Simon was a chief petty officer in the US Navy, serving 46 months active duty and 30 months overseas in the Solomon Islands, New Guinea, and the Philippines. He was stationed along with about three dozen other Navy and Marine recruits at the ROTC facility in Logan for electrical and radio communications training during WWII.

The Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) was established in Logan in 1892, just four years after the founding of Utah Agricultural College (UAC), which is now called Utah State University (USU). It produced soldiers who served in every war from the Spanish-American in 1898 through Desert Storm in the 1990s. The Logan-based program was discontinued in 1997 and combined with the ROTC at Weber State University. In the years and months prior to WWII, the federal government created the National Defense Training Program (NDT) designed to bolster the technical training of Americans in defense industries such as aviation technology and radio communications. UAC’s long tradition with aviation and stellar performance record during and after WWI made it a logical place for NDT training (the college was home to the only ROTC program that trained both men and women fliers prior to WWII). Then-president Elmer Peterson—who oversaw the ROTC program during WWI—insisted that students receive a traditional liberal education alongside their defense training. Despite an overall decline in incoming college students during WWII, the ROTC program grew from an average of 80 enrollees in the pre-war years to 300 by December 1941. At this time, the college received a grant specifically for the training of Navy radio personnel, a program which produced 2000 trainees by September 1943. These soldiers rotated through the training every three months, and were housed primarily on campus— although some roomed with local residents and fraternities when space was unavailable in the barrack facilities. The community as whole welcomed these soldiers, throwing parties and parades in honor of the Navy trainees. Harry Simon, who trained in Logan during April of 1942, would have been among the first group of trainees that arrived in March of that same year.

The photographer and persons in the images are all unknown, although Simon likely took the images himself all on one afternoon in spring 1942. The series includes many of soldiers during study and recreation on USU campus, and several include wives, children, and family of the soldiers serving in the ROTC at the time. Simon suggested that some Marines were stationed with his Navy unit, and were able to pass the exams and enter the Navy at a higher grade; most, though, were sent back to the lines and probably killed, assumes Simon. No names or grades are given, although Simon believes that some of his colleagues may still have family in Logan, as several of them married local girls during ROTC training and returned to the area after the war.