American GI Averaged Twenty-Six Years

During World War II, the average American frontline GI was 26 years old, stood 5 feet 8 inches tall, weighed 144 pounds, and had nine years of education. He was a white man from New York named John who had been drafted into the Army as an infantry rifleman with the rank of private. During basic training at Fort Benning, Georgia, he typically gained 5 to 20 pounds. More than 16 million Americans served in the armed forces, so this profile described the average frontline GI rather than every military inductee.

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