Article: Guys and Dolls; GI Joe Is 30-Plus and Going Strong

What a doll, that GI Joe.

Seriously.

But don't mention that to the nation of boys who still play with the first combat "action figure" to have a name, rank and serial number. Don't tell it to a generation of grown men who practiced hand-to-hand combat in backyard sandboxes with their GI Joes in the mid-'60s, even as real GIs fought in Vietnam. Don't tell them the original GI Joe that first hunkered down on toy store shelves in 1964 -- the same one Hasbro has recreated this year as the GI Joe Masterpiece Edition -- is none other than a 12-inch-tall doll for boys. "That's a nasty word," protests Don Levine, not altogether serious, though he usually is adamant about calling the toy ...

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