I Want Out

“A poster published anonymously by the Committee to Unsell the War, in a multi-media-donated campaign of 1971 protesting against US military involvement in Indo-China. 'Uncle Sam' was in reality Samuel Wilson, a provisions merchant from Troy, New York, who supplied the US army during the War of 1812 against the British. Through a series of connections he came to be identified with the plain, honest, self-reliant and patriotic American. In 1961 he was formally acknowledged by the US Senate as the progenitor of America's national symbol of Uncle Sam. As the personification of the USA he was invoked in a US recruiting poster designed by James Montgomery Flagg for the First World War in 1917; that image became iconic. This reinterpretation works through the ironic reversal of the original gestures. The original image, with an authoritative pointing gesture, summoning the viewer to enlist, is now inverted as Uncle Sam is turned into a wounded soldier, pleading to be released.”

-Description from V&A official website: https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O75555/i-want-out-poster-daniel-john-and/