Were the Americans called GI's during world war 2?

"GI" was really a term invented by newspaper writers. Everything a soldier got was Government Issue - GI. The Army abhors individualism, and tried to turn men into identical "GI" units, hence, GIs. But among soldiers referring to themselves, the term did not catch on until after WWII. During WWII the men referred to themselves as "dogfaces", or "doggies", or "doughs". The last was a shortened form of "doughboy", which their fathers had been during WWI. Similarly, the Jeep was a new type of vehicle created for the army just before the war. Its name is said to have come from its designation as a General Purpose (GP = jeep) one-quarter ton truck. BUt the men actually called them "peeps", again, until after the war was over, and men came into the army who had been teenagers reading the papers while the war was going on.