say “Go take a flyin’ f*ck at a rollin’ doughnut!” without taking the Marlboro out of her mouth so folk didn’t mind so much on my part.
Just how candyassed, poodle-dicked PUSILLANIMOUS can an Army Unit get? Apparently they have decided to be number one at that.
My impression is that this is a non-combatant thing. Profanity was pretty rare where I worked in the Army at a research facility. It reminds me of something that happened when I went to Officer Basic…
Many years ago, I was recruited at the age of 36. The average age of my class in Officer Basic was 42, with the oldest recruit being 62. There was a lot of forced politeness. Our DI was more like a personal trainer than a DI. The Army, for its own reasons, had a lot invested in us being able to meet standards — but we had to meet them.
I remember one day when we were doing PT. My DI came to me and said “You are doing great, MAJ Oliver. But, you know, I think you could do better. Could you give me another 25 push ups, and be sure to keep your back straight?”
“Why, certainly Sergeant, I’d be happy to.”
“That was pretty good, but I really think you should try again. I know you’re exhausted, but you can’t get better unless you move past this. Try another 25.”
“Of course, Sergeant…”
… and on and on until I collapsed. He drove me into the ground, but he was very polite about it.
And it worked, of the 44 people in my group, 41 passed the final PT test — including the 62-year-old. Most of us had made pretty profound progress. The three that didn’t make it were middle-aged females who just never managed the upper body strength to do the required pushups.
But the thing that struck me was one day later in the course when we were out doing our daily run in formation. We happened to pass a bunch of 18-year-old recruits being trained by the same DI that was working with us. He was standing there shouting at the top of his lungs “You stupid M*f**k*rs. You make me ashamed to be in the Army. Where did they find you pieces of s**t? You keep this up and I’ll make your life hell…”
My Brother in Law was a 1st Lieutenant at the Great Lakes Naval Station. The stories he tells me about being a Dentist and taking care of recruits teeth, keeps me laughing with the crap they pulled. His training was more a group of Boy Scouts having an encampment weekend. Navy never let these doctors go near a weapon.
Gee…..did they also implement a “Swear Jar”?
For fuck’s sake!
That’s a great way to get a desktop-full of your beauteous policy letter printed out and used as toilet paper.
Hey asshole, stick to soldiering.
You train to win wars. But oh my god don’t fucking swear. When you’re training to break shit and kill people.