X.2: Glossary (Live Post)
This glossary is a living post that’ll be updated as we go. The Army has a ton of terms that aren’t familiar to the average person, but it’d be exhausting to read them spelled out over and over again in every post. The military also has an unhealthy obsession with acronyms and initialisms, so some sort of translator is essential.
If you ever come across a term you’re unfamiliar with, check here for a more thorough explanation.
If you don’t find it here, message me and I’ll make sure it gets added.
Terms are sorted alphabetically.
ACFT/APFT. Army Combat Fitness Test. The six-event test the army adopted to replace the APFT (Army Physical Fitness Test), which consisted of a two-minute push-up event, a two-miniute sit-up event, and a two-mile run. (G.0, G.1)
AFAP - As Fast As Possible. A workout with a prescribed number of repetitions or set where the goal is to complete it quickly. You can rest in the set, but the clock doesn’t stop. (G.0)
AG - Adjutant Corps. The Human Resources branch of the US Army. (2.10)
AI/ML - Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning. Using computers to execute tasks we used to think you needed people to do, usually by algorithms. Splitting the hairs between these two terms has its own cottage industry, so you’ll often seen them used together, but also interchangeably. If you’re the kind of person who is offended by this and you know the true technical difference between the two, why are you here in the glossary anyways? (1.5)
AIM2 - Assignment Interactive Module 2 (AIM2) Marketplace. The online clearinghouse for jobs and soldiers for the army. (Z.04)
AI2C - Army Artificial Intelligence Integration Center. Home of one of the three Army Software Factories. (X.6)
ANGLICO - Air Naval Gunfire Liaison Company (ANGLICO) are small air support teams from the United States Marine Corps. They operate well forward to help coordinate air support, and ostensibly naval gunfire, but I’ve never been deployed with them anywhere near the ocean. (1.2)
APIs - Application Programming Interface, connections that allow data to flow in and out seamlessly from your software. (1.4)
ArcGIS - Possibly the original geographic information system, released in 1982. (1.4)
ARSOF - Army Special Operations, which includes SF as well as CA (Civil Affairs), PO (Psychological Operations, or PSYOP), the Rangers, and ARSOAC (Army Special Operations Aviation Command. (2.11, 3.6, 4.2)
AS3 - Assistant Operations Officer. Army staff sections are known by their numbers. 1 is personnel, 2 is intelligence, 3 is operations, 4 is logistics, 6 is signal. There are more, but it all gets complicated pretty fast. These are the main ones. (2.01, 2.14)
ATAK - Android Team Awareness Kit is a suite of software that provides geospatial information and allows user collaboration over geography. (Z.01)
BMI - Body Mass Index. A lazy calculation that ignores muscle mass to only compare height and weight. While PBF (percentage of body fat) is a better measurement, neither can tell you if you’re ready. (G.8)
CAG - Commander’s Action Group. Also called a (CIG) Commander’s Initiative Group. Ostensibly a mini staff for general officers that works prep and projects for the CG. IMO? Stolen manpower from the staff. (3.5, 3.6)
CAP - Command Assessment Program. An assessment run in the fall where the Army evaluates the next generation of the Command Select List (CSL) leaders among its Lieutenant Colonels, Colonels, and Sergeants Major. (1.2, 2.11, G.1a, Z.06, Z.07, Z.08)
CGSC, Command and General Staff College. SAMS, School of Advanced Military Studies. The AWC, Army War College. and the SMA, Sergeants Major Academy. These are all army professional development schools. CGSC is the army’s school for majors at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. SAMS is also in Leavenworth is where the army trains ‘jedis’. The AWC is the army’s senior service college for colonels. The SMA is in Fort Bliss Texas, where the Army trains most of its SGMs. (4.1)
CIDNE - Combined Information Data Network Exchange. One of the DoD’s data repositories of tactical information. (1.4, 2.08)
CG - The Commanding General. (2.14)
CJTF - Combined Joint Task Force. The three star command ultimately in charge of the forces in Iraq and Syria for the fight against ISIS. (2.12)
COIC - Counter-IED Operations Integration Center - an organization within JIEDDO tried to tackle the entire network relating to IEDs. (1.4)
COIN - COunter-INsurgency, the fight against non-state forces the army had been prioritizing for most of the previous decade and a half. (2.06)
CONOP - Concept of an Operation. This evolved from a paragraph in an Operations Order into a 40 slide PowerPoint deck. (2.01, 2.02, 2.14)
COP - Two definitions. 1) a common operational picture. Oten sought after as the ‘single pane of glass’, no one yet has made the Holy Grail of COP software. Typically mistaken by commanders to mean the projected or displayed map at the front of a JOC, a real COP is a data fabric of all the intelligence, logistics, and operations of a military headquarters accessible to each member of the unit to interrogate and update from their own position. 2) A combat outpost. See FOB. (1.1, 1.5, 2.12, 4.2)
CSL - Command Select List. The list of those selected for command and command sergeants major at the Lieutenant Colonel and above in accordance with Title 10 of the US Code. (2.11, Z.06)
CSM - Command Sergeants Major are the senior NCO in a unit, and are selected by a centralized board just like the commander’s they advise. (2.04)
CTC - Combat Training Centers. Where the army ostensibly goes to prepare for high intensity combat, but mostly does Gulf War cosplay. (M.5)
CTO - Command (or Chief) Technology Officer. The senior rep tasked with managing technical operations, overseeing research and development, and the lead technical advisor to the executive. (1.2)
CUI - Controlled Unclassified Information is information that while unclass, still requires stewarding. Formerly FOUO (For Official Use Only). (2.07)
Data Literacy - There are multiple definitions out there but for Downrange Data I define it as being able to:
Digitize information into data structures
Build processes that leverage data
Critically assess data to make decisions (0.1)
Digital Literacy - Being able to use digital systems to their full effect. (0.1)
DoD - Department of Defense, or less formally, the US Military. Headquartered in the Pentagon. (1.4, 1.5)
DODID - Also known as a EDI-PI (Electronic Data Interchange-Personal Identifier). A unique ID number for all military servicemembers and their spouses. It’s the perfect index number to connect up data in disparate Army systems, which of course is why we don’t use it as such. IPPS-A opted to give us all an additional one. (2.09, 3.2)
Department of Defense Information Network (DODIN) if you are on a computer provided by the military you are probably on the DODIN. (X.6)
DFAC - Dining FACilities. Also known as chow or halls and sometimes cafeterias. (G.8)
EMOM - Every Minute on the Minute. A workout where you restart the set every minute, resting only with the time left. If the rounds are longer, they are typically abbreviated EMO#M where the # is the total time you have to complete the round and rest before starting again. (G.3)
EW - Electronic Warfare. The competition across the electromagnetic spectrum which is subject to interference like jamming and spoofing. (2.12, 4.1, Z.05)
FAFO - ‘Fuck Around, Find Out’. Can be a term for schadenfreude, but in this Substack means the ability to learn software just by using it and playing around. Downrange Data exists in an odd Venn overlap where you have youngsters who need to look up what MS Access is while olds need help with internet speak. I’m here for both audiences.
FalconView - Mapping software designed by the Georgia Tech Research Institute, initially for the Air National Guard. The first geo-rectified software I used, starting back when I was a LT in Ar Ramadi. (1.1, 1.3)
FOB - Forward Operating Base. Pronounced like a key-fob, these are generally a combat base large enough to have a chow hall. Smaller than that we called typically them COPs, or combat outposts. (1.1, G.6)
FBCB2 - Force XXI Battle Command Brigade and Below was an Army system for tracking friendly forces and communicating commands across the formation digitally. I first got to use the system in Ar Ramadi in 2004, and at the time it was the only way to see digital maps on the move. It had some chat capability, which I used to chat with a fellow deployed Michigan State Alum in Baghdad. However, as an organization we barely used the capabilities of the system, largely because of a lack of digital literacy across our formation, and especially in our leadership. (0.2)
*My platoon only had a single system though, which didn’t help much. Instead, as referenced in ‘’ we used Garmin’s GPSMAP software to download the tracks from each vehicle when we returned from patrols. I could then splice the data together and then reupload an ever-growing roadmap of the area to my NCOs Garmins.
Front Line Trace - the position of the most forward element in a military maneuver. (1.2)
G8 - The section of the army responsible for funding, fielding, and equipping actions. Aka acquisitions. (Z.02)
gb - Gigabyte or 1,024 megabytes. Roughly the file size of one episode of a Netflix sitcom in HD. Not to be confused with GB, or ‘Green Beret’. (3.5)
GCC - Geographic Combatant Command. The DoD regional commands which divide responsibilities for global executing of the National Defense Strategy. Commanded by a four-star flag officer of one of the military services.
H2F - Holistic Health and Fitness. H2F is the Army trying to catch up to SOF’s THOR3 (Tactical Human Optimization Rapid Rehabilitation and Reconditioning). Both are programs focused on improving the mental and physical health of soldiers. Good programs include nutritionists, mental and physical strength coaches, and robust PT resources. (G.1, G.6, G.7, G.9)
HIIT - High Intensity Interval Training. A form of exercise that focuses on higher heart rates than traditional ‘cardio’ or MICT (Moderate Intensity Cardiovascular Training). Can include use of weights, though this is sometimes called HIFT (High Intensity Functional Training). (G.3)
HKIA - Hamid Karzai International Airport, now renamed back to Kabul International Airport. (Z.01)
HPTL - High Payoff Target List. All the things the enemy will have a very hard time living without. Preferably losing it will cause them to stop living entirely. (2.06)
IED - Improvised Explosive Devices. Bombs. They’re just bombs. The Army loves its initialisms, especially the three letter ones. (0.2)
IPPS-A - Integrated Personnel and Pay System - Army. A $10 billion dollar personnel system currently cosplaying as the wreck of the Titanic. (0.3, 2.09)
ISR - Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance. Technically that’s anything that can sense anything, but the Army usually uses it for ‘drone’. (1.2)
JCET - Joint Combined Exchange Training, which is a clunky name for when Special Forces go to foreign countries to train with foreign forces. (2.02)
JIEDDO - Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization was founded in 2006, focused on countering the IED threat. It is now under the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA). (1.4)
JMAP - Joint Marksmanship Assessment Package. The marines of Weapons Training Battalion in Quantico designed a new data driven way to measure close combat lethality. They published an article in the Marine Corps Gazette, and did a podcast interview with War on the Rocks. (Z.03)
JOC - Joint Operations Center, also called Tactical Operations Center (TOC) when not multi-service. A room full of computers, displays, and occasionally actual soldiers who are monitoring the current fight. (2.07, 2.12, 2.13, 4.2, X.9, Z.05)
JSOC - Joint Special Operations Command. A joint component command of USSOCOM charged with studying special operations requirements and techniques to ensure interoperability and equipment standardization, to plan and conduct special operations exercises and training. The Joint Special Operations Command also oversees the Special Mission Units of U.S. Special Operations Command. (X.6)
KM - Knowledge Management. According to the army, ‘KM is the process of identifying, organizing, storing, and disseminating information within an organization’. In my experience, it’s the contractor(s) who won’t give you rights to edit the SharePoint until ordered to, and who will report in every weekly update they are ‘migrating the SharePoint’ while taking zero proactive steps to improve how your organization identifies, organizes, stores, and disseminates data. (3.5)
KMO - Knowledge Management Officer. Technically there’s a slew of different KM titles, but everyone just calls them KM. (3.5)
KMZ - A zipped version of a Keyhole Markup Language (KML) file, which is just XML for georectified data. The principal file format for sharing Google Earth data, and the principal export from almost all other mapping or COP programs. (1.1, 1.4, 2.12, 2.13)
LLM - Large Language Models are a type of machine learning which can take text or voice input and execute a variety of tasks without needing to be directly programed for those tasks. LLMs are trained on huge sets of data — some on nearly all of the internet, hence the name "large." (Z.02)
LRS - Long-Range surveillance. Small scout teams that were capable of operating for a week behind enemy lines. No longer in the Army inventory. (1.3)
LSCO - Large Scale Combat Operations, or what most lay people think of when they hear the word ‘war’. (2.06)
mb - Megabyte or 1,024 kilobytes. Roughly the file size of one decent photograph on your phone. (Z.05)
MDMP - Military Decision-Making Process - the army’s seven step process to problem solving. Well, it’s 7 if you don’t count the 44 sub-steps, and the 26 sub-sub-steps. (0.3)
MEDEVAC - Medical Evacuation. Transporting wounded from their place of injury to a treatment facility. (2.13)
METCON - Metabolic Conditioning. Also called a WoD (Workout of the day). A workout that combines muscular fitness with cardio vascular training. (G.1)
MGRS - Military Grid Reference System, the military’s way of turning a round sphere into rectangles. (1.4)
Microsoft Access - A database program that’s really never progressed beyond niche users. It’s suffered because it’s not nearly as easy to learn by FAFO as Excel, and every version of Excel became more and more able to do Access-like functions. Rumors of its death are an exaggeration, but there’s something to be said when ‘Is MS Access Still Relevant’ is a Google Autocomplete. (0.2)
MICT — Moderate Intensity Cardiovascular Training. More commonly known as ‘cardio’ Contrasts with HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) and HIFT (High Intensity Functional Training) by avoiding weightlifting and exercising at lower heart rates for extended periods. (G.3)
mIRC - An Internet Relay Chat program created by British Programmer Khaled Mardam-Bey. I first encountered mIRC in 1998 when I began pirating mp3s. The program’s three biggest strengths are: 1) It’s incredibly small file size, which means you can run it straight off the desktop without even installing it, 2) it’s super easy to learn and configure, 3) You can configure scripts to automate all kinds of actions based off user input. (1.1, 2.12)
MPG - Mission Planning Guide. A one stop shop document that showed you everything you needed to plan anything from a Joint Combined Exchange Training to an off-Post Training event. (2.01)
MOS - Military Occupational Specialty, or your job in the Army, consisting of two or three numbers and one letter. There are hundreds of codes. (1.3. 2.03, G.3a)
MSS - Maven Smart System is an AI-based decision-support system. It grew out of an early intel project and an effort to improve fire control in the 18th Airborne Corps. It saw employment in the recovery of Hurricane Helene. (Z.01, Z.01)
NCO - Non-commissioned officers are the first tier of leadership in the military. They are junior leaders who enlist and re-enlist to serve the Army, unlike officers and warrants who receive commissions. Often referred to as the ‘backbone of the service’, they are the execution arm of military orders and training. (1.3)
NCOER - NCO Evaluation Report, an annual report card on how a soldier is performing used by their next promotion board, OERs are for warrants and officers. (0.3, Z.06)
NGO - Non-Governmental Organizations. They are typically, but not exclusively, nonprofit entities often focused on public good and humanitarian issues. (1.5)
NIPR - Non-classified Internet Protocol (IP) Router Network is for trafficking and storing unclassified information up to CUI. Colored Green. (2.07, X.9)
OCR - Optical character recognition leverages ML to translate visual text into data. (2.08)
ODA - Operational Detachment Alpha, or Special Forces (SF) teams. The core is eight soldiers: two weapons sergeants (MOS 18B), two engineers (18C), two medics (18D), and two commo sergeants (18E). The 4-soldier leadership cell consists of an intel sergeant (18F), team warrant (180A), team sergeant (18Z), and team leader (18A), rounding out the remaining 12-members of detachment. The term ODA has a long, convoluted history going back to World War 2. There are also ODBs, ODCs, an ODD, and ODGs. (1.1, 1.3, 2.03, 2.08)
OPT - Off-Post Training. Much of the training SOF does is best executed off traditional military bases, requiring lots more paperwork to get approved. (2.08)
ORSA - Operations Research and Systems Analysis. ORSAs are the data scientists of the army, charged with advising commanders in complex problems and critical decisions. (2.10)
O&M - Operations and Maintenance. One of the lines of funding units in the military have, often the most flexible. (2.05)
PCCs - Pre-Command Courses. One-to-two-week training events newly selected commanders and CSMs attend to prepare them to take command. (4.1)
PCS - Permanent Change of Station, or when you move to a new base in the military. The army says the average servicemember moves every three years, but I’m averaging one every year and a half. (2.08)
PERSTAT - PERsonnel STATus, or a list of where everyone in a unit is at any given moment (2.04, Z.13)
PHA - Periodic Health Assessments. A detailed questionnaire about your entire health history. It stems from a good idea, looking out for soldiers. Except every time you do it, the systems goes ‘New year, who dis?’ (4.3)
Picasa - Distributed for free by Google, Picasa was software for organizing your photos and my first experience with machine learning. (1.5)
PNG - Portable Network Graphics, or the JPG alternative you probably didn’t know existed (4.4)
Pickup Zone. The location where you’ll meet up with vehicles to take you back. (G.1)
RFI - Request for Information. It’s just a question, but the army loves its initialisms. (2.10)
RoI - Return on Investment. Literally what you get back in proportion to what you spent. You goal is always a number higher than 1. (1.4, 2.02)
RoM - Restriction of movement. RoM and quarantine meant a lot of different things depending on where you were. In Japan we were required to isolate in a hotel room for two weeks and receive a negative covid test before we could set foot outside the room. (3.3)
ROTC - Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC), one of four ways to become a commissioned officer in the military. Follow the link if you’re interested in a reverse G.I. Bill where you get the college money up front. (0.2)
RIP - Relief in Place. When two units hand over, typically done at the end of a deployment. A new unit comes in and you try to cram over nine months of experience into their brains in one week before you leave. Also called RIP/TOA (Transfer of Authority). (1.5)
SDF - Syrian Democratic Forces, the local population of Northeast Syria that had, with some coalition support, crippled the Islamic State. While many were Kurdish, there were also other local tribes who joined their efforts to purge Syria of ISIS and to rebuild in the aftermath. (2.12, 2.13)
SEA - Senior Enlisted Advisor, the senior NCO in the organization (2.14, X.9)
SERE - Survival Evasion, Resistance, and Escape, where the army teaches you… well how to do all those things. (G.8)
SF - Special Forces. The eponymous Green Berets of the John Wayne film. Not to be confused with the completely different Special Operations Forces. (0.2)
SFAS - Special Forces Assessment and Selection. The 24-day course candidates attend that tests their ability to train to become a Special Forces soldier - a Green Beret. (2.10, G.1a, G.8, G.9)
SFCT - Special Forces Charitable Trust is a non-profit organization that provides resilience programs, resources, and assistance to Special Forces Soldiers and their families. (Z.01)
SFQC - Special Forces Qualification Course, or ‘Q course’. (1.3)
SharePoint - A web-based collaboration platform that integrates with other Microsoft apps. Most Army units have it available to them, though some have migrated to MS Teams (which is really just SharePoint with a better Ux). (2.01)
SIPR - Secret Internet Protocol Router Network is the DoD’s network for sharing classified information. Colored Red. (2.07, X.9)
SWC - The US Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School (USAJFKSWCS) is where all Army SF is trained. It also has the worst acronym in the Army, which is why we just call is SWC for short. (2.04, 2.10)
TF - Task Force. This one gets hard to pin down really quick, but means a unit that doesn’t normally exist, but is brought together for a mission or campaign. Can be less than 100 people, or thousands.
Three-foot-wall - A three-foot-wall is a metaphor for problems people should be able to solve themselves, but won’t. You can see over the wall, and with almost no effort could just lean your way over it, but nope. It’s just too hard. (2.01)
THOR3 - THOR3 (Tactical Human Optimization Rapid Rehabilitation and Reconditioning). A program focused on improving the mental and physical health of soldiers. Typically includes nutritionists, mental and physical strength coaches, and robust PT resources. See also H2F. (G.1)
TIC - ‘Troops In Contact’ is when a unit in the field is engaging the enemy in a firefight. It requires the staff to both track the events as they happen and ensuring any additional support the unit under fire requires are quickly coordinated and sent to them. (2.07, X.9)
TSOC - Theater Special Operations Command. The senior SOF commander and representitive for each regional GCC. (1.2)
Ux - User Experience. While we often say ‘user interface’, Ux encompasses everything about how a user interacts with your product. Ux is an art, and not one everyone is good at. However, great firms relentlessly kaizen their products to improve the user’s experience. DoD systems famously do not. (0.2, 2.02, 2.03, 4.2, 4.3)
VO2Max - The maximum volume of oxygen your body can consume during physical exertion. This is your ‘aerobic capacity’ and is measured in milliliters of oxygen per kilogram of body mass x measure of time, or ‘ml/kg·min’. Higher scores are ‘better’ and generally indicate a greater level of fitness. Every MET (metabolic equivalent, set at 3.5 mL) has been associated with an 11% reduction in mortality. Non-athletes tend to have scores around 35-40 ml/kg·min, with distance athletes scoring 70 to 85. The highest recorded human score was Norwegian cyclist Oskar Svendsen with 97.5. Meanwhile, Alaskan huskies running in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race have scored as high as 240.
However, your VO2Max is different than your anaerobic capacity, which is the energy your body can produce when you exceed its ability to fuel your muscles with oxygen. Both are components of readiness, because sometimes combat demands will exceed your aerobic threshold. Your anerobic capacity will never be huge, but when you need it, you really need it. (G.5)
VSO - Village Stability Operations, an SF mission in Afghanistan where teams lived out in remote populations outside the reach of the Afghan government and worked to provide security and development while building a bridge to the nearest local civic center. (1.4)
VTC - Video TeleConference. Think zoom call (2.12)
WEG - World Equipment Guide. A massive encyclopedia of military arms and equipment. Once a sizeable PDF it is now an online database of just about everything you ever wanted to know about every weapon you can find (minus the classified stuff, of course). (1.1)
XML - Extensible Markup Language. a coding language that allows you to structure data pretty much any way you want to. It requires no encoder, and you can edit it in a Notepad file, making it very, very versatile. (1.1, 1.4)
XO - Executive Officer. In units below the brigade level, they are also the second in command. XOs are often responsible for transforming their commander’s impossible dreams into some sort of reality. Famous XO’s you might be familiar with are Destro from G.I. Joe and No. 2 from the Austin Power’s Series. (0.2)
