Kit and caboodle

[Landau, James]

My daughter asked me for information on the origin of the phrase "kit
and caboodle".  Can anybody help

Aside to Wilson Gray:  there is only one Defense Language Institute,
although during Vietnam it had branches at Fort Bliss, Texas and
somewhere in the Washington DC area..  Its Web site,
http://www.dliflc.edu/, certainly seems to show it is alive and well:
"DLIFLC is home to more than 3,500 military and civilian students
annually and employs over 1,600 faculty and staff. We are in the
business of teaching language to the finest group of students in the
United States and welcome the opportunity to show the public why we are
the premier foreign language institute in the world."

On the Web site is the announcement:
"Now Hiring Teachers for Arabic, Chinese, Dari, Hebrew, Hindi, Korean,
Kurdish, Pashto, and Persian."
What this says about future US foreign policy is unclear.  Arabic,
Kurdish, Dari, and Pashto are spoken in Iraq and Afghanistan, so they
are no surprise.  Neither is Korean or Chinese.  Hindi seems a little
unlikely - we don't have troops stationed in India, do we?  I'd expect
more interest in Urdu than in Hindi, but maybe they already have Urdu
staff.  Hebrew also seems unlikely - are we expecting to be involved in
another Arab-Israeli war?  
     - James A. Landau

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