According to the story Gatsby tells Nicks in chapter 8, did gatsby really fight in the war in The Great Gatsby

In the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jay Gatsby (born James Gatsby) actually fought in World War I. He reached the rank of major after starting off as a first lieutenant and was given medals by every allied nation. Gatsby was also awarded a medal from Montenegro For Valour Extraordinary. Following the war he attended an army program at Oxford for five months.

The Great Gatsby is set to hit theaters as a feature film directed by Baz Luhrmann (Romeo + Juliet, Moulin Rouge) on December 25, 2012. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Jay Gatsby, Carey Mulligan plays Daisy Buchanan, and Tobey Maguire plays Nick Carroway. New York magazine reports that the film’s costumes are “in typical Luhrmann fashion, far more fantastical, sparkly, and circus-like than, say, historically accurate for 1922.”