A U.S. Army serviceman poses on the patio of a European villa in this candid World War II-era snapshot. Dressed in his wool service uniform with a ribbon bar and garrison cap, he represents the thousands of American troops who, between combat operations and postwar occupation duty, were billeted in requisitioned European homes across the war-torn continent. Personal photographs like this one, preserved in soldiers' private albums, offer an intimate window into daily life away from the front lines. Project: 218632