Ray S S
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Greetings everyone, Here is a copy of an email I received about a WWII hero that I think many people would be interested
in reading about, especially with a new stamp coming out in his honor. Read and enjoy. Ray
It goes as follows....
Subject: WWII heroes
Bill Mauldin stamp honors grunt's hero...
The post office gets a lot of criticism. Always has, always will. And with the renewed push to get rid of Saturday mail
delivery, expect complaints to intensify.
But the United States Postal Service deserves a standing ovation for something that's going to happen this month: bill
Mauldin is getting his own postage stamp.
Mauldin died at age 81 in the early days of 2003. The end of his life had been rugged. He had been scalded in a bathtub,
which had led to terrible injuries and infections; Alzheimer's disease was inflicting it's cruelties. Unable to care for
himself after the scalding, he became a resident of a Califrornia nursing home, his health and spirits in rapid decline.
He was not forgotten, though. Mauldin, and his work, meant so much to the millions of Americans who fought in WWII, and
to those who had waited for them to come home. He was a kid cartoonist for the Stars and Stripes, the military newspaper; Mauldin's drawings of his muddy, exausted, whisker-stubbled infantrymen Willie and joe were the voice of truth about what
it was like on the front lines.
Mauldin was an enlisted man just like the soldiers he drew for: his gripes were their gripes, his laughs were their laughs,
his heartaches were their heartaches. He was one of them. They loved him.
He never held back. Sometimes, when his cartoons cut a little too close for comfort, his superior officers tried to tone
him down. In one memorable incident, he enraged Gen. George S. Patton, and Patton informed Mauldin he wanted the pointed cartoons- celebrating the fighting men, lampooning the high-ranking officers- to stop. Now.
The news passed from soldier to soldier. How was Sgt. Bill Mauldin going to stand up to Gen. Patton? It seemed impossible.
Not quite. Mauldin, it turned out, had an ardent fan: Five-star Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, supreme commander of the Allied
forces in Europe. Ike put out the word: Mauldin draws what Mauldin wants. Mauldin won. Patton lost.
If in your line of work, you've ever considered yourself a young hotshot, or if you've ever known anyone who has felt that
way about himself or herself, the story of Mauldin's young manhood will humble you. Here is what, by the time he was 23 years
old, Mauldin had accomplished:
He won the Pulitzer Prize. He was featured on the cover of Time magazine. His book. "Up FRont" was the #1 best seller in the
United States.
All of that at 23.Yet when he returned to civilian life and he grew older, he never lost that boyish Mauldin grin, he never
outgrew his excitement about doing his job, he never big-shotted or high-hatted the people with whom he worked every day.
I was lucky enough to be one of them: Mauldin roamed the hallways of the Chicago Sun-Times in the late 1960's and early 1970's
with no more officiousness or air of haughtiness than if he was a copyboy. That impish look on his face remained.
He had achieved so much. He had won a second Pulitzer Prize, and he should have won a third, for what may be the single
greatest editorial cartoon in the history of the craft: his deadline rendering, on the day President John F. Kennedy was
assassinated , of the statue at the Lincoln Memorial slumped in grief, it's head cradled in it's hands.
Mauldin's famous JFK cartoon was drawn on deadline in an hour. The editors at the Chicago Sun-Times ook one look at the
drawing and immediately gave it the entire back page. Jacqueline Kennedy requested the original.
But he never acted as if he was better than the people he met. He was still Mauldin the enlisted man.
During the summer of 2002, as Mauldin lay in that California nursing home, some of the old WWII infantry guys caught wind
of it.They didn't want Mauldin to go out that way. They thought he should know that he was still their hero.
Gorden Dillow, a columnist for the Orange County Register, put out the call in Southern California for people in the area
to send their best wishes to Mauldin; I joined Dillow in the effort, helping to spread the appeal nationally so that Bill
would not feel so alone. Soon more than 10,000 letters and cards had arrived at Mauldin's bedside.
Even better than that, the old soldiers began to show up just to sit with Mauldin, to let him know that they were there
for him, as he, long ago, had been there for them. So many volunteered to visit Bill that there was a waiting list. Here
is how Todd DePastino, in the first paragraph of his wonderful biography of Mauldin, described it:
"Almost everyday in the summer and fall of 2002 they came to Park Superior nursing home in Newport Beach, California, to
honor Army Sergeant Technician Third Grade, Bill Mauldin. They came bearing relics of their youth: medals, insignia,
photographs, and carefully folded newspaper clippings. Some wore old garrison. Others arrived resplendent in uniforms over
a half century old. Almost all of them wept as they filed down the corridor like pilgrims fulfilling some long-neglected
obligation."
One of the veterans explained to me why it was so important:
"You would have to be part of a combat infantry unit to appreciate what moments of relief Bill gave us. You had to be
reading a soaking wet Stars and Stripes ina water-filled foxhole and then see one of his cartoons."
Mauldin is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. This month, the kid cartoonist makes it onto a first-class postage stamp.
It's an honor that most generals and admirals never receive.
What Mauldin would have loved most, I believe, is the sight of the two guys who are keeping him company on that stamp.
Take a look at it.
in reading about, especially with a new stamp coming out in his honor. Read and enjoy. Ray
It goes as follows....
Subject: WWII heroes
Bill Mauldin stamp honors grunt's hero...
The post office gets a lot of criticism. Always has, always will. And with the renewed push to get rid of Saturday mail
delivery, expect complaints to intensify.
But the United States Postal Service deserves a standing ovation for something that's going to happen this month: bill
Mauldin is getting his own postage stamp.
Mauldin died at age 81 in the early days of 2003. The end of his life had been rugged. He had been scalded in a bathtub,
which had led to terrible injuries and infections; Alzheimer's disease was inflicting it's cruelties. Unable to care for
himself after the scalding, he became a resident of a Califrornia nursing home, his health and spirits in rapid decline.
He was not forgotten, though. Mauldin, and his work, meant so much to the millions of Americans who fought in WWII, and
to those who had waited for them to come home. He was a kid cartoonist for the Stars and Stripes, the military newspaper; Mauldin's drawings of his muddy, exausted, whisker-stubbled infantrymen Willie and joe were the voice of truth about what
it was like on the front lines.
Mauldin was an enlisted man just like the soldiers he drew for: his gripes were their gripes, his laughs were their laughs,
his heartaches were their heartaches. He was one of them. They loved him.
He never held back. Sometimes, when his cartoons cut a little too close for comfort, his superior officers tried to tone
him down. In one memorable incident, he enraged Gen. George S. Patton, and Patton informed Mauldin he wanted the pointed cartoons- celebrating the fighting men, lampooning the high-ranking officers- to stop. Now.
The news passed from soldier to soldier. How was Sgt. Bill Mauldin going to stand up to Gen. Patton? It seemed impossible.
Not quite. Mauldin, it turned out, had an ardent fan: Five-star Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, supreme commander of the Allied
forces in Europe. Ike put out the word: Mauldin draws what Mauldin wants. Mauldin won. Patton lost.
If in your line of work, you've ever considered yourself a young hotshot, or if you've ever known anyone who has felt that
way about himself or herself, the story of Mauldin's young manhood will humble you. Here is what, by the time he was 23 years
old, Mauldin had accomplished:
He won the Pulitzer Prize. He was featured on the cover of Time magazine. His book. "Up FRont" was the #1 best seller in the
United States.
All of that at 23.Yet when he returned to civilian life and he grew older, he never lost that boyish Mauldin grin, he never
outgrew his excitement about doing his job, he never big-shotted or high-hatted the people with whom he worked every day.
I was lucky enough to be one of them: Mauldin roamed the hallways of the Chicago Sun-Times in the late 1960's and early 1970's
with no more officiousness or air of haughtiness than if he was a copyboy. That impish look on his face remained.
He had achieved so much. He had won a second Pulitzer Prize, and he should have won a third, for what may be the single
greatest editorial cartoon in the history of the craft: his deadline rendering, on the day President John F. Kennedy was
assassinated , of the statue at the Lincoln Memorial slumped in grief, it's head cradled in it's hands.
Mauldin's famous JFK cartoon was drawn on deadline in an hour. The editors at the Chicago Sun-Times ook one look at the
drawing and immediately gave it the entire back page. Jacqueline Kennedy requested the original.
But he never acted as if he was better than the people he met. He was still Mauldin the enlisted man.
During the summer of 2002, as Mauldin lay in that California nursing home, some of the old WWII infantry guys caught wind
of it.They didn't want Mauldin to go out that way. They thought he should know that he was still their hero.
Gorden Dillow, a columnist for the Orange County Register, put out the call in Southern California for people in the area
to send their best wishes to Mauldin; I joined Dillow in the effort, helping to spread the appeal nationally so that Bill
would not feel so alone. Soon more than 10,000 letters and cards had arrived at Mauldin's bedside.
Even better than that, the old soldiers began to show up just to sit with Mauldin, to let him know that they were there
for him, as he, long ago, had been there for them. So many volunteered to visit Bill that there was a waiting list. Here
is how Todd DePastino, in the first paragraph of his wonderful biography of Mauldin, described it:
"Almost everyday in the summer and fall of 2002 they came to Park Superior nursing home in Newport Beach, California, to
honor Army Sergeant Technician Third Grade, Bill Mauldin. They came bearing relics of their youth: medals, insignia,
photographs, and carefully folded newspaper clippings. Some wore old garrison. Others arrived resplendent in uniforms over
a half century old. Almost all of them wept as they filed down the corridor like pilgrims fulfilling some long-neglected
obligation."
One of the veterans explained to me why it was so important:
"You would have to be part of a combat infantry unit to appreciate what moments of relief Bill gave us. You had to be
reading a soaking wet Stars and Stripes ina water-filled foxhole and then see one of his cartoons."
Mauldin is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. This month, the kid cartoonist makes it onto a first-class postage stamp.
It's an honor that most generals and admirals never receive.
What Mauldin would have loved most, I believe, is the sight of the two guys who are keeping him company on that stamp.
Take a look at it.
