PAUL FUSSELL was an infantry officer wounded in combat in France during World War Two. He is a cultural and literary historian. In his book, WARTIME: Understanding and Behavior in the Second World War, Paul writes about military culture with the critical eye and intimate knowledge of a combat grunt. 

Quite often parents, spouses and other civilians who have no experience with military culture will ask, "Why do the people in charge in the [Army, Marines, Navy, Air Force] behave like that?" when confronted with the horrible or petty treatment their loved ones receive. Anyone who has spent more than five days in the military will instantly recognize a major unavoidable factor of military life: ...chickenshit.

As Paul states in his chapter, "Chickenshit, An Anatomy":

"Chickenshit refers...to behavior that makes military life worse than it need be: petty harassment of the weak by the strong; open scrimmage for power and authority and prestige; sadism thinly disguised as necessary discipline;...and insistence on the letter rather than the spirit of ordinances."

"Chickenshit is so called-instead of horse- or bull- or elephant shit-because it is small minded and ignoble and takes the trival seriously. Chickenshit can be recognized instantly because it never has anything to do with winning [a] war." 

              ***CHICKEN SHIT

In December 2004 during a question and answer session with soldiers in Bagdad then Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, was asked by a reservist, "Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal to up-armor our vehicles?"

The Secretary of Defense answered, "As you know, you go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time." 

 A chicken shit answer if there ever was one. Not, "Let me look into it", or, even, "It's on back order."  In other words, "Suck it up".

The following are some minor forms of military CS:

• Soldiers are not permitted to walk with their hands in their pockets
• The Army spends millions of dollars to eliminate functional baseball cap style hats and replace them with berets.
• The military does not have enough buglers to play "Taps" to honor the fallen at military burials. The military buys scores of devices (cost: $700 each) that fit inside the bugle and plays a recorded "Taps". The bugler still has to pretend to play the instrument. For $700 the military can buy a lot of music lessons to teach willing soldiers how to actually play "Taps". 

Some forms of CS are deeply troubling and potentially fatal:

• Each branch of service has their own brand of camouflage uniform and the new Army design does not work in the desert nor the jungle.
• Soldiers deploying overseas are still required to receive anthrax vaccinations when the only known anthrax attack against Americans occurred here in the United States.
• A soldier suffering from PTSD attempts suicide but lives. Her commander tries to court martial her for unauthorized discharge of her weapon.
• 18 Soldiers have died overseas by accidental electrocution because of faulty wiring installed by American contractors.

 SUCK IT UP

The military culture, in its infinite wisdom, will often disguise its most vulgar words and phrases  to hide their true meaning. For example, the following terms originated in the military but have long since become part of civilian vocabulary: SOL, SNAFU, and FUBAR.

Every soldier, sailor, Marine and airforce person knows and is intimately familiar with the term "Suck it up".

When confronted with a horrible or difficult situation the unfortunate military person is told to "suck it up" and keep marching. No one ever has to explain what the "it" represents.

The "it" is missing the "sh".

 SUCK IT UP = EAT SHIT

...and keep marching.