Soldier: Homer J. Thacker of Wasilla, 87, is wearing a military hat and facing the camera in the poster behind him.
Story: Thacker, a U.S. Army sergeant, was on his way home in 1943 to Kenova, W.Va., from combat training at Fort Knox, Ky., on leave before deploying to Europe.
"I saw this man take the picture at the end (of the train,)" Thacker said. A few weeks later Thacker saw the poster, featuring that photograph, flash on a movie screen before the feature. He also saw it hanging in a local post office.
Thacker this week presented a framed, reprinted copy of the poster to the Amvets Post No. 11 in Wasilla.
Subsequently: Thacker joined Patton's Third Army as a small-arms mechanic. He received a concussion in artillery fire while serving in Metz, France, and was discharged in 1947. Before his retirement, Thacker owned two stores in West Virginia. He's been married to Lelona for 55 years and has one son.
Poster: "Is Your Trip Necessary? Needless travel interferes with the war effort." First printed in 1943, it is a 30-by-20-inch color poster with a black-and-white photograph silk-screened over a dark-yellow background. The poster, issued by the Office of War Information, depicts a crowded rail car.
Purpose: During World War II, the government encouraged civilians to stay home and free up seats on public transportation for servicemen or women traveling to or from their duty stations. Other posters encouraged civilians to grow and can their own food or to guard against the careless leaking of sensitive information.
Photographer: Available records do not credit the photographer. However, the Office of War Information, a wartime government propaganda agency, inherited photographers from the Farm Security Administration, a New Deal agency whose photographic branch under Roy Stryker documented the effects of the Depression on farms and small towns. Some of America's most accomplished photographers of the era worked for Stryker, including Dorothea Lange, Jack Delano and Gordon Parks.
Value: An original copy of this poster in good condition sells for $125 to $175.
