Folks at home began to feel embarrassed. Almost since the war started, they had innocently used the term "G.I. Joe." Then from Santa Barbara, Calif., came a report that soldiers resented it, thought it patronizing. Hearst Columnist Damon Runyon gave his old-soldier version of the name: "For over 40 years a Joe has meant a Jasper, a Joskin, a yokel, a hey-rube, a hick, a clodhopper, a sucker." Runyon remembered that in the last war G.I. (i.e., "government issue") meant "the big galvanized iron garbage and ash can in the back of each company...
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