Military Alphabet: Difference between revisions
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* The Viet Cong get their nickname "Charlie" from the phonetic alphabet (think "[[Apocalypse Now|Charlie don't surf]]"); they were referred to by US commanders as "Victor Charlie" until it was realised it was one syllable more than the original name, so they dropped the "Victor" to leave just "Charlie".
* Due to organizational inertia, the US Navy winds up using both its WWII alphabet and the NATO one in certian specific situations. For most purposes, the NATO alphabet is the standard, but for material conditions (i.e., which doors/valves to open/shut for batttlestations or chemical attack, etc.) the WWII alphabet is used, because it always has been. Leads to phrases such as, "At time 0000 Zulu, set material condition Zebra."
** Another common use of the old phonetic alphabet is 'R', for "I received that." Roger that.
* Most nations have a military alphabet in their native language, for example, Swedish has ''"Adam, Bertil, Caesar"'' and Turkish has ''"Aydin, Bekir, Cemal"'' as their first three letters. Nations that have converted to NATO alphabet, but still use non-NATO letters (eg: Å, Ä, Ö, Ü) have to convert these into standard (AA, AE, OE, Y).
* In an [[Your Mileage May Vary|amusing anecdote]], [[John F. Kennedy]] was talking with his wife and some friends when Kennedy mentioned to one of his friends that someone was a [[Country Matters|"Charlie Uncle Nan Tare"]]. Jacqueline Kennedy overheard and asked what that meant. Her question was left unanswered.
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