Bill Mauldin

1921 - 2003

The Greatest Generation would naturally produce the Greatest Cartoonist. That label isn't given lightly, either. But it's an indisputable fact that the humor of Willie and Joe is as funny today as it was in 1943, and the predicaments of the two GI dogfaces making the best out of a bad situation is something that can be appreciated by anyone.

But what is not known even by many who do remember Bill and his creations is that he was one of America's greatest writers. His book about his childhood in New Mexico and Arizona, A Sort of a Saga, is funny, well-written, and as good (or should we say better?) than anything Steinbeck or Twain put on paper. Of course with his drawings being an integral part of all of his books, Bill had the decided edge on most mere authors. So it's all the more sad that so few people have read this masterpiece of Americana.

Fortunately, his memoirs of his time in the army, The Brass Ring, found a wider audience and was a best seller when published in 1972. Even so, Bill's books, like all autobiographies, should not be taken too literally. In A Sort of a Saga, his family lives in eccentric but genteel poverty, managing to get along in Depression era America as Bill's pop, Sidney, Sr., goes from one career (or "projects" as he called them) to another, selling wrenches, homesteading citrus, mining for gold, and finally building WPA outhouses. But Bill left out the more bizarre side of his family life where his mother would disappear for days at a time, and how Pop's (at least later) behavior (such as taking a bath in a tub of homemade beer) probably crossed the boundary. So when the family finally disintegrated, rather than select one or the other parent to live with, Bill and his older brother Sidney, Jr. decided to manage on their own while continuing school in Phoenix. Bill was 14 and Sidney 15.

Bill missed graduating high school by 1/4 of a credit when he was kicked out of a biology class for smoking. But he was able to get a $500 loan from his grandparents for a year at the Art Institute of Chicago (which didn't require a high school diploma). He boned up his art skills considerably and returned to New Mexico and lived with his mother and her new husband. Although he found some free lance work, it wasn't enough to make a living.

When the inevitability of World War II loomed, Bill enlisted in Oklahoma's 45th Division National Guard (he gave his profession as truck driver). After joining the quartermaster corps, he convinced Colonel Walter B. Harrison, the editor of the post's (unofficial) newspaper, the 45th Division News, that they needed a cartoonist. So Bill started putting in half a day each week drawing a cartoon. Soon the early Willie and Joe, usually looking pretty sharp and spiffy, were a fixture at Fort Sill.

Bill was something of the odd man out in the Quartermasters; he didn't really fit in. He made a mistake by demonstrating his proficiency at the manual of arms (Bill had been in ROTC at Phoenix), and when his first sergeant found out that Bill had the second highest IQ in the division, Bill was suddenly on permanent KP duty. Thinking that kitchen patrol limited his ability to gather material for his cartoons, he asked Colonel Harrison to get him reassigned. Anywhere. Even the infanty. So after war was declared, Rifleman Bill Mauldin ended up participating in the invasion of Italy in 1943. But as soon as the troops were ashore and the beaches secured, he was allowed to get back with the others of the News who kept putting out their (still unofficial) division newspaper.

It didn't take long for Willie and Joe to acquire their haggard dogface look, and Bill's cartoons were quickly picked up by the Mediterranean edition of the official army newspaper, the Stars and Stripes. Soon the larger paper decided to take Bill on as part of its full time staff, and one of Bill's 45th Division colleagues said that the boys at the Stripes would corrupt him. Don Robinson, the editor of the News after Walter Harrison moved on, ambiguously replied that Bill was incapable of being corrupted.

Not long after the transfer, some of Bill's cartoons began to pique the ire of a number of the more spit-and-polish officers, among them General George Smith Patton, Jr. Patton absolutely despised Bill's picture of the US GI's as unshaven, mud-encrusted - and in his words - bums. Things were getting out of hand (Patton was threatening to ban the Stars and Stripes from the Third Army) when some of the Army Command's higher echelon thought the best thing would be if Bill and George just sat down together and talked things out privately. The meeting did little to change either Bill nor Patton's views, but Willie and Joe became the only unshaven and unkempt members allowed in the Third Army.

This episode has been cited as an example of how the free press extends even to the military. But the Freedom of the Press was also helped a wee bit when the General of the Army, Dwight Eisenhower, after listening to Patton complain about Bill's cartoons, responded with a spirited defense of Willie and Joe. But when the controversy didn't die down, Ike went so far as to issue a directive that no commanders were to interfere with the Stars and Stripes, and that including trying to suppress Bill's cartoons.

Toward the end of the war, the army decided to give Bill a medal to add to the Purple Heart he had received while he was at the front. Robert Neville, the editor of the Stripes, called him up and said someone had recommended the Legion of Merit. That was a pretty fancy medal, he added. Bill agreed it was and that the last soldier to earn the medal was a cook who invented a new pie crust that saved the Army thousands of dollars. Neville said that was just the medal for Bill.

The Army had permitted Bill to work out syndication deals with his cartoons, and his (somewhat censored) book Up Front became a best seller. When Bill left the Army in 1945 he was a wealthy and famous man. He had also picked up a Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning - all before the age of twenty-five.

Sadly Bill's life never really ran particularly smooth after the war. Because his political views were decidedly liberal (and for the time, fanatical), he had difficulty finding work as an editorial cartoonist. For a number of years he more or less abandoned cartooning altogether. During the hiatus (and among other things) he ran for Congress and appeared in The Red Badge of Courage with Audie Murphy. He did visit Korea, although the Willie and Joe motif didn't really fit as much for that war as it did in the mountains of Italy.

In the late fifties, Bill was able to return to cartooning as his views (such as equal rights for all) became more acceptable. Bill drew editorial cartoons first for the St. Louis Post Dispatch (where he picked up a second Pulitzer in 1962), and then for the Chicago Sun-Times. However, he lived mostly in Santa Fe, faxing his cartoons to the papers and then later sending them in by Federal Express. Bill's personal life, though, was very bumpy, and he eventually went through three marriages, two divorces, and a separation.

By the 1990's World War II had become the Good War waged by the Greatest Generation. Bill, who said that pacifists were right ninety percent of the time (but there was always that ten), retained a surprisingly non-idealistic view of the War. He simply said that his generation had its good points and its bad points, but they had been a little too young to die.

Bill retired from formal editorial cartooning in 1990. Then the ultimate tragedy that could befall a cartoonist did. In late 1991, Bill was attaching a snowplow to his jeep, and the hoist slipped and smashed two fingers on his drawing hand. The injury plus increasing arthritis forced him to quit drawing. Nearly half a century earlier, he had been one of the most famous people in the world. Now he began to wonder if anyone remembered Bill Mauldin.

Bill had become increasingly difficult to live with. Part of the problem was simply that by nature he was something of an onery cuss. A heavy if binge drinker, his changes in personality were originally attributed to the alcohol. But what everyone was really seeing was the advancement of Altzheimer's. In the first year of the new millenium, he ran a bathtub, but was unable to accurately gage the water temperature. So he climbed in and lay back, not realizing he was nearly being scalded to death. The third degree burns were so severe that the doctor gave him only a 50/50 chance. Bill did survive, but had to go to a nursing home. After that, about all he could do was lay in bed and look out the window. He had forgotten pretty much everything - his friends and family, his army days, and even Willie and Joe.

Then word got out about Bill's condition. Thousands of letters came pouring in, and hundreds of veterans made visits to his bedside. By God, they did remember Bill Mauldin.

Bill died on January 22, 2003. He was 81. He was buried in Arlington Cemetery. The day was cold, raining, and muddy. In other words, a perfect day for Willie and Joe.

Bill wasn't the first solider cartoonist, by the way. In World War I, cartoons by Bruce Bairnsfather were popular, and he was still known to many of the WWII generation. In fact, when the war in Europe ended, General Patton briefly returned to the United States, and someone asked what he now thought of Bill Mauldin. Patton said Bill Mauldin was the Bruce Bairnsfather of World War II. And he hadn't like Bairnsfather either.

References

Bill Mauldin: A Life up Front Todd DePastino, Norton, 2008. Bill's recent biography which also covers his pre- and post World War II life.

A Sort of a Saga, Bill Mauldin, Publisher: William Sloane Associates (1949). Bill's first autobiography of his boyhood in Arizona and New Mexico. Very funny, well written, and illustrated with his drawings. Available from various used book dealers and easily ordered on-line. For heaven's sakes, if you like humorous literature, buy and read a copy!

The Brass Ring, Bill Mauldin, Norton (1972). This picks up pretty much where A Sort of a Saga left off and ends with his discharge from the army. Again very funny and lavishly illustrated with photos, drawings, and Bill's cartoons.

Patton: Ordeal and Triumph, Ladislas Farago, Publisher: Ivan Obolensky (1963). Gives an account of Bill's meeting with Patton and mentions Eisenhower's verbal defense of Willie and Joe.

"At War with the Stars and Stripes", Herbert Mitgang, American Heritage Magazine, April 1971 (Vol. 22, Issue 3). A good account of working on the Stars and Stripes by a Stripes reporter. Bill is mentioned in some detail.

Bill Mauldin: Beyond Willie and Joe, Library of Congress, A nice but brief account of his life.

William Henry "Bill" Mauldin, Arlington Cemetery.