“Barrack rat” also surfaced in “A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English.” It cited the book “Old Soldier Sahib” written in 1936 by Frank Richards, a British soldier who detailed his experiences while stationed in India and Burma during the early 20th century. when discussing stories about the lives of children in army barracks, so it’s possible that the two words were turned into a contraction to create the term brat. VIRIN: 170208-A-HQ885-011 A Contraction for ‘Barrack Rat?’Ĭlifton said the term “barrack rat” was also used at the end of the 18th century in the U.K. And other published researchers have also traced the acronym to the phrase British Regiment Attached Traveler. While the researchers I spoke to at NDU couldn’t find that particular citation that Dunn mentioned, it’s a pretty interesting story. But the term stuck, and was adopted in many places around the world, including in the U.S. Eventually, it just referred to military children. It explained “BRAT” as a status standing for British Regiment Attached Traveler, and it was assigned to families who were able to travel abroad with a soldier. One came through, discovering a book published in 1921 that attributed the saying to the British army. Dunn, who had also been the president of NDU, had asked a researcher to find the origin of the term. Dunn, who was the president of the Air Force Association at the time. I first found this theory published in a 2011 blog by retired Air Force Lt. VIRIN: 170211-A-TD846-0462 BRAT could be an acronym for British Regiment Attached Traveler
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