Editors of the Oxford English Dictionary claim that the first recorded example of hurt locker dates back to 1966, when it was used by a US newspaper in relation to the Viet Cong, the army that fought the US and South Vietnamese governments during the Vietnam war. The term crossed over from military to sporting contexts, and over time the sporting use became more prevalent. This was the case right up until the Iraq war of 2003, which finally re-kindled the expression’s military usage.