Bill Mauldin - Up Front (1945)

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I don't make the infantryman look noble, because he couldn't look noble even if he tried. Still there is a certain nobility and dignity in combat soldiers and medical aid men with dirt in their ears. They are rough and their language gets coarse because they live a life stripped of convention and niceties.
Their nobility and dignity come from the way they live unselfishly and risk their lives to help each other.

Bill Mauldin
I would like to thank the people who encouraged me to draw army cartoons at a time when the gag man's conception of the army was one of mean ole sergents and jeeps which jump over mountains.

Bill Mauldin
I feel like a fugitive from th' law of averages.

Bill Mauldin
The surest way to become a pacifist is to join the infantry.

Bill Mauldin
I'm convinced that the infantry is the group in the army which gives more and gets less than anybody else.

Bill Mauldin
Look at an infantryman's eyes, and you can tell how much war he has seen.

Bill Mauldin
While a guy at home is sweating over his income tax and Victory garden, a dogface somewhere is getting great joy out of wiggling his little finger. He does it just to see it move and to prove to himself that he is still alive and able to move it.

Bill Mauldin
No normal man who has smelled and associated with death ever wants to see any more of it.

Bill Mauldin
I haven't tried to picture this war in a big, broad-minded way. I'm not old enough to understand what it's all about, and I'm not experienced enough to judge its failures and successes. My reactions are those of a young guy who has been exposed to some of it, and I try to put those reactions in my drawings. Since I'm a cartoonist maybe I can be funny after the war, but nobody who has seen this war can be cute about it while it's going on. The only way I can try to be a little funny is to make something out of the humorous situations which come up even when you don't think life could be any more miserable.

Bill Mauldin
Beautiful view. Is there one for the enlisted men?

Bill Mauldin