Originally Posted by Pooka

Military people in this line of work, where life and death is all around you, sort of develop a 'gallows humor' attitude. Weird and sick jokes abound and it helps to deal with the tension.

The "Hotline" between the Pentagon and the Kremlin used to be a Tele-type machine and it was tested every hour; one hour by us and the alternate hour by them. The insults and dirty jokes used to test the system helped to break up the tension as both sides tried to outdo the other.