Remarks were delivered by Clair Sassin, CEO of the Doughboy Foundation, and Lieutenant General Frédéric Gout, Director of Army Human Resources for the French Army. A Doughboy Foundation WWI-uniformed bugler concluded the ceremony with “Sonnerie Aux Morts” and “Taps,” underscoring the enduring bond and shared sacrifice between France and the United States over the last 250 years.

The United States Army was represented at the event by Major General Dianne Del Rosso, Deputy Chief of the United States Army Reserve, and Brigader General Robin Hoefleon and Brigader General Carrie Perez from the National Guard Bureau. Read more about this event, and see photos of the solemn ceremony honoring 250 years of military service in defense of these two Allied nations.

The U.S. Army SIgnal Corps Female Telephone Operators of WWI, known as the Hello Girls, were finally awarded a Congressional Gold Medal in 2024, thanks in large measure to the hard work and diligence of a small group of descendants of Hello Girls and several dedicated researchers. The group did amazing work in petitioning Congress by identifying which Hello Girls came from what Congressional Districts, and convincing lawmakers to support the legislation honoring those women. But it turns out that the highly successful ending for their diligent effort was only the beginning. Learn how what began as a tactical campaign strategy has now evolved into a mission of remembrance, tranforming the research team into the Hello Girls Military Honors and Remembrance Program, a new Special Project of the Doughboy Foundation.

USAF veteran Steven Tom first got interested in WWI as a child while playing with his grandfather's Doughboy helmet. After retiring, Tom "had time to look back at the war and write about some of the people and events I thought deserved to be remembered."  His first WWI book was a biography of Kiffin Rockwell, an American who volunteered to serve in the French Foreign Legion in 1914 and later became one of the world’s first fighter pilots. Says Tom: "While researching Kiffin I learned about the people he served with. One individual in particular caught my attention." Read more, and find out why James R. McConnell, ambulance driver turned fighter pilot, became the subject of Tom's latest book The Aviator.

Writes Jim Lacombe: "Based on a modest level of personal research, I’ve concluded, with reasonable confidence, that the title of this article best captures what the men of the 15^th (AKA 369^th) Infantry Regiment referred to themselves as during the First World War. This includes during the Regiment’s time in France, from late 1917 to early 1919."  Check out Lacombe's research and analysis into the matter, and see why he concluded that "the phrase 'Harlem Hellfighters' was more of a press-inspired 'nom d’après-guerre' than a true 'nom de guerre."

When the United States entered the Great War in 1917, the Boy Scouts of America were barely out of their own childhood. Founded only seven years earlier, the organization had grown quickly but was still finding its place in national life. Then came war — and with it, a call to serve that would transform the Scouts forever. Learn how President Woodrow Wilson, the Scouts’ honorary president, issued a summons. The nation needed help, and its boys in khaki were ready. Overnight, the Boy Scouts became something of a civilian army, answering Wilson’s plea to use their skills, discipline, and patriotism in defense of their country.

Eugene "Reynold" Thomas was born in 1898, in Pennsylvania, to George and Evelyn Thomas. In 1917, he would enlist in the war as a Marine, and see action. After the Armistice was signed, he was sent to occupy Germany with the rest of his detachment. During that time, he sent a series of letters to his family describing what it was like in Germany at the very end of the war and during the German occupation. (One of his stories about his Occupation experiences, "Seeing Tina Home," was previously published on the Doughboy Foundation website.)  In the second of four new articles showcasing his WWI experiences, here is Thomas's account of how his friend "Mac" arranged for him to be assigned to Division Headquarters for duty as stenographer to the Division Personnel Adjutant...who was expecting him...

"This is a lovely portrait taken around 1921 of Captain Paul Huse Taylor, the commanding officer of the 101st Mobile Ordnance Repair Shop, or MORS, 26th Division. Most readers have likely never heard of such a unit, but there were a great deal of them serving within the AEF from 1917-1918, and their contributions were critical to the Allied victory."  So begins Michael Santoro's latest investigation into the history hidden in WWI artifacts. Read more about Captain Paul Huse Taylor, and how his command of the very first M.O.R.S. units that was organized in France "laid the foundation for the units that came after."

Researcher Cianna Lee reports on her inquiry into a poignant WWI artifact: "This postcard came to us from an unknown sender, one of two, with no note about who the person in both postcards could have been. The envelope had “Unknown Soldier” written across it. The first showed a person as an adolescent, with nothing written on it. The second shows the same person in uniform with infantry buttons, against a painted vine background, clearly a formal portrait taken in a studio. The printed section of the postcard is in French, so likely someone who was in the A.E.F. and made it to France. The only clue on the postcard was a name and an address." Read more, and see how her detective work on the mystery postcard revealed the story of a young doughboy from Mississippi and his service in France.

Thomas Alva Edison (1847–1931) is revered as America’s greatest  inventor. While also a highly successful businessman, he is best known for developing many devices such as the phonograph, the long-lasting light bulb, and the motion picture camera. He was also a dedicated and energetic contributor to America’s war effort in World War I. Learn how, despite business and personal strains on him during WWI, Edison made many contributions to the war effort, at least one of which still in operation on the East bank of the Potomac River in Washington, D.C.

After World War I, North Carolina changed at a visible pace. Soldiers returned home. Factories grew. Rail lines stayed busy. Towns stretched past their old edges. People needed houses, stores, schools, and churches. They built them fast. Over time, many of these areas gained legal status and public respect. Today, people refer to these places as historic districts in North Carolina because they show how life changed after the war. Read more, and find out how "the buildings speak in brick, wood, and glass. They show how a state moved from rural roots into a modern age."

When the United States entered World War I in 1917, it did more than mobilize an army. It mobilized a nation’s legal system for a challenge it had never faced before. Millions of Americans left civilian life almost overnight, stepping into military service while their financial obligations, property interests, and legal disputes remained behind at home. Courts continued to operate. Creditors continued to collect. Landlords continued to evict. The law, however, had no meaningful mechanism to account for wartime absence. Learn how the resulting legal strain would permanently reshape how the United States understands civil rights in times of war, and protects those called to military service.

There’s something curious happening in academic libraries and online databases. World War I, that massive, transformative conflict that reshaped the twentieth century, doesn’t get nearly the attention from students that you’d expect. Walk into any university library during finals week, and you’ll find clusters of students huddled over laptops researching World War II, the Cold War, even Vietnam. But the Great War? It’s quieter there. Learn why author Erica Gibson-Martin thinks that this observation isn’t just anecdotal. Data from academic databases, university library systems, and education research platforms shows a consistent pattern: student research on World War I lags behind other major historical events, and the gap is widening.

In the winter of 1918, an illness was spreading in Haskell County, KS. The remote farming community in the state’s southwestern corner sat roughly 300 miles from anywhere most Americans would recognize. Its residents raised hogs, tended cattle and scraped by on the prairie. But starting in January, a local physician named Dr. Loring Miner began seeing patients struck with an influenza unlike anything in his decades of practice. This was not a typical seasonal illness. Strong, healthy adults were being knocked flat by violent headaches, high fevers and relentless coughs. Some of them died. Miner grew alarmed enough to file a formal warning to the U.S. Public Health Service, reporting an “influenza of a severe type.” Read more, and discover that what Miner could not have known: that young men drafted from Haskell County were already traveling back and forth to Camp Funston, a sprawling Army training installation on the grounds of Fort Riley in eastern Kansas, that would become a crucial incubator for a worldwide pandemic.

After the United States entered World War I in 1917, women began to enter the profession of petroleum geology. At that time, many men in the oil and gas industry volunteered for service or were drafted into the armed forces. To fill positions, oil and gas companies began to hire women. Women who worked in Tulsa – the center of the petroleum universe during WWI – were invited to attend American Association of Petroleum Geologists annual meetings and become members. Learn more about the many women who worked as geologists in the western United States and helped keep the oil flowing during World War I, but have been largely forgotten by history.

History lessons are rarely more vivid or more engaging than “The Hello Girls” at Ross Valley Players. The high-stakes musical runs at the Barn Theater through March 1. Based on real events, “The Hello Girls” is the story of five women who were sent to France, where they performed the telephonic equivalent of air traffic control — at first in the relative safety of Paris, and later, at their insistence, near the eastern front, where they were subjected to repeated shelling from the Germans like real soldiers. Read more about the production, which features "one of the most multitalented casts seen on the Ross Valley Players stage in a very long time."

Ever since its initial struggle for independence, American soldiers away from home were not only subject to the horrors of war, but had to give up the comforts of home as well, often including palatable food. While familiar comforts could temporarily relieve wartime suffering, a lack of appropriate sustenance in desperate situations made warfare even worse. As American military rations improved significantly over the centuries to properly feed American troops, each conflict presented different options for famished servicemembers. Find out how the improved rations became one of the few positives for U.S.troops in the World War I trenches.

Beginning in World War I, chocolate bars were included in military field rations. During WWI, these took the form of small pieces of chocolate in bar form, the precursor to modern candy bars. Walter Kaufmann, who served as an Army messenger in France during World War I, pasted the wrapper from one such chocolate bar in his diary/scrapbook (left), which was donated to the Veterans History Project by his family. Learn more about the role that chocolate has played during wartime for American forces over the past 100 years, when, depending on the form it took, chocolate could be a comforting treat or drink, a token of friendship, a currency to be traded, or in certain cases, the difference between life and death.

A man is only missing if he is forgotten.

Our Doughboy MIA this month is Pvt. Aubrey Woolsey, born on 26 May 1890 in Linn Creek, Missouri. He was inducted into the Army on 11 December 1917 and trained as a member of Company K, 354th Infantry, 89th Division. He shipped to France on 24 April 1918 as member of a casual detachment of the 3rd Division and once ‘Over There’ was assigned to combat duty with Company G, 16th Infantry, 1st Division. During actions at Soissons, on 20 July 1918 Private Woolsey was killed in action by rifle fire. He was first interred in a shell hole grave that same day. Doughboy MIA did an investigation into Private Woolsey’s case in November, 2017 and discovered that on 16 August 1918 his remains were moved from that battlefield grave to Temporary Cemetery #36, and following that his remains were moved at least two more times. During one of these moves – almost certainly the third one – the identification of his remains was lost and Private Woolsey now lies in a grave marked as ‘Unknown’ at the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery at Belleau Wood, his name commemorated on the Wall of the Missing there.

Would you like to be involved with solving the case of PVT James Argiroplos, and all the other Americans still in MIA status from World War I? You can! Click here to make a tax-deductible donation to our non-profit organization today, and help us bring them home! Help us do the best job possible and give today, with our thanks.  Remember: A man is only missing if he is forgotten.

Doughboy Hoodie

Show your support for The Doughboy Foundation with this durable, classic fit, hooded sweatshirt features a custom embroidered National WWI Memorial with the symbolic poppy emblem. Made of 80/20 ring spun cotton-polyester and embroidered in the USA, it will provide warmth and comfort for years to come while proudly showing your support to honor the memory of the WWI Doughbosy. Featuring a dropped shoulder and pouch pocket, this sweatshirt is available in navy. (Please note that the Doughboy Hoodie is available in Mens' sizes only at this time.)

Proceeds from the sale of these items will help keep watch over the new National World War I Memorial in Washington, DC.

This and many other items are available as Official Merchandise of the Doughboy Foundation.

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