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 tom 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 isn’t 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.