Introduction: Fire Cakes

1. Civil and Uncivil Words: War Slang Before the Great War: From the War Between the States Through the War with Spain

2. World War I: Over there and Over the Top: Terms That Came Up from the Trenches, and Down from the Dogfight

3. The Many Words of World War II: G.I.'s, Jeeps, Kilroy, and V-Signs from Two Theaters of War

4. The Code of the Korean Conflict: A Few Words from World War 2 1/2

5. Vietnam Vocab: Out of the Jungles of Southeast Asia

6. A Gulf Glossary: Grains of "Sandspeak" from the War That Was on Every Channel

7. Doomsday's Dictionary: Verbal Fallout from Nukes, the Cold War (1946-1991), and the Puzzle Palace

8. Terms for a Time of Terror: New Words for the Post-9/11 World and the Iraq War.