Say Goodbye to another American Icon...

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Bill Mauldin, the cartoonist and creator of Willie and Joe of WW2 fame passed away today at the age of 81. The man was a soldier and told the story of the foot slogger with heart and humor.

 

 

One cartoon...Willie and Joe are sitting under a tree dead tired after a big fight with the nazis. An American Officer strode past them with a determined look on his face heading for the front a short distance away.

Willie and Joe look at each other and one says, "He aint no combat man."

The other replies, "Yeah, he's LOOKIN fer a fight..."

 

 

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This is a letter that went out a few months or so ago asking all his old pals who remember reading Willie and Joe during the war to help out Bill. He was sick in a bed in a nursing home and needed his pals. The article is here...http://www.angelfire.com/wa2/FJ6/Dillow.html.

 

An excerpt from the letter...

"For those too young to remember, Bill Mauldin was one of the most famous Americans of World War II. Starting out as an Army infantry private who drew military-life cartoons on the side, he later became a full- time cartoonist for Stars and Stripes, The GI newspaper. His cartoons also appeared in syndication in newspapers across the United States.

 

Mauldin's two main characters were a couple of dogface infantrymen named Willie and Joe. Dirty, unshaven, squatting in muddy foxholes and griping all the while, they represented the millions of ordinary citizen-soldiers for whom the war wasn't a path to glory, bot rather a hard, miserable juob that simply had to be done. And yet, like so many GIs, Willie and Joe somehow found humor in even the toughest situations.

 

High-ranking officers, who were frequently the targets of Willie and Joe's foxhole jokes and gripes, may not have approved of Mauldin's anti-authoritarian outlook and the stand-up-for-the-little-guy tone. But ordinary GIs loved Willie and Joe - and love Bill Mauldin for creating them.

 

So did millions of other Americans. Sgt. Bill Mauldin became one of the most popular cartoonists in American history, and in 1945, at age 23, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize."

 

 

A couple of Willie and Joe cartoons from the war... http://www.45thdivisionmuseum.com/Mainmuse...um/Mauldin2.htm.

 

 

[Guest Ranger332]

going to miss him geee no Bob Hope for uso shows no Bill its a sad day for the Army and most dont even know it.