And it is they whom the newspapers tell us were forced to break into memorial sites which our politicians used a budget crisis to close. It was they who preserved our way of life. Devoid of the propagandizing of Hollywood or the rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia, Mauldin’s cartoons provide a glimpse at the true realities of the war and its human cost. It was they who slogged across Europe and the Pacific Islands. These cartoons capture as even the finest history books cannot, the ordinary life of the “dog-faces” who did the fighting. The benefit of these superb drawings by Mauldin is the clear picture they provide of the horrors of war. If a picture is worth a thousand words so too is a fine cartoon. For me, Mauldin’s touching tribute to the comforts of the hay filled barn made me feel guilty about my life that has never involved the cold and wet and stinging misery of even one night in a freezing foxhole. The men whom Mauldin portrays yearn for warm food, hot coffee and a safe place to sleep.
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