G.I. (military) in the context of Women's Army Corps

⭐ Core Definition: G.I. (military)

G.I. is an informal term which refers to members of the United States Armed Forces, in particular the United States Army. It is most deeply associated with World War II and the Korean War, but continues to see use, for instance in the G.I. Joe comics, films, and toys franchise. It was originally an initialism used in U.S. Army paperwork for items made of galvanized iron. The earliest known instance in writing is from either 1906 or 1907. During World War I, U.S. soldiers took to referring to heavy German artillery shells as "G.I. cans". During the same war, "G.I.", reinterpreted as "government issue" or "general issue", began being used to refer to any item associated with the U.S. Army, e.g., "G.I. soap". Other reinterpretations of "G.I." include "garrison issue" and "general infantry".

The earliest known recorded instances of "G.I." being used to refer to an American enlisted man as a slang term are from 1935. In the form of "G.I. Joe" it was made better known due to it being taken as the title of a comic strip by Dave Breger in Yank, the Army Weekly, beginning in 1942. A 1944 radio drama, They Call Me Joe, reached a much broader audience. It featured a different individual each week, thereby emphasizing that "G.I. Joe" encompassed U.S. soldiers of all ethnicities. They Call Me Joe reached civilians across the U.S. via the NBC Radio Network and U.S. soldiers via the Armed Forces Radio Network. Dwight D. Eisenhower would notably reference the term "G.I. Joe," who he described as the main hero of World War II, in his May 1945 Victory in Europe Day address. "G.I. Jane" originally referred to a member of the Women's Army Corps during World War II, but more recently it is used to refer to any female American soldier.

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G.I. (military) in the context of G.I. Bill

The G.I. Bill, formally the Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, was a law that provided a range of benefits for some of the returning World War II veterans (commonly referred to as G.I.s). The original G.I. Bill expired in 1956, but the term "G.I. Bill" is still used to refer to programs created to assist American military veterans.

It was largely designed and passed through Congress in 1944 in a bipartisan effort led by the American Legion, which wanted to reward practically all wartime veterans. John H. Stelle, a former Democratic governor of Illinois, served as the Chairman of the Legion's Executive Committee, which drafted and mobilized public opinion to get the G.I. Bill to President Roosevelt's desk on June 22, 1944. Stelle was rewarded for his efforts by the Legion which unanimously elected him its National Commander in 1945. He is commonly referred to as the "Father of the G.I. Bill." Since the First World War the Legion had been in the forefront of lobbying Congress for generous benefits for war veterans. President Roosevelt initially proposed a much smaller program. As historians Glenn C. Altschuler and Stuart Blumin point out, FDR did not play a significant role in the contours of the bill. At first, Roosevelt shared with nearly everyone the idea that "satisfactory employment," not educational opportunity, was the key feature of the bill. This changed in the fall of 1944, when Roosevelt's special representative to the European Theatre, Anna M. Rosenberg, returned with her report on the G.I.'s postwar expectations. From her hundreds of interviews with servicemen then fighting in France, it was clear they wanted educational opportunities previously unavailable to them. FDR "lit up," Rosenberg recalled, and subsequent additions to the bill included provisions for higher education.

View the full Wikipedia page for G.I. Bill

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