14 WW1 GIs

[PhilB]

My brother in the US of A tells me that their news today announced that 14 WW1 GIs were still alive, the youngest 106. Phil B

[Old Tom]

Hello,

Good news! Were US soldiers in WW1 called, or should I say named, GI's in WW1? 'Doughboys' lurks at the back of my mind.

Old Tom

[Pete1052]

Doughboy is the correct Great War term. Nobody knows the precise origin of the term--some think it is derived from adobe, a kind of clay and dust found on the U.S.-Mexican border, the scene of military operations prior to our entry into the Great War. G.I. is a WW II term, short for "Government Issue."

[PhilB]

Looks like you could be right!:-

GI

Origin: 1917

For much of the twentieth century, GI has been the common designation for the American fighting man--or woman. However, the GI was born early in the century not as a soldier but as a trash can.

Originally the initials GI formed an abbreviation that stood for the material from which a trash can was made, galvanized iron, and its source, government issue. During World War I, when the term first came to attention in the American Expeditionary Force, GI can was the doughboys' trash talk for a German artillery shell. "After dark that night," went one account, "Fritz came over and started dropping those famous G.I. cans." And another: "We crossed the river on a span of a sunken bridge that was struck by a G.I.C." German shells were also just plain GIs, as in this 1918 poem: "There's about two million fellows, and there's some of them who lie/Where eighty-eights and G.I.'s gently drop."

Shortly before the start of World War II, the GI (for government issue, or general issue) became human. There had been GI soap, GI shoes, and GI clothes; now there was the GI soldier, soon shortened to plain GI. By the time World War II began, doughboy (1865) had been completely displaced by the more versatile GI, the term that remains in use today. And whatever the effects of GI food, the military GI has nothing to do with the gastrointestinal GI of the medical profession.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[duckman]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surviving_vet...First_World_War says 14. I"m not sure that's news exactly. There are several others who don't qualify for various reasons.

It's worth noting that most of these have come out of the woodwork in the last few years. The US Department of Veterans affairs admits that it does not track these people, and this list is probably not exhaustive. Based on some statistical work I did some time ago, I would be expecting 20-30, so there might still be a few hiding under the radar.

The Doughboy Centre (quelle surprise) has a detailed account (well the competing theories) of the origin: http://www.worldwar1.com/dbc/origindb.htm