Tracing "G.I." Through the Years

I love the mystery and magic of words. As an attorney and an occasional scribbler of random thoughts, I am fascinated by the nuances that flow from the utilization of the "perfect" word. Thus when I read a call for comments on the origin of the term G.I., I thought of what I remembered about the term.

I grew up in the years during and after World War II and, by that time, G.I. was commonly believed to stand for "government issue", describing the uniform and sundry equipment and rations provided to United States armed forces and, by extension, to the men and women serving in those forces. In today's world, people think of the popular action figure, "GI Joe", the "Barbie" for boys!

In fact, the term has a much earlier origin. For much of the twentieth century, GI has been the common designation for the American fighting man--or woman. However, the GI was born early in the century not as a soldier but as a trash can.

G.I. was originally a semi-official U.S. Army abbreviation for galvanized iron, used in inventories and supply records, at least from 1907 and was commonly found in records from the First World War. From describing, among other things, garbage pails, by the end of World War I, the phrase "G.I. can" was used, commonly by American soldiers as meaning a German artillery shell. This was often clipped to just G.I.

Also during that war, G.I. started to be interpreted to mean "Government Issue" and it came to be applied as an adjective to denote anything having to do with the army

By the next war, G.I. had acquired the meaning of an enlisted soldier. And that is its common meaning today - quite a journey from garbage can of iron!