Miscommunication has often led to disaster. Take the famous Charge of the Light Brigade, for example.

In 1854 during the Crimean War, a brigade of British horsemen was ordered to attack Russian soldiers who were removing artillery pieces from captured Ottoman positions. This was a suitable mission for the brigade, which could travel fast and would make short work of the enemy there. However, due to a misunderstanding, the brigade was given the wrong orders and was sent into a valley that was heavily defended with artillery on three sides.

As Tennyson’s famous poem puts it, “Into the valley of Death rode the six hundred.”

When radio communication came into use, orders were apt to be misheard. To help prevent this, words were used to represent letters of the alphabet. After all, if someone said M, the receiver might hear N. Or P instead of B. But if someone said Mike, it would be hard to confuse that with November. Or Papa with Baker.

During WWII, the U.S. and Britain used what was called the Able Baker alphabet. It used the following words to represent letters: Able Baker Charlie Dog Easy Fox George How Item Jig King Love Mike Nan Oboe Peter Queen Roger Sugar Tare Uncle Victor William X-ray Yoke Zebra.

If a unit was ordered to move to a location with a code name of LCR9530, it would be sent as Love Charlie Roger nine five three zero.

Because numbers could also be misheard, some were given special pronunciations: three, four, five, and nine being pronounced tree, fower (rhymes with lower), fife, and niner. Which would make the above message sound like this: Love Charlie Roger niner fife tree zero.

After much study of what words would be least likely to be misheard, the modern-day NATO phonetic alphabet goes like this: Alpha Bravo Charlie Delta Echo Foxtrot Golf Hotel India Juliet Kilo Lima Mike November Oscar Papa Quebec Romeo Sierra Tango Uniform Victor Whiskey X-ray Yankee Zulu.

When using this alphabet, it is proper to make it clear you are going to spell something by using the code words “I Spell.” Suppose a unit has three sergeants named Fence, Lince, and Pence. A message might say:

“Have Sergeant Fence report to battalion headquarters. I Spell: Foxtrot Echo November Charlie Echo.”

Notice that in the alphabet, the word Roger has been replaced with Romeo. The reason is, Roger is the code word for message received. If orders are given, however, the correct response is not Roger, but Wilco, which means message received and will comply.

To hear a message a second time, the correct way of asking is Say Again. Why not Repeat? Because Repeat is an artillery term meaning shoot another salvo like the one you just fired, in the same amount and at the same target. Having two different terms helps prevent unwitting disasters.

Though it’s been many years since I was on active duty, I still say Roger and Say Again to my wife. Wilco, though unspoken, is understood.