Good Job, Brain! - 122: We Salute You!

Episode Date: August 14, 2014

1, 2, 3, 4, I don't know what I've been told! 5, 6, 7, 8, Good Job, Brain is on a roll! Why, with quizzes and weird facts about military life, of course. Discover the fully packed history of canned foods and how we have Napoleon to thank. From cereal mascot to comic book hero, let's see how many fictional military characters do you know in Dana's lightning round quiz. We dive into famous everyday items that were developed for the military, and how pigeons used to reign the battle-strewn skies. And attention GIs, pack your MREs on that VTOL while navigating through Colin's military acronym challenge.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast. Hello, Allegiance of Allies, allowing alliterations about Allspice and Alligators. Oh, I guess that didn't really rhyme, rhyme, allspice alligators. Anyways, welcome to Good Job, Bring your weekly quiz show and Offbeat Trivia podcast. This is episode 122. And of course, I'm your humble host, Karen, and we are your troop of trivia tricksters who treasure triceratops and trixodecaphobia.

I'm Colin. I'm Dana. And I'm Chris. All right. And without further ado, let's jump into our first general trivia segment, pop quiz, hot shot. I have trivial pursuit cards here,

randomly drawn from the box, and you guys have your morning zoo radio buzzers. Guys ready? Indeed. Answer some questions. All right. Blue Wedge for geography. In what state can you eat the world's largest enchilada?

Chris. New Mexico. Yes. Yes. Take that old Mexico. It is Las Cruces. Cruces. Okay.

Cruces. Is the home of the whole enchilada festival. Oh, I get a whole enchilada. Yeah. How big is it? I need to know. It doesn't say. Probably pretty big.

Yeah. I'm guessing every year they... Yeah. It's not one. They've been eating it since 1976. There's 100 meters left. The world's largest freezer, too. Every year they just put back in the freezer.

Largest sheet of aluminum foil. All right. Pink Wedge for Pop Culture. What Michael Jackson music video was directed by Martin Sorsesey? Oh. Oh. Colin. Was that a...

Smooth criminal? Incorrect. Interesting. Dana. Was it black or white? No. It wasn't thriller, was it? No, you guys are all wrong.

It is bad. The subway one. That kind of makes sense. The gang wars one kind of. And note here says, it featured a young Wesley Snipes as the rival gang leader. Yes, it did. Yellow Wedge, who starred in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, and served as mayor of Carmel, California.

Colin. That is, of course, Clint Eastwood. Correct. And note here says, as mayor, he helped overturn an ordinance banning the sale of ice cream cones on public streets. He's getting tough on ice cream. Yeah. Or getting soft on ice cream. Yeah, that was his platform.

Eastwood, soft on ice cream. All right, purple wedge. What is the name of Bilbo Baggins' magical sword in the Hobbit? Oh. Oh, Chris. Sting. Correct. Yeah.

And Green Wedge for science. What animal is a... What animal is a flying gernard, dragon wrasse, or lump sucker? Wait, what? Oh, okay. Oh, three. What animal is a flying gernard, dragon rass, or lump sucker? Dragon rass?

Or lump sucker. Lump sucker. Is it a bat? No. Is it a butterfly? No. Is it a mosquito? No.

My guess was dragonfly. It is fish. Oh, no. Cool. Very damnic climatic. All right. A lump sucker. All right.

Orange Wedge. Last question. Name two of the three weapons used in Olympic fencing. Collin. I'll go you one better. I'll name all three. Oh, snap. There is the foil.

Correct. The saber. Correct. And the Epay. Wow. That is a very calm question. I would have said bricier. Classic color.

Foil, saber. An epa. A pei. A pei. All right. Good job, Brains. And also, I have finally some lobe trotter facts. Loeb trotters are our fan club members who bought a fan club package last year.

They get to submit a fact. And here I have two of them. Not a lot of people send these back. They're still trickling in, though. They really like the post card. Yeah. All right. This one is.

a little bit long, but this one is from Aaron. It was, hello, G.J.B. And she says, this year, Nathan Horton of the Columbus Blue Jackets, became the first player in NHL history to score or be credited with a goal in a game which he didn't play. How did this happen? How did it happen? Have you heard about this, Colin?

No, this is, I'm intrigued. All right. So, Aaron says, when the Blue Jackets played the Dallas Stars on March 10, 2014, they took a 1-0 lead on a goal by Nathan shortly after this goal. Dallas star Rich Peverely went into cardiac arrest in the first period. So both teams agreed to stop playing the game. Oh, okay. The NHL decided to have the teams replay the game at a later date. And the NHL also decided that the game would start with the Blue Jackets 1-0 score from the stop game, which is fair. Thus, Nathan Horton was credited with the first

goal. However, before the replaying of the game, Nathan Horton was injured from another game and unable to play in this new rescheduled game. So Nathan Horton didn't even play or didn't even travel to the game because of his injury, but he still got a 1-0 goal. And that's why that he is the only NHL player to score without even taking a shot. Technically, he did in a previous game, but not in the reschedule. Right, right. When it finished. Yeah. Yeah, not on the day the And it's credited to him. To him. To him.

To him. Yep, yep, yep. And Aaron filled that card up. Yeah, it is a, it's a novel. It's dense, yeah. Here I have another one. This is from Taylor. And Taylor says,

Hello, perfectly podcast people that do not. Pinch Pretty Puppies. I am a hula hoop instructor. And so my favorite trivia has to do with hooping. And she says, The most hula hoop spun simultaneously was recorded just this year by Marawa the Amazing who spun 160 hoops

at the same time. Also, the fastest half marathon while hula hooping was done in three hours, three minutes, 48 seconds by quote,

Betty Hoops at the Hollywood half marathon on April 7th, 2012. So it says, Karen, maybe you should make this your next running challenge. Maybe.

I don't think I can do that, but I will. Is that time good for a half marathon? Good for someone who is hula hooping. All right. Thanks, Taylor, and thanks, Erin, for those lobe-trotter facts. Yeah. So today's show was particularly inspired by an email we got,

and it's from Lieutenant Nicole Winget, who is currently stationed in Afghanistan. We actually do get a lot of fan mail from a lot of people on active duty and from all over, not just the U.S. In honor of all of our fans who are in the military today, we decided that in this episode we're going to talk about the wacky facts, history origins, weird things about military life. So you guys, all of the world, we salute you. We'll get our rifles blaze away. We blaze away.

All right. So I'll get us started with a quiz about fictional military people. So these people all have the word captain or commander or admiral in their names. Okay. So buzz in when you think you know the answer. Captain Crutchman. The greatest. literary hero of all time.

Captain Crunch. Serial captain who battles evil Sogis. Everybody. Captain Crunch. Horatio Magellan. What are Sogis? I didn't know that part. He battles the Sogis.

Yeah, because they're crunchy. He's a crunchy in the milk. He's a serial doesn't go soggy. Yeah. Sworn, sworn enemy. Oh, the sogis. That's right. His enemy is like a state, like a state of a face.

A state of being. Yeah. It does stay crunchy and milk, and it cuts you. It does. Oh, yeah, crunch mouth. Yep, yep. This is the Marvel superhero. Oh, oh, oh, Chris? That would be Captain America.

Yeah. Also Captain Marvel. Okay. Captain Marvel. Um, actually. There's a lot of them. The big circle on the target. Thank you, yeah.

All right. Okay. His two fears are the sight of his own blood and a crocodile. Oh. Karen. A Captain Hook. Yes. I didn't know about the blood part. Yeah, because it's supposed to be a weird color.

Oh. Of Peter Pan fame. Yeah, of Peter Pan. Captain Hook from Peter Pan. Commander of the Pequod and Moby Dick. Oh. Karen. Captain Ahab.

Yes. Beed me up, Scotty. Chris. Captain Kirk. Lonely Hearts Club Band. Sergeant Pepper. Yes. Oh, I like this lightning round.

It's a trap. Admiral Akbar. By your powers combined. I am Captain Planning. He's our hero. Gonna take pollution down. See, no one? Okay.

This is a popular children's novel series from 1997, started in 1997. Chris. Captain underpants. Yes. KFC? Everybody? The Colonel. Colonel Sanders.

He was a really fictional. He was a real person. He's real. And the mascot. Yeah, he, right. Yeah. It was kind of a colonel, kind of not a Kentucky Colonel. He was a Kentucky Colonel. Yeah, it's

an order of, yeah. Oh, it's not like military. It was an honorific. Right, yeah. Got it, yeah. Got it, got it. With the wrench in the conservatory. Colonel Mustard. Yes. From Pirates of the Caribbean. Chris. Whoa. No, Karen.

Captain Jack Sparrow. What is my ding not even counting? I'm sorry. What am I? What am I digging this thing for? Colin knew it too What a weird thing to blank on Yeah

Make it so Colin Captain Jean-Look Picard Yes Oh Star Trek TNG Yes

Picard The Mohawked A team member Mr. T But what was the name B.A. Barracus What was the

What's the If you have a title Sargent Sergeant I did not remember his rank Yeah Mascot on a brand of rum.

Everybody. Captain Morgan. Yes. Married Maria in the Sound of Music. Everybody. Captain Von Trapp. Yeah. Owner of the frying Dutchman restaurant in the Simpsons.

Oh, just the sea captain, right? What's his name? Oh, what is his full name? Seymour. I can't remember. Captain, what is it? Captain Horatio McAllister. Wow.

Also a Horatio. A caliscer. That's a good one. Yeah. Character from Torchwood and Doctor Who, Karen. Captain Jack. Last name? I forgot.

I'm blanking. You're going to kick yourself. Hold on. Jack. Harkness. Harkness. Yes. Yes.

He is pansexual. That's right. FYI. That's how we got his captain's title. Sail 20,000 leagues under the sea Colin Captain Nemo Yes

This is the The eyepatched shield commander Colonel Nick Fury Yes He's a colonel Yeah Yeah Okay last one

This is a British super spy British super spy James Bond What is James Bond's title Was he Major James Bond No He was

Lieutenant James Bond No It's a British rank Captain Commander James Bond Yeah Good old Jimmy And Jimmy Bond

Good job you guys That was good That's good If you are the sort of person Who pays attention to trivia You always hear Oh did you hear that such and such a thing Was the originally invented for the military

And now we use it every day Yes That always happens To answer my own question I would just like to in a bunch of mini segments with quiz questions sprinkled liberally throughout

we will talk about some items that were originally invented for military use and then people were just like hey this we could totally use this not in the military too as it turns out

happens a lot as I said we may have talked about some of these on the show before but here they are wrapped up into a pretty little package just for you so here's one that's kind of obvious When the United States military requested during World War II a four-wheel drive, all-terrain, relatively fast car automobile for reconnaissance missions, basically, it got the Jeep.

Yes. Right? According to the most common explanation, according to one explanation of where the name came from, it was an abbreviation, Jeep, of what two-word phrase? Colin. I have read many places that it was one explanation for a GP for general purpose. Exactly. Oh, not Jeep or creepers. Right.

So here's the weird thing. Yes. So what they say is, oh, you know, it was GP, a general purpose vehicle. Instead of saying GP, they started saying Jeep. The problem with this explanation is that the word Jeep, J-E-E-P was actually used prior to that in a lot of English slang. You know, they've kind of got it documented prior to World War II. Meaning what? There was, well, meaning a lot of different things, actually.

There was a character in the Popeye comic strips, and this would have been very popular at the time, right, called Eugene the Jeep. He was a made-up animal, basically. Oh, yeah. Then people, you know, soldiers would have been familiar with this. And then also, according to word origins.org, the word Jeep as a sort of just an all-purpose slang word, meaning that guy or that thing or whatever you wanted to. to be, but it's already in use. And it seems like maybe it meant a foolish person, like, this guy's such a Jeep. But then that becomes a new recruit in the army.

Like, oh, here's all the jeeps. And then, like, you know, the Jeep wagon. You know what I mean? Like, then it sort of gets applied that way. Well, you know, I mean, that sort of thing, basically. Like, oh, all the jeeps driving around in their Jeep car. That's that kind of thing. The way you say that sounds like a bad word.

It does, right? The more you say it like that. But it kind of is. It was sort of a slang, like, even in various, like, professions, like, there was even, like, in the television profession, there was a certain piece of equipment that people just sort of called a Jeep, and it had nothing to do with anything, so probably wasn't the GP thing, but people will often say that that's a piece of trivia and ask what two-word phrase. The microwave oven was famously invented by accident.

Oh, yeah. I find this to be a phenomenal story. Radar, which we remember stands for. Radio detection and ranging. Radio detection and ranging. It uses small radio waves to find stuff, to locate stuff, right? So in 1945, Percy Spencer, an engineer at the defense contractor, Raytheon, private company that just primarily did stuff for the military, was working on radar systems. And he noticed something funny.

He had a candy bar in his pocket, and it melted because it was getting blasted with these micro. microwaves, and he's like, oh, it's... I poop my pants. Well, the pocket, you know, it's his shirt. He pooped his shirt. I thought I was in his back pocket. It's a mother bigger problem if you poop your shirt. I poop my shirt.

Actually, maybe it was his back pocket. I don't know, is this in pocket. I just assumed it was up in his little pocket protector with all his pencils. His lab coat or something. He's a giant nerd. So he realized that it was the radio waves doing this. So he set something up to actually. heat some food with the microwaves to see how this would work. And I will tell you that the food

that he picked, that the first ever deliberately microwaved food. It's a burrito. It's actually something that is very popular today to cook in the microwave. So can you guess with the first? Popcorn. It was popcorn. Really? That makes sense. Yeah. Or deliberately microwave food. After that, you tried an egg and it exploded. I bet. Yeah. I've done that too. It's okay. I've done that. It's fine. We've all been there. We should put a peep in there.

Yeah. The PEEP the third thing he put in there. It's a CD. Put a CD in a microwave. What happens when you put a CD in the microwave? It crackles and like sparks, like arcs of electricity. It's very dangerous. You should not do that.

Definitely. Don't get too excited. It will certainly not be playable after the afterward. Yeah. Just be. It just won't fit. Be advised. So this was in 1945 that the candy bar melted.

By 1947, Raytheon had a commercial version of the microwave up and running. It called it the radar range. It was two meters tall, weighed 750 pounds, and cost $5,000. $1947. Wow. Primarily was used for, like, industrial purposes and things like that. Yeah, it wasn't something you'd put in your home.

Duck tape. Yes. Something I believe we've talked about on the show before. Will not surprise you. This was also invented for the military. Yes. There had been cloth tape prior to this. Sometimes it was even called like cotton duck tape

because it was made of the fabric called Cotton Duck. And again, I feel like we've said this on Good Job Rain before. We can't say it enough. The original name is Duck, as in the bird, quack quack, quack tape. It's not ducked as in an air duct tape. Despite the fact that it is used for that. And it was used for that, they'll call it that now. But duck tape is actually not a...

Egg corn. It's not an egg corn, exactly. It's really duck tape. Johnson and Johnson developed this specific invention for the military in World War II so they could seal ammunition cases in a waterproof way. Now, here's the question. Duck tape had two major features that were very important for the military, and this separated it from other tapes that you could get.

Number one, it was waterproof. Yep. What was number two? What is the other major feature of duct tape as a tool that would have proved very, very helpful in situations where you're out in the field? Easy to tear. Yes. Yeah. That was one of the requirements.

You just make a little hole in the tooth. No, no, no. Oh, you can rip it with your hands. Oh, not that strong. You can rip duct tape in a straight line right across it using just your bare hands, and that is by design. Because they're not like carrying scissors around with them when they need to, like, duct tape something. or a knife is not convenient or right yeah yeah take it out just take it out rip put it back tape it up yep everybody loves duct tape

I'm eating some right now tampons yes oh yeah no I mean you'd be happy about this during World War one the Kimberly Clark paper company totally just separately discovered that they could

they make paper, take wood pulp and make paper out of that. But they discovered that if they did a different kind of formulation of the wood pulp, they could actually create a substance that was five times more absorbent than cotton. And they called it cellulo cotton. And

cotton during World War I was kind of scarce. Because people were bleeding a lot and they were using up all of the cotton. And so it was like, hey, you can use this for your heavy-duty bandages. After World War I was over, they did find that it made really good bandages. But words started to spread because there were a lot of nurses.

There were a lot of allied nurses on the lines, like, you know, deployed for many years. And they found out that these things were actually also really handy about once a month. They were super, super handy and disposable. And available. And available. They were using them as an external feminine hygiene products. They did not, like, trumpet this from the rooftops because this is the 1910s. It's actually still taboo to even mention this basic biological fact of life.

It is, right, right, right. And that is actually why a lot of people say that even prior to this point, the idea of disposable feminine hygiene products had not taken root at all. Not because there wasn't a demand, but because people would not even go to a store and mention that they, even had a need for this product at all. When a marketer of Kotex had a brainstorm, he just told shopkeepers, and also this was still the age before self-service shopping, you went into the store, all the products were behind the counter, then you told the shopkeep what you wanted, and they went and got it for you.

Nothing was priced. You know, they told you what it was. They said, take the Kotex pads, put them on the counter, and then put an honor system box next to them. So basically, it was one of the first self-service shopping rooms. You walked in, took it, paid the money, left. No interaction with the shopkeeper whatsoever.

No awkward eye contact. No, nothing. And it did really well. Yep. And then in addition to the sanitary pads, they also would use the cell you cotton substance for tampon shaped feminine hygiene products. And some toys

have also come out of military research, for example. In World War II, this product was invented as the U.S. military searched for a replacement for rubber. Karen. Silly putty? Silly putty. Yes, and I have some right here. Wait, really?

I do, yeah. You're supposed to keep it in the egg, Chris. Oh, it's in the egg. It is in the egg. It's in the egg. The Japanese during World War II had actually invaded many of the countries where rubber was produced. And so we needed rubber. And we didn't have any.

And so it was this big thing. It was like, you know, lots of money in military contracts if you're a chemical company and you can produce us something that, you know, will work as rubber. And Silly Puddy, as it turns out, totally, totally does not work as rubber in any of its many capacities. It bounces. You can bounce it on the floor. Oh, sure, yeah. Well, that's why.

I mean, after a couple years, they were like, maybe this could be a toy because, right, it picks up, not a lot of military need for bouncing. No, not so much. Not so much. And then they established the first factory to create Silly Puddy, as we may have talked about before, in my hometown of North Brantford, Connecticut. It's where the Silly Puddy factory was located. Everyone knows that. Why is it skin colored?

It's kind of weird now now that... Oh, yeah, I don't know why it's... I don't know why it's that color. I mean, I'm sure they have other color silly putty, but the original, I mean, where the classic is skin color. Yeah, just classic color. Yeah. Makes me feel weird. I have a quote here for you guys related to military life, Army life.

An Army marches on its stomach. Oh. You guys heard this quote before? Oh, okay, Chris. I wasn't going to ask, but to whom is this usually attributed? Napoleon? It is. Yes.

Wow. Chris knows his Napoleonic quotes, yes. It apparently has also been attributed to Frederick the Great, but it is most commonly attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte, an Army marches on its stomach. And the meaning of it is not they crawl around on their stomach. Right. The meaning is a well-fed army is a army that's prepared for battle. There's many reasons.

Not hangary. Yeah. Yeah. The first non-hangry army. Right, right. And sort of in the spirit of Chris in your invention segment, I'm going to tell you guys a little bit about how we have Napoleon, largely to thank for modern canned food.

Wow. Yes, yes. So, I mean, this, it's still true today. But, you know, especially up through the 19th century, keeping an army well fed was a big challenge. You know, I mean, as armies were moving across Europe in the 1600s, 1700s, food was a big deal. I mean, there's a couple things to keep in mind here with regard to keeping an army fed. So, you know, up until relatively recently, you know, you could preserve food somewhat if you were an army on the move, but it was curing, you know, or salting or smoking, which is good, but it only, you know, kind of suits itself well to certain types of food. You know, you can't, like, have a salted

fruit salad, you know? They could extend the life of food, but not indefinitely. The other thing to keep in mind is up through the 1800s, to a large part, traveling armies were kind of reliant on what they would find as they're moving into new territory to keep themselves fed. And that might mean, taking fruit off a tree or catching your own fish or stealing food from a farm or stealing from the local townspeople's. No, I mean, you kind of had to scrounge for your meals a lot of times. So, in 1795, Napoleon himself announced a prize of 12,000 francs, which was a reward to the person who could develop a new, improved, better system of food preservation.

And the very direct goal of this was to keep the army better fed. It's like, we need food that's not spoiling. We need something that's light and portable. Oh, that's a contest. Yeah. What better way to spur innovation? Crowdsort. Governments and militaries will still do this a lot.

Yeah. It's also, it's expensive to have spoiled food and have people wasting time stealing off farms and doing like that. You want them focused on the task at hand. So it took about 15 years. But eventually the prize was claimed by a man named Nicholas Apar, Frenchman. And he was a confectioner and a chef. And prior to the prize being announced or the bounty, you know, he was already sort of interested in better preserving food.

Like, he had already been kind of tinkering with this. And so it took a while, but the process that he developed, essentially, was the forerunner of modern canning and jarring. Basically, heat the food, seal it airtight really well, boil it in the container to sterilize the food, and then make sure that it stays really well sealed. And he claimed the prize, took his money. He patented his process. And apparently he had a pretty good mind for publicity.

I've read that, you know, one of the advantages of the glass. jars is you can like well you can see what's inside so he would he was jarring and canning all manner of goods he made a big splash by preserving an entire sheep in a relatively relatively large size jar you know not like a can of beans and an entire sheep in a jar he's like all right well this guy knows what he's doing and this was a big deal it may i mean it was a revolution in terms of army food military food uh for a long time france was sort of the leader in food preservation technology. And what's funny is that, you know,

they knew that this worked to keep food from spoiling. They didn't know why it worked because this was decades before, Dana, you've talked on recent episodes about Pasteur's discovery, you know, playing around with wine and the sort of the antimicrobial theory.

So they just knew that this kept food safe. They didn't quite know why the heat and the sterilization and the airtight container. Right, right. From there, I mean, it was mainly, you know, some small changes to the process, but mainly materials improvement. I mean, you can imagine probably the biggest problem

with glass jars out on the battlefield. They're going to break. Right, going to break a lot. So you need something not quite so delicate. So, yeah, in relatively short order, glass jars were replaced by iron, canisters. From their tin, tin was in use for a long, long, long time. I still sometimes call them tin cans,

which I must have gotten from my parents. Even though I don't think they've made tin cans in our life. Oh, what is it now? Aluminum? Or steel, usually, yes. depending on what's needed. They've moved on from tin and iron and lead, right? Lead can.

Yum, yum. Our UK listeners may in fact refer to them as tins. Yes. And as tinned food. And by, by may I mean, do. Also, aluminium. Yeah. And they also say schedule.

But that's neither here nor there. Yeah, that one's, we didn't talk about that word. The lorry full of tins is behind schedule. Oh. What? Take it to my flat. This is my favorite part of the history of soldier life with canned food. All right.

So into, well into the 1800s, you had canned food out on the battlefield. There were no can openers yet. The technology was moving so fast that they were, okay, great, we got the food in this metal can. How do you open it out on the battlefield? Pull-tags. You would, you would stab it. Dana was right. You would just use your...

I've done that before. Yeah. Yeah, it's dangerous. I've got myself pretty badly. It's hard. You really work for that. It's super mad. It feels like you hunted it down.

Like, you earned it, whatever. You might just smash the can against a rock. If you were lucky enough to have a hammer and chisel, you could chisel the top off. So it wasn't until the 1850s that the modern can opener kind of came along and caught up to this need of that soldiers had originally. Well, so which came first the can or the can opener? Yeah. The can. Like by a hundred years.

Most assuredly. Ah, 50 years, I'll say. Yeah. But yes, every time you now sit down to a can. of green beans or whatever's inside, some small part of that experience you can thank Napoleon Bonap. Wow. Thanks Napoleon. Naps.

The original Napster. Nappy bee. Nappy bee. Nappy bee. In the house. All right, let's take a quick break. A word from our sponsor. Hello, this is Matt from the Explorers podcast. I want to invite you to join me

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Welcome back. You're listening to Good Job Brain this week. We're time about military life. And so I grew up in a large city. I don't think I've ever not lived in a large city. And one of your telltale signs of a very urban area is the amount of pigeons there are. Yes. Even though maybe today we think of them as pests, pigeons did play a very large part in military history. For this show, it's fun to talk about how people did things without technology. And back in the day, without walkie-talkies, without any communication service, without telegrams, military had to rely on other things to deliver their messages, including pigeons. Totally the wrong country.

Yeah, exactly. Even World War I It wasn't even really developed yet How to communicate Troop within troop or country to country Even tanks From tank to tank They used pigeons

To send one pigeon to the other tank Because they couldn't really signal I guess they had flag codes But sometimes it's just more efficient And this is the thing Messenger pigeons were very common World War I And actually were more reliable

Than telegrams They were more reliable than telegrams Well, I remember reading it, yeah, like, just like the network of telegram, like, wires would go down, right? I mean, like the maintenance of the line was an issue. Or there was a storm. Pigeons find a cup of french fries or like that. Invade Molland. The Molland.

Get out of the troops. We'll just keep invading until we find it. Wherever Molland is. So let me set the scene on October 3rd, 1918. Major Charles Whittlesey and more than 500 men were trapped on the side of the hill behind enemy lines without food, without ammunition. They're also beginning to receive friendly fire from alley troops because they didn't know that they were there.

They had three pigeons. The first pigeon, they had a message attached. First pigeon got shot down. They're like, okay. Oh, they only had three pigeons. I mean, and nothing else. And then this is hitting your bandwidth limit, basically. It's just three pigeons worth of internet right now.

You're going to throttle me. The second pigeon went out. Oh, jeez. Didn't make it. Finally, the third pigeon that they called Cherami, which means dear friend in French, third pigeon went out, and this is their last hope. And the third pigeon, Cherami, made it. By this time, the 500 men were whittled down to, like, 190.

And, man, Cherami, this pigeon became a hero. She arrived, delivered the message, successfully when she arrived she was shot through the breast blinded in one eye and one of her legs were blown off and like kind of just hanging but made it

she's like I got a mission the flight amazing and saved almost 200 people's lives and Sharon Me became the hero and it's so cute the army medics they try to you know fix her up they even carved her a little leg a little fake leg because they had to

amputate the leg that was dangling and they had a little wooden leg and she died from her injuries and she was mounted as part of you can see her at Smithsonian Institute part of the National Museum of American History and is a hero. Can you imagine

just that pigeon just went through so much. Wow. They have like the purple heart for pigeons or so there's some award right. I hope she got some recognition. Oh yeah yeah. She got it but I know that she got the hero of the yeah there are In World War II, actually, there's another pigeon called G. I.I. Joe, who is a he, saved an Italian village and the British troops. And G.I. Joe was presented the Dick and Medal for Gallantry by the U.K. and was the first non-British recipient of the medal.

G.I. Joe, the Pidgett. And G.I. Joe actually lived a good life, 18 years old and died of old age. Hey, where was he from? He's from the U.S. He was trained by U.S. Pigeon. Oh, and they sent some overseas. exactly got it so the thing is pigeons were used on almost every side of the world wars especially the Germans World War II they used a lot of pigeons for the Germans to communicate with spies they're so good at it and it was becoming a problem Heinrich Kimler head of the SS was a big was a big pigeon fan and definitely developed and grew this network of pigeons to deliver messages within the Nazi party the British needs needing to somehow counter this network of Nazi pigeons, decided to start their own bird-related military program. And what they did was they trained peregrine falcons. I was going to say, where are they? Fastest animal in the world. Pigeon eaters.

Pigeon eaters. Boy didn't work. Oh, yes. I don't even think you need that much, quote, training to train the peregrine falcons. They know just what to do. It's kind of like that nursery rhyme where like someone ate a fly and then you eat a spider to eat a fly. It was just like, well, look at these pigeons, we need something to eat the pigeons. Let's release these really dangerous birds out.

And it totally worked. And of course, with communication technology evolving, the use of messenger pigeons wasn't really needed anymore. So for the U.S. at least, the U.S. army just continued using pigeon as message carriers in 1957. That's still pretty late. That's pretty late. To be dependent on a bird, you know, I don't know. Pigeons are smart.

I know that, but it just seems strange to be so dependent on these birds. And funny enough, recently in 2012, they found a skeleton of a carrier pigeon in a home chimney in Surrey. It was believed that the pigeon was sent from France in 1944 during the D-Day invasion. Did it still have a message? It did have a message. It had a can of send a message, and the message as of December 2012 has not been deciphered. Oh. So, I mean, not like these pigeons just had normal messages.

They're still coded. Yeah. But yeah, isn't that? Oh, I love that. Like, that's the root of a great story. Yeah. That's the root of a great story. But that also made me think this pigeon wasn't very good if it got stuck in a chimney for all these years.

So judgmental, Karen. So next time you see pigeons out on the street and you're like, they're gross. Just remember that. Back in the day, they were quite the coo-rageous parts of the military. They were co-rageous because they coo, you see. Yeah, I get it. Oh, we get it. We all got it.

Yeah, that's what we knew how to react. That there was a thing. You might say the Army enjoyed using pee mail for pigeon. I like that you guys need to explain your puns. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's how you know a pun is good, Dana. It's confusing. Right, and it's super confusing, it has to be explained.

And even after it's explained, you still don't really get it. But you just want to move on. Speaking of which. So from time to time, we get questions about military branch mottos. Yeah. Oh, man, pub trivia. And sometimes we get it, sometimes we don't. But I made a quiz for you guys.

I took the liberty of creating the list of the branches so that way you guys can see it. I feel like it would just be like this stab in the dark. We know some. Some of it, at best. Shall we read off the potential answers for those listening at home? Sure. So there's the U.S. Army, the U.S. Coast Guard, the U.S. Oh, by the way, these are all U.S. ones.

There are tons of military groups all over the world. They don't usually ask us about other countries' militaries. So I'm just focusing on the U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy SEALs, the National Guard of the U.S., U.S. Army Special Forces, the Green Berets. and the U.S. Army National Guard. Which is different than the National Guard of the United States. They are two different groups. Okay.

And there's a few other groups. That's so confusing. I know. We're going to have to make a nomadic for this at some point. But I didn't put on every military branch because some of them are just too obscure. Kind of obscure. Or, and or their motto was too obvious. Like, if we heard it, we'd be like, okay, the Rangers.

Like, the Rangers go first. Who is that? The Rangers. You got it. Yeah. All right. Well, I'll start with kind of an obvious one for you guys. whose motto is aim high fly fight win

or is it are we doing as like as a team do you guys want to do it as a team or individual we can do like a write-in we compete so much and you know why don't we just work together I'm pretty sure that's the air force I know it sounds like the Air Force to me sounds like the Air Force it is the Air Force that's great

how about you can you can this would suggest to me that it's trying to get people who ordinarily wouldn't, you know, maybe go into... National Reserve. Yeah, so it could be like the Army National Guard or the National Guard of the United States. That's not a bad. That's not a bad reasoning. Yeah, so maybe...

In the absence of Army National Guard. Army National Guard. Army National Guard? It's the Army National Guard? Yes, good. Okay. You can. You can.

Yeah. How about not self, but country? And it's really in Latin. I'll try to... I'll tempt the Latin for you. Okay. Non-Sibis said pat. Montsevi said patria, not self-book.

Okay, well, I know which ones it's not. Yeah, not self-but-country. Oh, how about National Guard of the United States? Yeah, okay, that makes sense. That makes sense. It's the Navy. Oh, really? Yes.

Huh. Random is not maritime-based at all. Yeah. It would be interesting. So not self-but-country. I like this one. It's very sassy. Yeah.

The only easy day was yesterday. Wow. Marketing. Yeah. The only easy day was yesterday. I mean, that sounds like Navy. SEALs or special forces? I'm going to say special forces.

Yeah, I like special forces. It's the SEALs. The SEALs. The SEALSASY SEALS. Yeah. Sassy SEALs, the only easy day is yesterday. Boom. Get out of here.

Don't complain. Yeah, right, right, right. This will defend. This will defend. This will defend. This will defend. We will defend. This will defend.

I'm going to say the other, the National Guard. Sure. I'll do that. It's the Army. Really? Really? Yeah, they have, like, the marketing ones of Army. B-all-you-can-be-all-you-be.

Yeah. That's them trying to get you to join. Got it. I think it's Army of one now, is the marketing slogan. Yeah, yeah. Like, that's not how they get here. Their motto is, this will defend. Marketing slogan versus actual motto.

This will defend. Yeah. Okay. Okay. All right. How about always prepared, and their Latin one is Simper Paratus. Oh. That's the Coast Guard.

Coast Guard. That's the Coast Guard. We got this wrong before. Yes. It's not the Boy Scouts. Yeah, Coast Guard. My dad was in the Coast Guard. He is always prepared.

He always has a... He always has... Band-aids and pins. He's like... The Writers' original. He needs something. Good bet is to ask my dad. You might have it.

How about always faithful? That's the Marine Corps. Semper Fidelis. Yes. How about this one? Always ready, always there. Always ready, always there. Well, let's see.

And now we can start doing the elimination game. Yeah, because it's not the Army, not the Coast Guard. Yeah, special forces. Sounds like this. It's like we'll go anywhere you need us. Always ready, always there. Yeah, Green Berets, maybe. No, I'm going to go with National Guard of the United States.

Okay. Why? Because I think that that's their motto. You are right. You're right. Okay, all right. Yes. I was thinking it was like,

They're maybe in the United States or like wherever. Ah, okay. Wherever you are. By definition, we're there. Yeah. You are always ready. We're always there. Okay.

Okay. Last one. Well, maybe it's obvious now from a process of elimination. It is to liberate the oppressed or to free from oppression. The Latin one is de oppresso liberer. Hmm. The U.S. Army Special Forces and or Green Berets. Yeah.

They liberate the oppressed. All right. That is their motto. Mm-hmm. stylishly. And they look good doing it. That's right. Good job, you guys. Yeah, we need to figure out a way to, like, always remember this, not lose any more points on these. We just need dumb stories. If we just learn like one or two each time, eventually, yeah, yeah. We should there. Yeah. All right. Cool.

Steve Cubine and Nan McNamara's podcast from Beneath the Hollywood Sign. Mary Astor has been keeping a diary. Mary writes everything down. And so this torrid affair with Georges Kaufman is chronicled. a daily basis. In great detail. And Ife pulls out a box and gives McAllister a ring saying, here's something to remember me by. This article caused Daryl Zanick to hit the roof. Actress Ruth Roman followed that up with playing a foil to Betty Davis in Beyond the Forest. I mean, if you can stand toe to toe with her, boy. And she does because she plays the daughter of the man that Betty Davis kills out in the hunting trip. And it's directed by King Vidor, so he's no

How do you go wrong with that? Yeah. Speaking of the Oscars, talking about what I call beginner's luck, it's all about the actors and actresses who won an Oscar on their very first film. Get your fix of Old Hollywood from Stephen Nann on the podcast from Beneath the Hollywood Sign. And we got one last quiz segment. Is it on topic or is it off topic? It is on topic.

Yeah. And on point. So we have talked many, many times on the show before about abbreviations, acronyms, and, of course, portmanteau words. You know who loves abbreviations, acronyms, and portmanteau words? Collin. The military. Love them. Love them.

In the course of doing research for this quiz, I came upon way more than I could ever possibly hope to quiz you guys on. The Army, the Navy, the Marines, Air Force, they love them. They love them. And a lot of these have worked their way into normal everyday use, of course. You know, I mean, we almost use them without thinking that they, oh, this had a military meaning at one point. So the format of this quiz, which I will call from AWOL to Fubar, is I will give you an abbreviation acronym or portmanteau, common or derived from the military. You tell me what it stands for, where it came from.

So, for example, if I were to give you AWOL. Absent without Lee? Correct. That's it. You're off the base or you're somewhere where you're... not supposed to be, and no one gave you leave to be there. And I'll give you some hints as needed, because to my knowledge, no one here has ever been on active duty anywhere in the world.

No. It's true. No. If you say someone is MIA, what does that mean? Dana. Missing an action. Correct. Missing an action.

We talked earlier in the show about G.I. Joe. I'm sure you guys have heard G.I. many times. G.I. Joe, the G.I. Bill. Just G.I.'s in general. what popularly does G.I. stand for? I have no idea. General infantrymen?

No. No, Dana. General issue? I will accept general issue. The most common accepted abbreviation is government issue. Government issue. You will often see general issue.

It seems like, and I found several sources on this that agree, originally GI came from World War I era and stood for galvanized iron. which would have been stamped on military-provided hardware and through several layers of extension it came to mean something that was supplied by the government government issued eventually basically a game of mansplaining telephone nobody wants to admit they don't know what it stands for so make him right up i like that that's a good way to put it yeah and you know eventually it came

to apply to the soldiers themselves we are the GIs we're government issue right we'll talk a little bit about some equipment and weapons and vehicles that we may see in military theaters. What? You may know this from video games as well. No. What is an RPG, an RPG, Karen. A range projectile grenade. You got one of the words, right, Chris?

How about a rocket-propelled grenade? It is. Or a role-playing game. Yes, yes, yes. You may see both types of RPGs in Army. Rocket-propelled grenade. Rocket-propelled grenade. If you're talking about a vehicle that has V-T-O-L capabilities, what does this mean?

What type of vehicle? V-T-O-L. You might see these kind of vehicle, Karen, take a guess? Do you want to finish your sentence? Oh, you might see these kind of vehicles on an aircraft carrier. Variable terrain off-land. A helicopter would fall under this category of vehicle. A VTOL is a vertical takeoff and landing aircraft.

Nice. And this is, as you can imagine, very handy in warfare, places where you may not have a lot of space to land and or take off. So helicopters, of course, are vertical takeoff and landing. But the most famous would probably be the Harrier Jump Jet. Have you ever seen one of these takeoff? It's really cool. If you can go online, you can just Google. Oh, do you have the circles and then the propellers?

It's a jet. There's also the Osprey, which is, I think, what might be you're thinking of. The Harrier is really cool. It looks like a normal jet, but it can basically direct its thrust downward. So it can just kind of hover straight up and then fly away. Oh, like in true lies. Yeah, where it cuts in America. Just like in true lies.

As a member of the armed forces, the least stressful part of your day may involve an MRE. What is an MRE, Chris? That is a meal ready to eat. Yes, that is right. Note that I said, least stressful, not most enjoyable. What does a meal? an EOD team do in the military. If you send in the EOD team, and I'll give you a little hint, an EOD team was prominently

featured in the movie The Hurt Locker. Oh. Dana. Explosives and ordinance devices? So close. Explosives. Oh, you're right there. You're right on it.

An EOD team is an explosive ordinance disposal team. Disposal. Yeah, like a military bomb disposal unit. I'm proud I knew the word ordinance. I have seen heart locker. Most nations' navies use special abbreviations to denote their ships and set them apart from other countries' ships. So I have a couple quick ones here for you. So tell me, on an American ship, this is two-parter.

On an American ship, what does the USS stand for? And on a British ship, what does the HMS stand for? Is it United States ships? It is. United States ship. Oh, sweet. And then it's her majesty's ship. That's right.

That's right. And the beauty of the... I miss it. I mean, it sounded so... It's like, well, clearly it's... Yeah. The United States. Yeah.

Well, can't they tell us a ship just by looking? No. And the beauty of the HMS system is that it doesn't matter whether you have a king or a queen. Because it'll just switch to his majesty's ship. Right. Currently, it's her majesty's ship in the British Royal Navy, yes. All right. And last, we will close out here with a couple of...

of acronyms that both date to World War II rather quickly made their way into general use. And I remind you, this is a clean podcast. So please feel free to vulgarize your answers as needed to make them family friendly. First one, please tell me

what is and what does it stand for? Snafu. Karen. Situation normal. All fudged up. Yeah. I'll accept fudge or fouled. As I'm sure you can imagine

It was not the word that would actually be set out in the field Yes a snafu when something goes wrong It was fart Yeah situation normal meaning all fouled up right All right and last one as we said We're going from AWOL to FUBAR Please please tell me what does Fubar stand for Dana

Fudged up beyond all reason Chris Fowled up beyond all recognition Most commonly it will be yeah Fowled up beyond all recognition, beyond reason, beyond repair, all acceptable substitutes for the R in Fubar. Yes. Good job, guys. I'm shipping you out tomorrow.

Oh, no. I'm not ready. I'm not going to survive. I've got some MREs. I got MREs and pigeons. You're ready to go. We got all the acronyms, though. We got all the acronyms in place.

You did. We're ready. That's 99% of basic credit. I think they're more than what we talked about. Guess what, Sarge? I memorized all the acronyms. acronyms. Yeah.

And I got a Peregrine falcon. I'm crazy. All right. And that is our military show. Thank you guys for joining me. Thank you guys,

listeners for listening. I hope you learn a lot about, about fictional captains, war inventions, and Peregrine Falcons, and whatnot. You can find us on iTunes, on Stitcher, on SoundCloud,

and on our website, goodjobbrain.com. Thanks for our sponsor, Audible, at audiblepodcast.com slash good job brain. And we'll see you guys. next week

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