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Cartoonist Bill Mauldin Immortalized on U.S. Postage Stamp

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Earthnut

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Here are a couple excerpts from articles about Bill.

Bill Mauldin stamp honors grunts' hero

CNN Opinion

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 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.

His cartoons and main book are titled "Willie & Joe." A few of his other books are titled, "Bill Mauldin in KOREA," Bill Mauldin's War," and Bill Mauldin's Army."

Philatelic Database

Cartoonist Bill Mauldin Immortalized on U.S. Postage Stamp

In 1945 Mauldin won the first of his two Pulitzers "for distinguished service as a cartoonist" and the Allied high command awarded him its Legion of Merit. His illustrated memoir, Up Front, was a bestseller. That same year, his "dogface" Willie appeared on the cover of Time.

In 1958, he took a job as a cartoonist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the following year he won a second Pulitzer for his cartoon portraying Boris Pasternak, author of Doctor Zhivago, as a Soviet prisoner.

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. (unknown author)

Here's the link to his cartoon images, and a few of him.

It's men like Bill that makes me proud to be an American.

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