This was a typical WW II class portrait provided by a military unit after special training. In this case, a bunch of 17-year-old Army Air Force Reservists (I'm in the front row) had just completed a week at Fort Dix in New Jersey, about two months after D-Day. WW II was still hot and heavy in both Europe and the Pacific, so we all fully expected to be involved when called to active duty. Asit happened, we ended up replacing the combst troops so we served in the equally-important Military Occupation Forces in both Germany and Japan (and Korea). That's a B-24 Liberator bomber behind us. "CAP" stood for Civil Air Patrol. a civilian adjunct which provided volunteer manpower when necessary to the AAF on civilian airports as well as other community services.

Hey Lesley...hope you'll forgive me for being so late to the party,
but the weather in the Outer Banks was awesome and I just couldn't
pull myself away...

Which explains why I didn't have the time to "vintify" any images,
but I do have one you folks might enjoy....an original picture from
1954 of our one room school house. That's me standing on the left,
first row, in the stripped shirt...and the very dirty pants...LOL

..