While in basic training, I became quickly aware that the Army had its own specialized language. Special words and phrases flowed freely from the drill sergeants to be quickly appropriated by us privates and used liberally like we had only ever spoken them.
“Good job, that’s squared away.”
“Well would you look at this muldoon!”
“Go wash your booger pickers and get ready for chow.”
“Don’t be a buddy f@!%er!”
That last one was especially important in basic training where the group was often punished for the sins of the individual. If someone messed up, brining the wrath of the drill sergeants upon us, he would often be deemed a “buddy f@!%er.”
Not once through basic training or Airborne School do I remember hearing the term blue falcon as another way to say buddy f@!%er without being as vulgar.
And then I was assigned to 3d Battalion, 325th Airborne Infantry Regiment (Blue Falcons). 1st Battalion was the Red Falcons and 2nd Battalion was the White Falcons. We were the Blue Falcons.
It still didn’t register with me because I had never heard the term before. Then, one day while waiting in line at the Blue Falcon Dining Facility, someone explained it to me. I was completely dumbfounded. I wondered how long the term had been in use and when our Regiment chose its naming convention.
Today, I hear the term Blue Falcon used all the time. People are having fun with it. 3/325 AIR has since been re-designated 2/508 PIR (this occuring during realignment in the mid-2000s).
Still, whenever I hear someone throw around ‘blue falcon,’ I use it as an opportunity to give them a quick history lesson on what was once a deadly airborne infantry formation.
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Carrying the Gun 