Makes ya proud to put this stamp on your envelopes........
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 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!
"I'm beginning to feel like a fugitive from the' law of averages."
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:
"By the way, wot wuz them changes you wuz
Gonna make when you took over last month, sir?"
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
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 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.
"This is the' town my pappy told me about."
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 to a man and to a time that few of us can still remember. But I say to you youngsters,
you must most seriously learn of and remember with respect
the sufferings and sacrifices of your fathers, grand fathers and
great grandfathers in times you cannot ever imagine today with all you have. But the only reason you are free to have it all is because of them.
