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 sol… - 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.

I came back to Rome, so I could send the book off and finish the sixteen drawings. I read the thing over before I took a bath, and darned if I didn't like it pretty well, even though it may be full of bad grammar. Now I've had the bath and the sixteen drawings are almost finished, and somehow I miss the aid station. It was pretty safe under the cliff, and it was warm and we were able to make coffee. It was full of homesick, tired men who were doing the job they were put there to do, and who had the guts and humanness to kid around and try to make life easier for the other guy.

They are big men and honest men, with the inner warmth that comes from the generosity and simplicity you learn up there. Until the doc can go back to his chrome office and gallstones and the dogface can go back to his farm and I can go back to my wife and son, that is the closest to home we can ever get.

Certainly none of the advances made in civilization has been due to counterrevolutionaries and advocates of the status quo.