As the leader of the local Veterans of Foreign Wars post, I think it’s a wonderful decision by the US Postal Service to issue a first class postage stamp bearing a photo of Bill Mauldin and his two cartoon characters, Willie and Joe.
This is an honor that few generals or admirals have ever received. I received one of the stamps in the mail today.
Bill Mauldin was a sergeant in the 45th Infantry Division who I met on the Anzio Beachhead in Italy during World War II.
He was well known for the great number of cartoons that appeared in the irregular issues of the “Stars and Stripes” military newspaper.
He related very closely with all the “dog-faces” that he served with.
His cartoons provided laughs and comfort to all the millions of soldiers because he depicted their war-weary gripes and feelings just as they lived them.
And he cleverly portrayed some of the officers just as they were.
As an enlisted man, some of Mauldin’s superior officers tried to get him to lay off of lampooning the officers. Even Gen. George Patton tried to get Bill to stop.
However, it so happened that Gen. Dwight Eisenhower enjoyed Mauldin’s cartoons and ordered everyone to quit harassing Bill Mauldin.
I was fortunate to have met Bill twice; once overseas and the second time was about a few weeks before he died.
The first time was one day, as a member of the telephone wire communications section of our artillery battery, I had just climbed down a telephone pole when I saw Bill Mauldin sitting in a jeep, waiting for a convoy of trucks to pass.
I called out to him, “Hey, Bill, thank you for your great cartoons. All the guys really enjoy them.”
He yelled back, “Thanks, I’m glad you do.”
The convoy cleared, and he drove away.
The second and last time I saw Bill Mauldin was when he was convalescing in a nursing home in Newport Beach.
I had read Gordon Dillow’s column in the Orange County Register, in late summer of 2002.
I asked two of my VFW buddies, Dave Van Aken and Paul Mackey to join me to go visit Mauldin.
I had heard that he had been in a house fire and was suffering from smoke inhalation.
When we arrived at the nursing home, the woman administrator told us not to be shocked or disappointed if he did not respond to us because he was really suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease.
Nonetheless, when we entered his room he sat in a wheelchair at the far end of the room and just stared with no expression of any kind.
I said, rather loudly, “Hey Bill, do you remember the time I saw you when you were sitting in your jeep on Anzio waiting for a convoy to pass and I had just climbed down a telephone pole and called out to you about your cartoons?”
A few moments later, Bill Mauldin raised his head a few inches and glared right at me as though he wanted to say something to me.
I suddenly felt the woman administrator’s hand on my left shoulder as she squeezed my shoulder and whispered, “Oh! he’s never responded that way since he came here. You made him remember something … ”
I walked around the end of the bed and shook his hand lightly, and we left the room a few minutes later.
The administrator said to me, “Thank you for speaking to him and bringing out a spark of life from him.”
Prior to his death, Bill Mauldin had won the Pulitzer Prize for his book, “Up Front” which became a bestseller. His photo was featured on the cover of Time Magazine. He also won two more Pulitzer Prizes.
Bill Mauldin, a great man, died in 2003 at the age of 81.
I’m proud to have met him and equally proud to have two copies of hisbooks which I am going to bring out and read again.
Bill Thomas, is the commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 4048 in Seal Beach.
