Origin of Hoo-ah

[James]

I was just watching an episode of Jericho, which is a series on CBS. In the episode a bunch of Marines come to the town for supplies, but one of the characters becomes suspicious that they're actually Marines when they keep saying "Ooh-rah." This character happened to be an Army Ranger when he was a lot younger, and he said Marines never say "Ooh-rah," that's an army thing.

That got me thinking: is that true? It seems like in every war movie there's a character screaming "Ooh-rah" or "Hoo-rah" or "Hoo-ah" or some other form of the word.

 

[Sig_Des]

Couple of theories here on this forum:

http://forum.gruntsmilitary.com/viewtopic.php?t=1378

 

[Pinto]

I had an interesting thing happen to me as a result of the word Hooah...

Blogged about it here: http://www.parentheticalthoughts.com/index.php?cmd=displayPost&post_id=11

Cheers!

 

[Fishbone Jones]

HUA - Heard, Understood, Acknowledged. That's always been my understanding of the term. I think we've gone over this here before. A 'search' may turn it up.

 

[karl28]

When I was on BMQ 0146 out in Wainright Alberta before I screwed up my Right Knee  I am pretty sure that it was Hoo-ah and for us it meant Hear Observed and acknowledged  .       

 

[Bobby Rico]

Well, the marines do say Ooh-rah, James.  Either Jericho's writers fubbed when they said the Marines never say 'ooh-rah' or you meant to say Marines never say 'Hoo-ah'.  They're two different grunts with completely different origins.  As I understand, the origin of 'Ooh-rah' comes from World War II, when the Marines were about to disembark a ship aboard an LC, a klaxon would make an 'arruggah' sound.  Eventually it got warped into 'Ooh-rah' and became a popular 'battlecry' amongst a specific group of marines, before eventually circulating through the entire corps and being adopted universally by all marines.

 

[HItorMiss]

HUA - Heard, Understood, Acknowledged. That's always been my understanding of the term. I think we've gone over this here before. A 'search' may turn it up.

Yup we have recceguy and you are also right, it's a Ranger term (originaly and has since spread) and it means exactualy what you deffined. Marines say ORAH and I have no idea what that means....

 

[Red 6]

HOO-AH! has been around at least 25 years. We were doing it way back in the 80's and it's still going strong. I always heard the same thing about "Heard, Acknowledged, Understood."

 

[James]

I had an interesting thing happen to me as a result of the word Hooah...

Blogged about it here: http://www.parentheticalthoughts.com/index.php?cmd=displayPost&post_id=11

Cheers!

Interesting, indeed... Any idea what the company does? I tried to do a quick Google but didn't find much.

Well, the marines do say Ooh-rah, James.  Either Jericho's writers fubbed when they said the Marines never say 'ooh-rah' or you meant to say Marines never say 'Hoo-ah'.  They're two different grunts with completely different origins.

You could be right. I'll re-watch the episode tonight (I have the boxed set).

And thanks for all the information, everyone. It was an interesting read. It's unfortunate that there's no definite history, but I guess that just adds to the mystique of the words.