FUBAR Etymology [nac]

[MCTXR4 at aol.com]

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Yes, Fubar and Snafu are US Military acronyms. Became popular in WW2, much
earlier than the supposed widespread use in SE Asia.

I remember my Dad coming home from work and using these terms most eloquently
in the immediate postwar years in New York City to describe some of the
projects he was working on at Bendix with a bunch of former Army types.

I asked him what they meant and he told me he had learnt them in the Merchant
Navy (he was chief engineer on several Liberty Ships) while waiting to load
and offload war material at the docks in New York and Liverpool to the
waiting Army trucks only to have to wait on the Union workers. Usually was
SNAFU'd at the US end and FUBAR'd at the other, with a good dose of HUAW -
pronounced hoo-aw - in between.  HUAW = Hurry Up And Wait.

I also refer other historians in the group to the comic drawings of Bill
Mauldin, where his characters Joe and Willie freely expressed their feelings
about life in the military during WW2. I know of at least one reference to
SNAFU that was printed in the "Starts and Stripes".

Mike Torio