When you lose a friend [in battle] you have an overpowering desire to go back home and yell in everybody's ear, "This guy was killed fighting for you. Don't forget him--ever. Keep him in your mind when you wake up in the morning and when you go to bed at night. Don't think of him as the statistic which changes 38,788 casualties to 38,789. Think of him as a guy who wanted to live every bit as much as you do. Don't let him be just one of 'Our Brave Boys' from the old home town, to whom a marble monument is erected in the city park, and a civic-minded lady calls the newspaper ten years later and wants to know why that 'unsightly stone' isn't removed.

44) postage stamp in Mauldin's honor depicting him with Willie & Joe. )
Those officers who had served in the army before the war were generally offended by Mauldin who parodied the spit-shine and obedience-to-order-without-question view that was more easily maintained during that time of peace. In 1962 he moved to the Chicago Sun-Times.

William Henry "Bill" Mauldin (October 29 1921 – January 22 2003) was a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist from the United States. He was most famous for his World War II cartoons depicting American soldiers as represented by the archetypal characters "Willie and Joe" two weary and bedraggled infantry troopers who stoically endure the difficulties and dangers of duty in the field.