Millions of Americans and foreigners see G. I. Joe as a mindless war toy, the symbol of American military adventurism, but that’s not how it used to be. To the men and women who (1)_____ in World War II and the people they liberated, the G. I. was the (2)_____ man grown into hero, the poor farm kid torn away from his home, the guy who (3)_____ all the burdens of battle, who slept in cold foxholes, who went without the (4)_____ of food and shelter, who stuck it out and drove back the Nazi reign of murder. This was not a volunteer soldier, not someone well paid, (5)_____ an average guy, up (6)_____ the best trained, best equipped, fiercest, most brutal enemies seen in centuries.
His name is not much. G. I. is just a military abbreviation (7)_____ Government Issue, and it was on all of the articles (8)_____ to soldiers. And Joe? A common name for a guy who never (9)_____ it to the top. Joe Blow, Joe Palooka, Joe Magrac… a working class name. The United States has (10)_____ had a president or vice-president or secretary of state Joe.
G. I. Joe had a (11)_____ career fighting German, Japanese, and Korean troops. He appears as a character, or a (12)_____ of American personalities, in the 1945 movie The Story of G. I. Joe, based on the last days of war correspondent Ernie Pyle. Some of the soldiers Pyle (13)_____ portrayed themselves in the film. Pyle was famous for covering the (14)_____ side of the war, writing about the dirt-snow-and-mud soldiers, not how many miles were (15)_____ or what towns were captured or liberated. His reports (16)_____ the “Willie” cartoons of famed Stars and Stripes artist Bill Maulden. Both men (17)_____ the dirt and exhaustion of war, the (18)_____ of civilization that the soldiers shared with each other and the civilians: coffee, tobacco, whiskey, shelter, sleep. (19)_____ Egypt, France, and a dozen more countries, G. I. Joe was any American soldier, (20)_____ the most important person in their lives.
