[Tim Sullivan]

The term "Fatigues" or "Fatigue duty" esp. when you look it up in online dictionaries specifically states that it is specifically non-military work done by soldiers. To pull a possible origin to the term out of my...well, you know where, I'd guess perhaps the term originated describing how one felt after being assigned such duty, i.e. they were quite fatigued when completed, so such the duty was then referred to as that. Sounds kinda lame, but hey, it might work.

Regarding uniforms being called fatigues, that apperntly comes from the fact that the clothing used to complete the "fatigue" duty was often work-dress worn, and not the actual uniform...and thus the uniform worn to complete the fatigue duty became known as "fatigues", and it went from there....

To further possibly answer your question on punishments handed out to those in the military, it is a far too complex question to answer basically in a thread on a forum, because it really isn't a cut and dried area. As pointed out, punishments were as simple as loss of pay/leave for minor infractions, unwanted fatigues duty, to loss of rank, jail time and so on. Depending on what you did, you could also be dismissed from your unit or course, etc, depending on what you did. Reading right now where a couple of paras training at Ft. Benning were caught smoking when told not to and were told to pack up and go home. Severity of the "crime" determined the punishment, as did the "executioner" of the accused.

Hope that helps,

Tim