![]() Preserving a collective history is a challenge made even more difficult and urgent by the lack of surviving generations. “The Lost Battalion is one with few descendants: So many young men were killed before having children and many who survived were sterile from gas exposure. Sgt Marcus was the great-great uncle of the author, who wrote the following after visiting the Meuse-Argonne Cemetery, This particular soldier, Sgt Samuel Marcus, was left sterile due to poison gas exposure. soldiers trapped behind enemy lines shared details from the diary of a soldier who survived the Lost Battalion. Read Part 1 here, which includes the story of The Lost Battalion, soldiers from his company and others surrounded by Germans for six days until only 194 of the original 554 soldiers remained.Ī recent story in The Washington Post (October 7, 2018) ‘Attacked and starved’: A century-old diary recounts U.S. Due to the amount of documentation about Forney Mintz, along with his multiple medals and association with a famous event, his WWI Profile has been posted in two parts. This is the second part of the Forney Mintz WWI Profile. The yearbook is named “The Doughboy.” The text and photos above were taken from the 1920-21 yearbook. The WWI Profile of Sgt Forney Mintz referenced the yearbooks from Camp Benning, GA, (now Fort Benning) home of the US Army Infantry School. If we are a little slower than some, why we’ll just stick around a little longer, that’s all. In these days of machinery, when our brethren of the Field Artillery, the Engineers, the Air Service and other branches call to their aid the genius of the gasoline engine to move them from place to place, there is inspiration in the realization that we “doughboys” are not dependent upon any thing but the equipment we were born with, and that while we may churn up a lot of mud in the process, we GET THERE just the same. We are proud of it, and justly resent its misuse. ![]() Regardless of how the sobriquet originated or the idea it may at one time have been intended to convey, the title “doughboy” is Infantry property and belongs of right to no other branch, all of which have their own popular nicknames. May it not be that, like Topsy, the term was not born, but “jes growed”? And here we are forced to rest, leaving the solution of the question to some master mind of the future, if indeed there is a solution. Still another tenable theory comes from the use of pipe-clay (familiarly known as “dough”) to whiten the trouser stripes of the dress uniform. ![]() About all our investigation established was that, as regards this question, there are two major schools of thought, one of which adheres to the origin stated by Sergeant Hill just quoted, while the other contends that “doughboy” is a corruption of the words, “dough ball” used to describe a certain type of button worn on the Infantry overcoats in the early parts of the nineteenth century. Some say the Cavalrymen started it, sort of making fun of us, I guess, because we have to plod along through the mud, and I suppose that’s as reasonable as for us to call them Yellow Legs.”Īnd so it was all along the line. “I’ve heard it all my life, but never took the trouble to find out how we happened to get the name. “Can’t say, sir,” he replied to our question. With our confidence somewhat shaken, but still hopeful nevertheless, we next accosted a grizzled non-com, who bore on his battle-scarred breast all the campaign ribbons since the Black Hawk War. This Department can only commend your worthy purpose and wish you success in the task you have set yourselves.” In my youth, I, too, was intrigued by this mystery and spent many long hours pouring over musty tomes of military lore, delving deep into the official records of our Army back to Revolutionary days, but never have I encountered an explanation that would really explain this perplexed question. “My boy,” said the Colonel sadly, “you ask me the only question this Department has never been able to solve satisfactorily by the critical research method. Hannah, Director of the Department of Research, and an officer of long service and deep erudition. In an ambitious attempt to solve this mystery of long standing for the benefit of our readers, we went to no less an authority than Lieut. “Who, what and why is a ‘doughboy’?” Well, he is an American Infantryman, of course, as distinguished from all other wearers of Uncle Sam’s uniform, and about the best two-fisted and two-legged fighting man of which there is any record anywhere, and he gets his name because – because, why, er, come to think of it, how does he get the name?Īnd there you are. Copied from the Camp Benning 1920-21 yearbook.
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