Wheeling’s Doughboy is Back and Better than Ever
In 1918, American soldiers – “Doughboys,” as they were known, probably because of their dusty uniforms during the war with Mexico 70 years prior – filled training facilities like Virginia’s Camp Lee in preparation for entering the European conflict that would one day be termed “World War I.”
But our Doughboys were already at war with a microscopic enemy – a deadly H1N1 virus misnamed “Spanish Flu.” These soldiers faced the prospect of war during a worldwide pandemic thought to have originated, not in Spain, but in an American military training camp. By the end of that fateful year, influenza would claim some 45,000 American soldiers (many before they completed basic training), nearly as many as the 53,000 killed in the trenches of France. Read More