This comic strip was published in the September 1943 issue of The American Indian: Bulletin of the American Field Service in India. This publication was edited by Lieutenant John Patrick, and was intended for the more than 800 American Field Service ambulance stationed in the India-Burma theater of war during World War II. The American Indian was first published in August 1943, and through its run included news, poems, jokes, short stories, editorials, parodies, photographs, and cartoons depicting the service of the ambulance drivers abroad. Multiple contributors, usually the volunteers stationed in India-Burma with the Southeast Asia Command of the British military, submitted items for each issue.
The contributor of this particular comic strip, Adrian Alan Whyte, had been a commercial artist in New York City when he volunteered for the American Field Service in April 1943. He was sent overseas with unit IB 3, and volunteered for ten months until his repatriation in 1944. In addition to his drawings Adrian also contributed poems, including one regarding the receipt of mail from loved ones back home, published in the same issue as the comic strip:
Let Me Know
Letters from home are my hopes by day-my
dreams through the hours of night,
and the blame is yours if I fail to win, if
you shall have failed to write.
So guard my courage and guard my faith
and keep up my spirits there
by letting me know when the mail comes
in that you haven’t ceased to care.
