Two unidentified boys are portrayed in miniature American Expeditionary Forces-style uniforms, a popular patriotic novelty during the World War I era that allowed civilian photographers to capitalize on wartime enthusiasm. The image is a real photo postcard, produced on photographic paper with a standard postcard back, and was made by an unidentified photographer against a plain studio backdrop with a fur or animal-skin rug on the floor.

The younger child stands at left wearing a broad-brimmed campaign hat, a tunic with brass buttons and shoulder straps, a leather belt, and short trousers with loose white stockings. The older boy sits at right in a nearly identical uniform with a visored campaign hat bearing a small badge, a belted tunic with a handkerchief tucked into the breast pocket, short trousers, and lace-up ankle boots. Both children face the camera directly, their expressions earnest and unsmiling.

Children's doughboy portrait sessions were widely offered by studio photographers between roughly 1917 and 1919 as a way for families to commemorate wartime patriotism, and real photo postcards were the most common format for such keepsakes, intended to be mailed to relatives or servicemen overseas.

The reverse is printed "POST CARD" with "CORRESPONDENCE" and "ADDRESS ONLY" divisions and bears a handwritten notation along the left edge reading "H-1-JS-1B-C" and the number "10" near the top.