Bill Mauldin once said, “Humor is really laughing off a hurt, grinning at misery.” Increasingly, awareness heightens that few of the 16 million who served during World War II are still living. At least a half dozen wars have occurred since Japan surrendered in 1945, but some surviving veterans recall details as if they happened yesterday. Among the highlights and horrors of the World War II experience, Bill Mauldin’s cartoons are remembered by many.
At 19, when the New Mexico native joined the Army in 1940 as a rifleman in the 180th Infantry Regiment, Mauldin was already leaning toward a career as an illustrator, having studied political cartooning at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. So, when an opportunity opened up for him to illustrate for military newspapers, including Stars and Stripes, he landed it….