Reminds me of my last year in the RAF. I was commanded to attend an Equality and Diversity session. The participants were a mix of military, RAF and some civvies. Civvy facilitator. We started off by introducing ourselves, a little about us, and why we thought we were on the course. Standard stuff. Sat next to me is a gnarly old chief technician. All's going well until the facilitator got to the Chief. "I'm here because Im out of the RAF in 3 months." Facilitator smiles and nods. "I need to know what I can get away with in civvy street, as I understand I have to be sensitive to some bints and any shirt lifters. Or should I say pillow biters? See, I'm not sure". I laughed. She looked about to cry. 2 weeks later, am on a Bullying in the Workplace course. Same chief. Got to him on that one and he says "Actually I didn't want to come, but I was bullied into it. What's my recourse for action against this?" Cue giggles from the room and a sigh from the front of the room.
I think you are all thinking of Argo 2012 (Ben Affleck) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argo_(2012_film) This is the film/Movie ellewood thread?
No. Its short for Chief Technician. In the airforce, the rank structure for engineers included Junior Technician, between Cpl and Sgt, and Chief Tech between Sgt and Flt Sgt. In the army it's like a Staff Sgt. Appropriate nom de plumes for those pair would be "Grouchy" for Castro and "Fatso" for Chazz.
An appropriate nom de plume for Happy would certainly not be Ray Of Sunshine, or anything to do with being Happy. BTW, the plural of nom de plume is noms de plume. Similar to the plural of court martial being courts martial not court martials. Always happy to pass on snippets of knowledge to the less well informed. Walking around with all this stored up knowledge can be a burden at times.
I have decided that a good nom de plume for Happy Tiger would be a use of the word happy which has fallen out of favour. So Gay Tiger it is.