Phil Klay's Redeploy

allus Colloquialisms: Understanding

‘Grunt Speak’ in Phil Klay’s ‘Redeployment’

In everyday life, cursing and speaking insensitively are often signs of poor self control and lack of vocabulary but in war, cursing can serve as a psychological defense against the horrors of combat. Military colloquialisms, or "grunt speak" acts as a shell to protect soldiers' sanity from the harsh realities, which constantly threaten to overwhelm them. “Redeployment" by Phil Klay depicts a marine, Sergeant Price, returning home from Iraq with a new vocabulary and family. This new vocabulary and manner of speaking protects the users from traumatic experiences by masking descriptions with brusque and insensitive sounding language and sentences and also

Price stated that he “…could spot a dime in the street twenty yards away.” meaning he was ever vigilant regardless of the fact that Price was in a mall miles away from the battlefield in Iraq. Price was stuck in a constant fight or flight mode as if a gun had just fired in the mall.

And as Price explained his perpetual feeling of anxiety and vigilance, he grew more “amped” (Phillips, 50), or energized, ready to act at a moment’s notice without hesitation. Price’s hyper vigilance became so apparent that Cheryl refused to let him drive back to their home because, “I would have gone a hundred miles per hour.” In the moment, Price’s body and mind was moving so quickly that even the calm task of driving home became difficult. He was stuck in orange with his

When the marines had returned home, Corporal Weissert returned to an empty house without knowledge of where his wife had gone. Rather than let Weissert wallow on the street without a home, the men in Weissert’s platoon took turns caring for their friend and dubbed it, “Weissert duty” (Phillips, 48). The soldiers acted as though they were still stranded in a foreign country with only one another for company and support and shared a common language and their experiences, which civilians could only