Oorah

<i>Oorah</i>

Oorah

Battle cry in the U.S. Marine Corps since the mid-20th century

Oorah is a battle cry common in the United States Marine Corps since the mid-20th century.

For the organization, see Oorah (organization).

Several anecdotes attributed the phrase to John R. Massaro's time as a gunnery sergeant in the Reconnaissance Company, 1st Marine Division, in the mid-1950s.[1] Massaro (who later became sergeant major of the Marine Corps) and other Marines who trained aboard the USS Perch submarine, beginning in 1949, used oorah in imitation of the vessel's klaxon horn (which sounded like arrugah).[1] Others have attributed the phrase's popularization to Massaro's subsequent time at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego, where use of the word spread.[1] However, Massaro has said that he did not originate the word (saying in 2015: "It was a phrase or a term originally coming from boarding a ship") and that the word was already in use in 1949.[1]

See also

References

  1. [1]
    Gidget Fuentes, The Marine sergeant major behind the 'oorah' battle cry, Marine Corps Times (November 10, 2015).
Share this article:

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Oorah, and is written by contributors. Text is available under a CC BY-SA 4.0 International License; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.