This one's dated "Mar 44." D-Day was a few months away, and victory a little more than a year. If this young man was a new recruit, he was probably on leave before being sent to a replacement camp, perhaps Camp Croft, mentioned in yesterday's post.
To me, though, it's his grandfather (Or perhaps great-grandfather.) that draws my eye. I'm trying to figure out just how old he could have been when this picture was taken. If he was eighty, he was born in the last year of the Civil War, had lived to see the Spanish-American War, World War 1, as well as all the Indian wars of the great plains. And judging by the background, more than likely, he witnessed some of those battles. And then there was the invention of the light bulb, movies, radio, and the airplane. The dust bowl and the great depression. And if he lived a few years after this photo was taken, atomic weaponry, and jet aircraft. May you live in interesting times.
No comments:
Post a Comment