Up Front

It's a gift, the ability to draw, to have perspective, to create, to be able to portray human misery as humor, for a reader to see the image and words and turn to laughter. Bill Mauldin had this gift that gained prominence in a time of war where talents rise to their greatest heights or sink to their lowest depths. Truth is portrayed in humor or the humor isn't funny. Sergeant Bill Mauldin, an infantryman, barely twenty,... Read Full Review

I was first introduced to Bill Mauldin by my late father who gave me his battered copy of "Up Front" that was printed in 1945. He told me when he gave it to me that it was his favorite book growing up (he was age 10-15 during World War Two) and that I should read it to better understand the human side of war. He couldn't have been more correct. I came to understand that even when the cause is noble, and the enemy leadership... Read Full Review

Bill Mauldin writes as well as he draws. His writing tells it like it is; his cartoons are what he would like it to be. It was terrible, terrifying, ugly and uncomfortable fighting Germans; but Mauldin makes the experience intelligible to those who weren't there. I see why Eisenhower sent Mauldin to visit Patton. Ike hoped George would understand, finally, why no American general should treat G.I.s like peasants. Patton... Read Full Review

This book is, without a doubt, the greatest book on the World War II infantryman ever written. Why? Because it was written by and infantryman, for infantrymen. Sgt. Bill Mauldin claims on the first page that his business is drawing, not writing, and that his text is only there to back up the cartoons. However, the text is some of the most endearing, personal, and excellent works on WWII ever. Mauldin brings the war down from... Read Full Review

Cartoonists have an incredible ability to capture human situations with simple drawings and a bit of text and Bill Mauldin was one of the most unique. He is best known for his drawings of Joe and Willie, two combat veterans slogging their way through WWII. In his drawings, you see the despair, fatigue and determination of dirty, tired men who always seem able to take the next objective and move one step closer to the end of... Read Full Review