I'd Rather Be with Them, Than Waiting (1944), a Women's Army Corps photo poster

I'd rather be with them, than waiting is a 1944 color photograph recruiting poster for the Women's Army Corps. A smiling woman in a steel helmet marked A/110, with a field pack, leans on a wooden rail against a blue sky under the quoted line (NAID 513677).

A helmet, a pack and a blue sky

The poster is a color photograph. A smiling woman wears a steel helmet marked "A/110" and a field pack with straps, and leans on a wooden rail against a blue sky. Above her is a line in quotation marks, as if she had just said it. A blue panel names the corps, and a line of text tells the reader where to apply.

"I'd rather be with them—

than waiting"

THE WAC

WOMEN'S ARMY CORPS

Apply at U.S. Army Recruiting Station or ask your local Postmaster

[imprint:] P-X-17-RPB-8-4-44-[illegible]M

Issued for the women's corps

The archive credits the Women's Army Corps, U.S. Army. The imprint is a print code, partly illegible, and the record does not decode it. FRAME sets the issuer type to "Military", the audience to "Domestic public", the purpose to "Recruit" and the themes to war and the military, and gender and suffrage. The National Archives holds it in Record Group 44, World War II Posters.

Who "them" means

FRAME tags testimonial and plain folks. The quotation is given to the woman in the photograph, but she has no name, and the sheet does not say who "them" are. The archive notes the gap. The reader is left to supply it.

The appeal itself is a fair one. It sets service against waiting, and it offers a woman a way to act instead of sitting at home. The poster asks her to apply, and says how: apply at a recruiting station, or ask the local postmaster. What it does not do is say what the job would be. Other Women's Army Corps sheets of 1944 on this site are more specific. Join the WAC Now! offers a choice of job, branch and station, and Weather Observer, WAC names one job and says the Army "has 239 kinds of jobs for women". This sheet sells the feeling instead.

A 1942 War Department sheet, the WAAC security poster, shows a woman in Women's Army Auxiliary Corps uniform with a finger raised to her lips. The Roosevelt administration essay treats the war years as a whole.