Doc Jargon: POGs on deployment and through history

Photo By Kaitlin Knauer | Doc Jargon, cutting through the jargon that is the U.S. Army. Send your Army terminology questions to [e-mail] This column features how to take care of money matters using free resources provided by the Army.  

UNITED STATES

10.25.2022

Story by Collen McGee 

Fort Riley Public Affairs Office

Dear Doc Jargon,

My spouse and I are trying to save money for a fun vacation when I get back from deployment. One of the ways we save is to dump all our change in a jar. However, I hear that the exchange stores at my deployment location don’t give change, they give POGs. What are POGs and how did they come to be used as coins?

Signed Sgt. Saver


Dear Sgt. Saver,

The POGs are a printed payment certificate used instead of coins at deployed locations. They are used because coins are expensive to ship. They are basically little, round Army Air Force Exchange Service gift certificates. You can still save them in a jar if you want – but you may have to wait until you get home to your main exchange to cash them in.

The concept comes from a game played in the 1930s and ‘40s with the cardboard disks used to cap milk bottles, but the name POG wasn’t yet attached. Children in Hawaii dubbed the game pieces POGs in the 1970s after the Hawaiian beverage company, Passion Orange Guava, started using them as bottle caps and printing them with vibrant colors. In the 1990s, a teacher started giving them out as rewards and from there, the pieces and the game resurged into popularity. The game pieces were named POGs after the juice drink. The object of the game was to stack them up and use a slammer to try and flip as many pieces over as possible.

Though the game companies who once printed them are out of business, they are still used for currency in deployed locations. Here’s the rules for the game, www.milkcapmania.co.uk/how-to-play-pogs.html and I recommend you don’t play for keeps.

Sincerely,
Doc Jargon

• Date Taken: 10.25.2022
• Date Posted: 10.25.2022 17:19
• Story ID: 431995
• Location: US