Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(orig. US milit.) rear echelon mother-fuckers; used by combat troops and brought into civilian life by veterans; also as term of address and attrib.

1973		in C. Browne Body Shop 34: I wouldn’t have been a REMF for anything.
1982		(con. 1970) J.M. Del Vecchio 13th Valley (1983) 2: ‘Hey REMF,’ he said in a voice of complete authority. [...] ‘You REMF fuckin candyasses sure got it dicked.’.
1993		(con. 1969) N.L. Russell Suicide Charlie 4: During the time I spent in Cu Chi, I got to know the rear-echelon motherfuckers (REMs) real well.
1994		G. Hoffman ‘Grunt’s Dream’ at www.vietvet.org 🌐 REMF, or Rear Echelon Mother Fucker, was never a term of endearment in Vietnam. Agreement on what was and who was a REMF is still being debated today. [...] For a grunt, the distinction was an easy one: if you lived behind wire, you were in the rear echelon. If you slept in a bed, ate hot food, took hot showers, used a flush toilet, and got laid regularly, you were a Mother Fucker.
2007		S. Low Boys From Baghdad 15: There was so much gear to be transported that [...] the REMFs (rear-echelon mother fuckers) would try to palm us off with as much as they could get away with .
2018		J.-P. Jordan Joys of War 75: MOD Whitehall [...] All these ‘remps’ [sic], rear echelon motherfuckers as the US Marines on the front line would call them [...] they’re fattened pigs, protecting their interests.