THE HISTORY OF OORAH Right after Korea in 1953 the 1st Amphibious Reconnaissance Company, FMFPAC can be credited with the birth of OORAH in the Corps. Specifically, where it came from was when Recon Marines were aboard the Submarine USS PERCH, ASSP-313. The Perch was an old WWII diesel boat retrofitted to carry UDT and Amphibian Recon Marines. If you remember the old war movies, whenever the boat was to dive, you heard on the PA system, DIVE,DIVE, and you heard the horn sound AARUGHA, like an old Model A horn. Sometime in 1953 or 1954, 1st Amphibian Recon Marines, while on a conditioning run on land singing chants, someone imitated the Dive horn sound AARUGHA, and it naturally became a Recon Warrior chant or mantra while on runs. It is sort of like the martial arts yell and adds a positive inference to the action. And this became part of Recon lexicon. Former SgtMaj of the Marine Corps, John Massaro, was the company gunny of 1st Force in the late 50s and when he transferred to MCRDSD as an instructor at DI school he took AARUGHA with him and passed it on to the DI students and they , in turn, passed it on to recruits. Just as Gung Ho became symbolic of the WWII Raiders, so did AARUGHA become part of the new running Marine Corps. Over time, AARUGHA EVENTUALLY CHANGED TO OORAH. The official Marine Corps Training Reference Manual on the history of Marine Recon is titled AARUGHA, giving credence on the orgination of the POSITIVE RESPONSE accenting anything that is meant to be good and uniquely Marine Corps. It is part of Marine Corps language, like Pogey Bait, SOS, etc. . __,_._,___
Posted on: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 18:58:57 +0000
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