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 happened last
month: Bill Mauldin got 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 led to terrible injuries and
infections; Alzheimer's
disease was inflicting its
cruelties. Unable to care
for himself after the scalding, he
became a resident of a California
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 World War II, and to
those who had waited for them to
come home. He was a kid
cartoonist for Stars and Stripes,
the military newspaper;
Mauldin's drawings of his muddy,
exhausted, 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
their laughs, his heartaches their
heartaches. He was one of
them. They loved him.
He never
held back. Sometimes, when
his cartoons cut too close for
comfort, superior officers tried
to tone him down. In one
memorable incident, he enraged
Gen. George S. Patton, who
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
him or herself, the story of
Mauldin's young manhood will
humble you. Here is what, by
the time he was 23 years old,
Mauldin accomplished: He won
the Pulitzer Prize, was featured
on the cover of Time magazine.
His book "Up Front" was the No. 1
best-seller in the United States.
All of that at 23. Yet, when
he returned to civilian life and
grew older, he never lost that
boyish Mauldin grin, never outgrew
his excitement about doing his
job, never a big-shot 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
1960s and early 1970s 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 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, its
head cradled in its hands.
But he never acted as if he was
better than the people he met.
He was still Mauldin, the enlisted
man.
During
the late summer of 2002, as
Mauldin lay in that California
nursing home, some of the old
World War II infantry guys caught
wind of it. They didn't want
Mauldin to go out that way.
They thought he should know he was
still their hero. Gordon
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
Bill would not feel so alone.
Soon, more than 10,000 cards and
letters had arrived at Mauldin's
bedside.
Better than that, old soldiers
began to show up just to sit with
Mauldin, to let him know that they
were there for him, as he, so 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 every day 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 caps.
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 in a
water-filled foxhole and then see
one of his cartoons."
"Th' hell
this ain't th' most important hole
in the world. I'm in it."
Mauldin
is buried in Arlington National
Cemetery. Last month, the
kid cartoonist made 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 keep him company on that
stamp. Take a look at it.
There's Willie. There's Joe.
And there, to the side, drawing
them and smiling that shy, quietly
observant smile, is Mauldin
himself. With his buddies,
right where he belongs.
Forever.
What a story, and a fitting
tribute. Thought you would
enjoy!
Written by Bob Greene, for CNN
Opinion
http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/03/07/greene.mauldin.stamp/index.html?iref=allsearch
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Bill Mauldin
http://billmauldin.com/