A sergeant in K Company, 180th Infantry Regiment, 45th Division, he spent most of the war in the Italian theater of operations. Mauldin got them right because he was one of them. From Valley Forge to Kandahar, from Anzio to the Chosin Reservoir, they've been there - hating every damn minute of it, skeptical of spit-and-polish officers, contemptuous of bigwigs spouting about a "great cause," irreverent, sarcastic, yearning for home. Because Willie and Joe are the "citizen soldiers" who've faithfully come forward time after time to pull this nation out of tight spots. Their spirit, God willing, will always be with us. "D'ya beleeeve that stuff he's writin' about us?" Joe might well say at this point. They're the ragged and exhausted "dogfaces" of World War II, the infantrymen who did the fighting and hated it but did it anyway and whose spirit remains with us despite the death Wednesday of Bill Mauldin, their Pulitzer Prize-winning creator. Their names are Willie and Joe, and they're slogging through the mud with rifles and packs. Among the great American archetypes of the 20th century, two cartoon figures still stand large.
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