What does "G.I." stand for? A - Gone in
B - Government issue
C - General individual
D - Green infantry
Answer: B - Government issue When it first came into common usage among members of the U.S. Army, "G.I." stood for "government issue" (or, in some versions, "general issue"). Interestingly, nobody is quite sure where the abbreviation came from; there's no evidence that the army came up with it themselves, and one popular theory links the term to the letters stamped on army trash cans — which were made of galvanized iron (hence "G.I."). Whatever the origins of the term, "G.I." quickly came to mean "government issue," and soldiers use it to refer to all manner of government-issued gear and weaponry. Eventually, soldiers began using it to refer even to themselves — a cheeky use of the term that eventually became common parlance, which is why we understand "G.I.s" to mean American soldiers even to this day.