The NATO phonetic alphabet is a way of using words to replace letters. The first letter of the word is the letter the word stands for. Although it is called a "phonetic alphabet" it is not really used for phonetics like the International Phonetic Alphabet or other phonetic alphabets. It is used to clearly say letters out loud when they might be hard to hear such as over the phone or when people are talking from different countries, or when it is important to be accurate such as in the military and in air travel. There have been many different phonetic alphabets over time. On board ships, flags are used to stand for letters, and each have their own meanings. Different countries also have different phonetic alphabets used in any subject