If you could choose only two things as a staple of any war movie, they’d probably be military jargon (like “roger” in military aviation) and hand signals. Whether it’s Easy Company deep behind enemy lines in “Band of Brothers,” or Task Force Ranger besieged in Mogadishu in “Black Hawk Down,” soldiers often flash each other their own variety of sign language in quiet, tense situations where words won’t do. It never gets old watching a squad of soldiers stacking up on a door and making brusque hand motions before breaching that communicate entire sentences of careful tactical orders. Some of it’s pretty obvious by context (like common motorcycle hand signals out on the road), but the majority probably goes over the average viewer’s head (like, what does a biker pointing two fingers up mean?).
Advertisement
This military sign language is standardized as visual signals and may vary from one branch of the armed forces to another. To keep things simple, we’ll be referencing the U.S. Army’s 2017 Visual Signals manual. In each section, we’ll break up different types of standard signals for various situations. Many of these signals have been around for a long time, as far back as World War II, but the vocabulary has expanded ever since. Remember that this is a limited, generalized set of signals, and there are many more. Without further ado, here are 12 common military hand signals you might have seen in the movies, and what they mean.