# A source for US military service photos?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-source-for-us-military-service-photos/618743>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [April 14, 2012, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-source-for-us-military-service-photos/618743 "2012-04-14T05:19:12Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\
**Post date:** [April 14, 2012, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-source-for-us-military-service-photos/618743/1 "2012-04-14T05:19:12Z")

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Every member of the US military has an official photograph, and I presume they have been doing this for a while.

I just checked, and [the Wikipedia entry for Rick Rescorla](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Rescorla) does not have an image of this man who saved a huge number of people from the World Trade Center on 9/11 and was killed in the collapse when he went back in to make sure.

[There is an image of Rescorla in uniform](http://www.calegionpost149.org/Rescorla/RickRescorlaCOLArmyPhoto.jpg) that looks much more carefully posed than most official photographs, but then he left the service as a Colonel - so presumably they get a bit more care.

The question is - is this image likely to be an official photograph, and therefore created by the US government and possibly free for use on Wikipedia? If so, where would I find it along with the proof of it’s copyright status? Is it somewhere in the National Archive and do any folks here know their way around it?