"Take all you want but eat all you take." Sign above mess line, photo 20

Robert Lee Olen

Portrait of Olen with camera War: World War II, 1939-1946 Branch: Army Unit: 10th Mountain Division Service Location: United States; Italy Rank: Sergeant Place of Birth: Brooklyn, NY

The photographs of Robert Lee Olen, a sergeant with the Tenth Mountain Division of the U.S. Army serving in Italy during World War II, are evocative and eloquent testimony to the power of images. A Christmas 1944 gathering at Virginia's Camp Patrick Henry, Red Cross workers offering doughnuts to GIs, a card game aboard a ship - these and other scenes show servicemen at leisure and almost belie the dangerous circumstances that define their lives during wartime.