Charlie Foxtrot

Funny

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) created a phonetic alphabet in the 1950s that became adopted by military and civilian radio communication. The alphabet uses words in place of letters to minimize various forms of miscommunication.

In the NATO phonetic alphabet, Charlie is used for the letter C and Foxtrot, the letter F. That makes the compound clusterfuck a Charlie Foxtrot. Charlie Foxtrot begins as a euphemism in 196os US military slang for a poorly-managed operation during the Vietnam War.

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Charlie Foxtrot, along with other sweary military slang like SNAFU, crossed over into the civilian sector thanks to veterans returning home from duty and popular entertainment depictions of the military. Author Tom Clancy used Charlie Foxtrot as early as 1989 in his novel Clear and Present Danger, later adapted into a hit 1994 film.

Charlie Foxtrot became so associated with military slang that it has supplied titles of books on everything from the Cold War to the Gulf War to veteran affairs. Military-themed films and TV shows have also used the name.

In the 2010s, modern military video games such as Ghost Recon or the extremely popular Call of Duty series have included plenty of military slang like Charlie Foxtrot for authenticity and texture. ARMA 2 (2009) and Ghost Recon Wildlands (2017) have gone so far as to name levels Charlie Foxtrot.