Service with the Colors

A few familiar faces from the big and small screen will be recognized by the viewer of Service With The Colors. This short subject from Warner Brothers is about service in the peacetime army which in 1940 everyone knew was going to become a wartime army any day now.

People enlist for all kinds of reasons in the army during time of peace and one of those enlisting is William T. Orr. Watching this one has to remember this was the Depression and jobs just weren't to be had. I could relate to that because in my family my one surviving uncle now 96 wanted to enlist in the Navy, but was implored with tears by my grandmother not to do it. So he sat around and couldn't get a job until World War II started. Who knows if he had enlisted, he might have been killed at Pearl Harbor. As it was he survived the Battle Of The Bulge.

In any event Orr had the same idea as my uncle. Three hot meals a day and a place to sleep. The film is about how those notions get radically changed by Colonel Henry O'Neill and Sergeant Robert Armstrong among others.

And among others you'll recognize William Lundigan and Herbert Anderson as fellow enlistees. All in all a decent short film which if expanded could have been a good feature.