Thread: "on short time" (in the Army)

Another phrase from another issue of the same TV show . A private in a hospital in Vietnam is telling a story and says "We were on short time". This puzzled me, because when people say that they are on short time this usually means that they are on short hours. It obviously cannot apply here: combat duty is always a full-time proposition.
So I suppose it means something else here. As I guess, he wanted to say that he was drafted for a specific period of time (maybe 2 years or so) which was shorter than the time served by people who volunteered and signed a contract. Can anyone confirm/disprove this? It was 1966. What were different terms of service back then? Did the drafted people actually serve for a shorter time than those who signed a contract?

And another question: the same soldier says they were "a couple clicks from the river". Since when does the US army measure distances in kilometers? Is it because of the NATO standards?

First. It's hard to tell what he means by saying "short time". What was he talking about? The battle? his combat duty? the mission? He could mean that in the middle of the battle that his squad was getting killed by the enemy and "he was on short time" to live (because he would soon be killed). Another maybe more popular way of saying someone is about to die is "Living on borrowed time".

Tours of duty were... oh crap i knew this. Something like 12 months for volunteers and 14 months for people who were drafted. I think that's right... i just watched a vietnam thingy on the history channel the other day but i seemed it have forgoten.

And lastly 'clicks' is normal. They always say this in war movies / shows. I dont think it means kilometers though. I think it's just the military word for "Mile". Also, the navy and airforce use "knots" (nots? I dont know how to spell it). But it's just their word for "mile".

I asked my marine corps sargeant why and what that was all about and he said "I Don't know, im not in the navy or army... we just use miles". So. yea.

Originally Posted by Dogboy182

First. It's hard to tell what he means by saying "short time". What was he talking about? The battle? his combat duty? the mission? He could mean that in the middle of the battle that his squad was getting killed by the enemy and "he was on short time" to live (because he would soon be killed). Another maybe more popular way of saying someone is about to die is "Living on borrowed time".

He just starts telling about this incident, and he says "Me and a couple of the guys, Hal and Jimmy, we were on short time. Another week and we'd be on our way home. "

Originally Posted by Dogboy182

And lastly 'clicks' is normal. They always say this in war movies / shows. I dont think it means kilometers though. I think it's just the military word for "Mile".

No, I don't think it's miles. In Canada, for example, click seems to be a normal colloquial word for kilometer. Besides, I have done a little research and found this: http://www.nchsinc.com/shop/vietnam_era ... _terms.htm

Originally Posted by Dogboy182

Also, the navy and airforce use "knots" (nots? I dont know how to spell it). But it's just their word for "mile".

Knot is a standard nautical term for "mile per hour", it is not a military term. Sometimes it is use loosely to mean a nautical mile.

Short time

Yep, looks like it was just NAM slang then for "we were getting the hell out"

clicks

Lol, Canada. They arn't even a real country anyways. But its ok, whatever.

Nautical miles Makes sense.

Originally Posted by Dogboy182

Yep, looks like it was just NAM slang then for "we were getting the hell out"

Correct.

Nauticle mile = 6080 feet
One mile = 5280 feet
Click = kilometer
1 kilometer =5/8 mile

I knew there was something fishy about that.

klicks means kilometers, even in US military, I'm pretty sure.

"We were on short time" is non-standard slang, but understandable. You would not hear most people say it, but there are some commonly-used slang phrases that are very similar.

For example, if a guy at your work has announced his retirement and has only 6 weeks left, you can say, "You're a short-timer, why are you working so hard?" It implies that he's only going to be there for a short time.

Well i guess clicks could mean kilometers i dont know. I always wanted to know but everyone i asked never knew, so i guess now i know.

IIRC, knots is a term for speed first used in "the olden days" of sailing.
Speed was measured by dropping a log (floating object) tied to a cord over the stern. The cord had knots tied in it at regular intervals, and a measurement of how many knots ran over the rail in a set amount of time was the speed, E.G. 8 Knots


--Robb Hammack

Originally Posted by RobbHammack

IIRC, knots is a term for speed first used in "the olden days" of sailing.
Speed was measured by dropping a log (floating object) tied to a cord over the stern. The cord had knots tied in it at regular intervals, and a measurement of how many knots ran over the rail in a set amount of time was the speed, E.G. 8 Knots


--Robb Hammack

Perhaps you also know why a land mile is shorter than a nauticle mile?

Originally Posted by DDT

Perhaps you also know why a land mile is shorter than a nauticle mile?

Because Nautical and Geographic distances were based on astronomical measurements (made with a sextant) since there was no easy way to measure a distance between to points, or a number of paces, etc as there is on land. Actually, they are remarkably close considering how differently they were arrived at!


http://www.fishsa.com/boatngsn.php
On the ocean, distances are calculated slightly differently than on land, hence Nautical phrases are applied as opposed to land or Statute terminology.

Nautical Mile (nmi): A unit of distance used in navigation and based on the length of one minute of arc taken along a great circle. This is also sometimes referred to as the International Nautical Mile or an International Air Mile.

Please Note the following:

* Because the Earth is not a perfect sphere, various values have been assigned to the nautical mile. The value 1852 meters (6076.1 ft.) has been adopted internationally.

* The nautical mile is frequently confused with the geographical mile, which is equal to 1 min of arc on the Earth's equator (6087.15 ft.).

http://hypertextbook.com/physics/fou...ystem-english/
One mile was the distance of a thousand paces: in Latin, mille passus. A pace being 5 feet gives a mile of roughly 5000 feet. The current length is defined at 5280 feet. Since this was a legal definition it is often also known as a statute mile. Statute being another word for law. From Webster's 1913: "The distance called a mile varies greatly in different countries. Its length in yards is ...

* Austria, 8,297 yards
* Brunswick, 11,816 yards
* England and the United States, 1,760 yards
* Hungary, 9,139 yards
* Italy, 2,025 yards
* Netherlands, 1,094 yards
* Norway, 12,182 yards
* Poland, 8,100 yards
* Prussia, 8,238 yards
* Spain, 1,552 yards
* Sweden, 11,660 yards
* Switzerland, 8,548 yards


Also, I got to thinking when I was looking up these references and doublechecked my "knots" explanation - which was essentially correct. If you're interested, here is a much fuller explanation which also ties it into nautical miles and explains how it was calculated.
http://www.physlink.com/Education/AskExperts/ae400.cfm