If you grew up in the 1990s in the United States, you probably had a few toys that are hallmarks of your childhood. There were Tamagotchi, the electronic pets you had to take care of or else they’d die; Beanie Babies, a menagerie of collectible stuffed animals; and of course, pogs. Pogs were thin cardboard discs, maybe an inch or two in diameter, often branded with something from the pop culture of the day and used in a schoolyard gambling game of the same name.
But the children of the 1990s grew up, and pogs faded as fads tend to do. The next batch of school children moved on to new trends and hobbies. Pogs, by and large, disappeared.
Then, they came back—in American military bases in Afghanistan, of all places.
After 9/11, tens of thousands of U.S. troops were deployed to Afghanistan, peaking at just over 100,000 troops in the summer of 2011, according to CBS News. Not everything provided to the soldiers is rationed, and instead, troops are able to purchase items at what is, effectively, a government-run department store or strip mall. Those shops are run by a division of the Department of Defense called the Army and Air Force Exchange Service (AAFES), which, according to Wikipedia, exists “to provide quality merchandise and services of necessity and convenience to authorized customers at uniform low prices.” AAFES also has franchise arrangements with well-known brands such as McDonald’s, Burger King, Subway, Starbucks, Home Depot, and video-game retailer GameStop, operating those businesses within or nearby the main store.
Tens of thousand of troops buying stuff means millions of coins in the economy. Unfortunately, that’s a problem when the coins come from the United States and the stores are in Afghanistan. Quarters, nickels, pennies, and dimes are heavy in large amounts—$100 worth of quarters, for example, weighs more than five pounds. Shipping all those coins is prohibitive, so instead, during the U.S. presence in Afghanistan, AAFES issued gift certificates. They also looked for a substitute for coins—something that was as convenient as a coin but without the heft—and pogs were the answer. One hundred dollars in twenty-five-cent pogs weighs only about 15 to 20 percent as much as coins. The AAFES issued pogs in five-cent, ten-cent, and twenty-five-cent denominations. There are no one-cent pogs because, let’s face it, pennies are annoying enough without being turned into a throwback to a 1990s fad. (AAFES stores round the cost of purchased items to the nearest nickel.)
Just as they were in middle school lunchrooms, pogs have been popular on military bases. Since their introduction in 2001, pogs have become an accepted currency at AAFES stores around the world.
The word “pog” was, originally, an acronym. POG was a brand of juice; its name stood for its three core ingredients, passionfruit, orange, and guava. The original pogs were the caps from this blended fruit drink, and the name stuck.
One can buy a lot of things at AAFES shops, but one thing a soldier can’t buy is the video game Medal of Honor. An early version of the game—before it was released—allowed players to assume the role of Taliban fighters taking up arms against Americans. Even though the game’s publisher, EA, removed this after public pressure (changing “Taliban” to “Opposing Forces”), the game still won’t be found for sale at AAFES-run stores.