After joining the military, a private was standing in line  with other junior service members when a sergeant stepped forward with that day’s assignment  He handed out several tasks and then asked, “Does anyone here have experience with radio communications?”  A long-time ham radio operator raised his hands and said “I do, sir!”  The sergeant replied, “Good, you can dig the hole for the new telephone pole.”

There are a slew of legends out there on the internet as  to why today’s soldiers proudly shout, grunt and cheer “Hooah!”

One story goes that it stemmed from the Vietnam War, because the Vietnamese word for “yes” sounds like ”u-ah”.

Another story is that, in 1841, soldiers attempted to make peace with the Seminole Indians in Florida by hosting a banquet.  During a round of toasts, famed Seminole chief Coacoochee is claimed to have grunted, “hooah!”  That was morphed into today’s utterance.

The most prevalent and most logical explanation is that “hooah” is the phonetic translation of the acronym HUA, which stands for “heard, understood,acknowledged.” 

This phrase is reported to have originated from the British in the late 1800s in Afghanistan.  In the U.S. Army, it is now frequently used as affirmative to a question or statement.

To this day, if I hear anyone utter this word it brings back a flood of great memories.  Hopefully, this short article will bring back good memories for you also.