Thank you, but I know what a Sapper is and why they got their name (I once, many moons ago, was one). It's just that I thought that Americans referred to their Combat Engineers as "Combat Engineers". Twice in the last week though I've come across Americans referring to them as Sappers, the first by Michael Yon and secondly a competition to find the best Combat Engineers. I was just curious, is this a recent change, maybe influenced by Ops alongside Brit's in Iraq and Afghanistan or has it been common currency for some time prior to these deployments ?

Kaa wrote;
"I am not sure : I think (but I can be wrong of course) that the genuine meaning of 'sapper' is the one who dig under,undermine the trench, or dugout or fortification wall to make it collapse or to blow it with mine, explosives."

My understanding is that a "Sap" is an offensive trench dug towards the enemy positions as opposed to a normal trench which is defensive in nature.