It went overseas in September 1918, but was utilized as a pool of laborers by the Services of Supply, American Expeditionary Forces.

It returned to the United States in January 1919 to Camp Dix, New Jersey, and was demobilized in February 1919.

Unlike the Regular and Guard units in the Fourth Corps Area, the 87th Division did not participate in the various Fourth Corps Area maneuvers and the Third Army maneuvers of 1938, 1940, and 1941 as an organized unit due to lack of enlisted personnel and equipment.

[3] The 87th Infantry Division was ordered into active military service on 15 December 1942 at Camp McCain, Mississippi.

It was nicknamed the "Baby Division" because many of its initial filler soldiers were among the first eighteen year olds conscripted after the lower limit of the draft age was reduced from twenty to eighteen years old in November 1942.

It sailed to the European Theater on 17 October 1944, arrived in England on 12 November 1944, and staged for movement to France.

Because of discontinuity in the German railroad system, the 87th was routed to Germany by returning to Belgium on 3 February 1945.

The division then shifted to the vicinity of Gros-Réderching near the Saar-German border on 10 December and captured Rimling, Obergailbach, and Guiderkirch.

The 87th was moving into Germany when, on 16 December 1944, German Field Marshal Von Rundstedt launched his offensive in the Ardennes forest (Battle of the Bulge).

The 87th moved to the vicinity of St. Vith, 28 January, and attacked and captured Schlierbach, Selz, and Hogden by the end of the month.

The division crossed the Rhine, 25–26 March, despite strong opposition, consolidated its bridgehead, and secured Grossenlinden and Langgöns.

The 87th Division returned to the States in July 1945 expecting to be called upon to play a role in the defeat of the Imperial Japanese, but the sudden termination of the war in the Pacific while the division was reassembling at Fort Benning changed the future of the 87th.

The last active soldier from the division that served in World War II retired in June 1981.

Colonel Vedder B. Driscoll (1925–1983), who had enlisted in 1943 and was a platoon sergeant for Company I, 345th Infantry, achieved thirty years of commissioned service.

[6] The 87th Infantry Division was reformed in the Organized Reserve Corps after the war, in the Third Army area.

It was inactivated on 15 February 1957 in Birmingham, Alabama, and subsequently the division shoulder sleeve insignia and number, but not the division lineage and honors, were used by the 87th Maneuver Area Command (MAC), also in Birmingham, with sixteen subordinate battalions.