# WAAC: This Is My War Too! (1943), Dan V. Smith's recruiting poster

WAAC: This is my war too! is a 1943 recruiting poster for the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps of the U.S. Army, signed Dan V. Smith. A woman in Army cap and jacket looks upward in front of a large American flag, and the slogan is written in her voice (NAID 513673).

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      WAAC: This Is My War Too!

      WAAC: This Is My War Too! (1943), Dan V. Smith's recruiting poster
      Dan V. Smith's 1943 poster for the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps sets a uniformed woman before the flag with the line "This is my war too!" NAID 513673.

## Techniques named on the archive record

Identity fusionGlittering generalities
      Date1943Made byWomen's Army Auxiliary Corps, U.S. Army; artist Dan V. SmithMediumPosterCountryUnited StatesRegimeRoosevelt AdministrationNARANAID 513673; Record Group 44SourceIdentified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they areSourceU.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 44, World War II Posters , retrieved October 4, 2026SourcePublic domain (U.S. government work) Women's Army Auxiliary Corps, U.S. Army; artist Dan V. Smith. National Archives and Records Administration, RG 44, 44-PA-231 (NAID 513673).
      Object, image, and catalog record from the FRAME archive. Text on this page is CC BY 4.0. Image rights are as the archive records.

      Full record at propagandaarchive.org

  WAAC: This is my war too! is a 1943 recruiting poster for the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps of the U.S. Army, signed Dan V. Smith. A woman in Army cap and jacket looks upward in front of a large American flag, and the slogan is written in her voice (NAID 513673).

## What it shows

A woman in uniform, wearing an Army cap and jacket, looks upward. A large U.S. flag hangs behind her. Four letters head the sheet, and the slogan beneath them is in the first person.

WAAC

THIS IS MY WAR TOO!

WOMEN'S ARMY AUXILIARY CORPS

UNITED • STATES • ARMY

[signature:] DAN·V·SMITH

[imprint:] P-13-RPB-1-9-43-30M

Transcription in the FRAME record. Full record at propagandaarchive.org. NAID 513673, local id 44-PA-231, Record Group 44.

## Who made it

The sheet names the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps of the United States Army and carries the signature of Dan V. Smith. It ends in an imprint code, P-13-RPB-1-9-43-30M, which the archive transcribes but does not decode; this page does not guess at it either. The archive lists the issuer type as military and the purpose as recruiting, and the National Archives holds the poster in the World War II Posters series of Record Group 44.

## Claiming the war in the first person

Identity fusion leads the archive's tags, with glittering generalities second. The first-person line does the fusing: a woman reading the poster is invited to say the words herself and claim the war as hers. The flag supplies the generality. As the archive notes, the poster states no specific duties or terms.

The claim in the slogan is a fair one, and it is worth taking at face value. Women were being asked to serve, and the poster answers an unspoken objection, that war belongs to men, with a direct "too." What it leaves out is the practical part. A recruit was signing up for something specific, and the sheet gives her nothing to judge it by. A volunteer force is one of the things a free country can be proud of, and volunteers are owed the details.

The War Department used a WAAC member on its 1942 photographic security poster Silence Means Security. Other women's recruiting on this site includes Join the WAC Now and the Navy's Enlist in the WAVES, which at least names where to apply. Civilian work for women was pitched on Pitch In and Help!

## Sources

- FRAME object record, WAAC: This Is My War Too!, 1943. Women's Army Auxiliary Corps, U.S. Army; artist Dan V. Smith.

- U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 44, World War II Posters, NAID 513673, local id 44-PA-231, catalog record, retrieved by the archive 4 October 2026. Rights as recorded: public domain (U.S. government work).

Canonical: https://americanpropaganda.org/collection/waac-this-is-my-war-too-1943/