An awesome and historic group!  Thank you for sharing his story!

I picked this up about a month ago. It's my first foray into WWI: I've been avoiding it mainly due to the costs, but came across this at a weekend allowance price. The best part of collecting is learning new stuff, often as a result of blind purchases. What I found out was that this was a stateside uniform issues to SATC, Students Army Training Corps, which was apparently the WWI version of ROTC. Feel free to chime in, I'd love to hear more about it.

That is what I thought. Thanks Gents!

Here is some information I located:   His draft card (ancestrydotcom):   His enlistment record (FOLD3):   During Aug 43, he attended (placed on detached service [DS] to) the Ordnance Munitions School at Army Air Base Salt Lake City, Utah (NARA); it appears he was assigned to the Classification Routing Pool (C-RP) at the same base during this time: His Military Occupation Specialty (MOS) is listed as 904, which I believe was a Machine Gun Mechanic.   His 7 Oct 43 pre-discharge transfer from the Classification Routing Pool to the 6th Base Hq and Air Base Squadron at Army Air Base Salt Lake City, Utah (NARA): His rank was a Private First Class (PFC)   His 15 Oct 43 discharge from military service from AAB, SLC, Utah (NARA): His discharge appears to have been honorable and, based on the "Section X," administrative in nature.   You can find the above documents and some other morning reports/documents related to his service here at this NARA link (be advised that some information is not for him): https://catalog.archives.gov/search?page=1&q=14161733   I did not see anything that indicated that he left the USA during his service. I hope this helps.   Dan

@PhilippineBuckles - Nice pick up there.  That's got to be one of the best buckles that's come up on Ebay in the last 18 months.   @jsand - I was the second high bid on that Les Fagan USMC buckle back in 2023.  A WWII era USMC PI buckles is still high on my wants list as well. 

I have no proof, but I think John is correct.  More than likely a prototype or trial piece made by NS Meyers--maybe for a civilian type purchase or airline or private pilot.  As a company selling items, one would expect some level of merchandising of new patterns to sell more product. Maybe there is some data from Heath about these in his archives.   P

Steampunk!  That is the best word for these things.  Allan is 100% on target!

My father had a steel ring from his WWII service that was engraved with his initials. He had quit wearing it by the time I came along so as a preteen I grinded his initials off and put mine on with an engraver. He had told a story about the crash of a C46 transport at Sedalia Army Air Field where he was stationed. He had said that he picked up a ball bearing from that plane and before he passed away he revealed that the steel ball bearing was made into a ring at the base machine shop. I’m just wondering if anyone else has anything with a similar story.  

Outstanding!

Good evening Frank,   Thank you for your answer. I do enjoy them too ;)  I was looking in The US tanker helmet book, and saw there was 2 patents from Rawlings (1941 and 1942), one of them had the digit 6, probably the other and the lastest  had the digit 8 : see in the right top corner of the drawing   Coulndt take a more clear picture but in real life it does look like a 6 :   130 678     Cheers   Erwan