---
title: Boy! What a break! Army Specialized Training Reserve Program
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/boy-what-a-break-astrp-1944/
description: 'Recruiting poster for the Army Specialized Training Reserve Program: three smiling uniformed students with books walk past a collegiate Gothic building'
section: Collection
---

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3. Boy! What a break! Army Specialized Training Reserve Program

[![Boy! What a break! Army Specialized Training Reserve Program, 1944 US poster: Recruiting poster for the Army Specialized](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/boy-what-a-break-astrp-1944.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/boy-what-a-break-astrp-1944.jpg)

# Boy! What a break! Army Specialized Training Reserve Program

Recruiting poster for the Army Specialized Training Reserve Program: three smiling uniformed students with books walk past a collegiate Gothic building beneath the headline 'Boy! What a break!'. The text offers free college training to 17-year-old high-school graduates, stressing the benefit and leaving out the service obligation, the card-stacking technique of selective emphasis.

## Propaganda techniques used in this poster

[Card stacking](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/card-stacking/)

## Text on the object

Original (English) · read from the image, not independently checked

```
Boy! What a break!
ASTRP
The Army Specialized Training Reserve Program offers high school
graduates who are 17 but not yet 17 years and 9 months of
age free college training. For information apply at any U. S.
Army Recruiting Station or consult your high school principal.
ARMY SPECIALIZED TRAINING RESERVE PROGRAM
[imprint: P-149--RPB--11-13-44--60M]
```

[← Biggest, Fastest, Deadliest... Superfortress](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/biggest-fastest-deadliest-superfortress-1944/) [Tango no sekku (Boys' Day) carp-banner leaflet (I07-J-1) →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/boys-day-carp-banners-leaflet-1944/)

## More propaganda examples that use the same techniques

- [Fragments of the Abydos king list from Ramesses II's temple, in the British Museum: rows of royal cartouches](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/abydos-king-list-ramesses-ii-temple-british-museum/) (New Kingdom Egypt · 0000 · Card stacking, Transfer)
- [Behistun (Bisotun) rock relief and trilingual inscription of Darius I: the king, two attendants and the bound rebel leaders beneath the winged figure of Ahuramazda](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/behistun-relief-darius-and-rebels-521bce/) (Achaemenid Empire · 0000 · Card stacking, Name-calling, Testimonial). Content note: Shows bound captives before the king, and the inscription records the mutilation and public execution of rebel leaders, as the king's own account.
- [Tomb of Darius I at Naqsh-e Rustam: the king in relief beside his inscription DNa, c. 490 BCE](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/dna-inscription-darius-i-naqsh-e-rustam-490bce/) (Achaemenid Empire · 0000 · Testimonial, Card stacking)
- [Line drawing of the Great Kadesh battle relief on the walls of the Ramesseum, from Breasted's History of Egypt](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/kadesh-relief-ramesseum-breasted-drawing-1275bce/) (New Kingdom Egypt · 0000 · Card stacking, Transfer). Content note: A drawing of an Egyptian royal battle relief showing Hittite soldiers and horses killed and drowned, as the king's monument presented the battle; it is a one-sided image made by the winning side's own account.
- [Persepolis, Apadana staircase relief: a figure with an animal from a procession of delegations, early fifth century BCE](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/persepolis-apadana-delegate-relief-500bce/) (Achaemenid Empire · 0000 · Card stacking, Manufactured consensus)
- [Alabaster relief, Assyrian troops storming a citadel, from Nineveh (reign of Sennacherib)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/relief-sennacherib-storming-citadel-nineveh-704bce/) (Neo Assyrian Empire · 0000 · Card stacking). Content note: An Assyrian palace relief of troops storming a fortified city, with a file of figures below; Assyrian royal reliefs and texts record killing, mutilation and deportation, shown as carved, with the historical context and scholarly dispute on the regime page.
- [Colour lithograph of the Latin text of the Res Gestae Divi Augusti on the wall of the temple of Roma and Augustus at Ancyra, with the heading in large letters (Perrot, Guillaume and Delbet, 1872)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/lithograph-res-gestae-ancyra-heading-0014/) (Roman Empire · 0014 · Card stacking, Glittering generalities)
- [Silver denarius of Vespasian, reverse IVDAEA with a trophy of arms and a seated mourning woman](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/denarius-vespasian-judaea-capta-0070/) (Roman Empire · 0070 · Card stacking). Content note: A Roman victory coin showing a mourning female figure as the personification of the conquered province of Judaea after the Roman suppression of the Jewish revolt; shown as struck, with the historical context on the regime page.