Saluting

Everyone is familiar with the military tradition, requirement, of saluting. I do a lot of saluting, on a daily basis, mostly walking back and forth to and from the dining facility. I probably salute between 25 and 50 times daily, which works out to about 1,000 salutes a month.

Saluting is taught in basic training, and it is executed in a very specific fashion. Enlisted and lower ranking officers must salute higher ranking officers. The hand, wrist and forearm must form a straight line, arm at 90 degrees, hand touching the brim of the headgear or the forehead above the eyebrow

Few soldiers give a regulation salute. The variations are legion: hand tilted down, with the palm covering the eye; hand tilted up, exposing the palm, like the British; forearm vertical, palm toward the face; forearm vertical, thumb toward eye, with a downward chop like a machete; arm and hand not straight, curved like a gooseneck. Some crack off a sharp salute, one where the arm is rigid and the hand quivers briefly after coming to a stop at the forehead. Many soldiers give a lazy, half-hearted salute where they just slowly raise a hand, kind of like they are going to scratch an eyebrow. This is always accompanied by a thin smile; they know they are giving a poor salute. Some don’t even bother to salute; they will study the ground, or be fascinated with something off in the distance, so they don’t see me.

Occasionally a soldier will say a phrase when saluting, like “Warriors,” or “Gimlets,” or “First to Fire,” or the verbose “Rainbow, sir, never forget.” These always throw me. What do you say to that? “F*ckin’ A, soldier”? “Right on, dude”? They just spit out the phrase as you pass them, and by the time you figure out what they just said, because they usually don’t enunciate well, you’ve moved past them.