Reply #11: OMG, this is the best insulting email ever [View All]

[Woodstock]

President George W. Bush was not a military deserter as some have alleged.

From my own undistinguished military stint I learned the applicable term is "goldbrick". Originally meaning an ordinary brick painted gold to look like an ingot, "goldbrick" came to mean "counterfeit" or "fake" in general. In the military a goldbrick was originally a civilian commissioned as an officer, but with no real experience or abilities, a worthless individual dressed up as a soldier. By the time I served (the same era as the President), "goldbrick" meant "shirker", a soldier who schemed to avoid real work, especially by finding easy and worthless tasks to occupy himself while the real work was performed by others. The easy job itself was also referred to as a "goldbrick".

I can't recall any specific term for a soldier who shirked a goldbrick assignment.

Paul Brown, Denver, Colorado