Two of the most famous soldiers of world war ii were the gis, willie and joe, cartoon characters created by the great bill mauldin. Who were beloved by the servicemen overseas for their frank representation about what it was like to be a grunt at the front. Mauldin knew that. Willie and joes story wasnt going to end when they came home, like the actual war veterans. Our next speaker, Todd Depastino has focused his work on sharing veterans stories with the Veterans Breakfast Club and the biographer of mauldin. We think there is no one better to come and talk about coming home. Before he takes the podium, we will see our next oral history showcase, the 2000 yard stare where veterans discuss their emotional and mental wounds that they brought home with them while also having to readjust to civilian life in the real post war world. Pelalu was the most intense experience of my plooilife. I have never come any wheres near that nor do i ever expect to. It was a living hell from day one. I think the biggest thing that ever happened to me was crossing there. If anybody was ever scared to death, i was. I guess at that time thats why i never expected to make 21. I never wanted off of an island so bad in my life. In combat, there is pucker time and relaxing time. Pelalu, it was all pucker. There was no relaxing time at all. As i crawled along, i saw this huge bunker bigger than this room. I could hear all these nips in there chattering. There was a couple outside that were shouting to them back and forth. They either seen me or knew i was out there. I dont know but i took my a. R. And i let those two guys have the most of that 20 rounds that i could. They had an amateur about 10 feet across, about 1. 5 foot high. I pushed it in in the corner of that and pulled a striker and started the time fuse and i saw a bomb grader about 50 yards away. I made a run for it. Just as i dove in the bomb crater, boom, that whole dam bunker, that side of the bunker just went up. When that was over, there was no more chattering going on inside the bunker. That night, we had an attack by i dont know about a dozen japanese or something came in to our line. This one jap came at me. I had eight rounds in one. So as he came at me, i shot him right through the head. As his rifle came down, it went through the side of my knee and he fell on top of me, because i was below. Blood pouring out of his head. Some got in my mouth. I immediate pimmediately pushed him off. I knew he was dead. We didnt get another attack that night. They set the mortar up a few yards behind and one of them went up and heard some japanese or something. They come back and called for a flame thrower. The thing was about, i guess, 50 to 70foot long. I dont know how many was in there. A bunch of them. Down to the end, there was a sergeant and a couple men. They were laying down on the sand there in the bushes. Smoke, firing japanese come back at the end with fire right on top of them. They was scrambling too. They had a bunch of stuff in there. He was still burning when we left there. If you got around, you can smell it. When flesh is burning, it is a smell you dont ever forget. Our first surgeon, burt, was a redhead. He had a handlebar red mustache. I remember bart. He was standing outside his tent. He had some scissors. He was trimming his mustache. I said, burt, where youre going, it aint going to make no dam difference anyway . Burt turned around. He had 17 years in the core at that time. He was no spring chicken. He turned around and he said, sonny, ill ligt the piss on yor grave. That was burt. When we landed, the first day, i remember jumping across a small trench and looking down. They were laying in the dam trench faceup. There was burt. A dam hole right there. I remember when i jumped across there and saw bart, i thought, by god, you didnt make it, you didnt live to piss on my grave. I can still see him clear as a bell. He was a good boy. Well, at that moment, we were up on the ridge and they kept telling us not to get our head up in the air, because somebody would shoot it off. The captain was a person you didnt tell what to do. He was that kind of a person, thats all. He stuck his head up at the wrong time and somebody popped him. I had blood on my jacket for a long time after that, his. So you know it stuck with me for quite some time. I often wonder why i walked away and others didnt. I can remember when i got shot and came back to the beach for evacuation. It seemed like every ten feet, you was stepping over a body. It was a grave. It was literally carpeted with marines. You dont forget Something Like that. You pretty much makes a dam fatalist out of you. It either is or it isnt. Its the way the dam ball bounce. You dont know what the hell is going to happen. Thats why i say one day at a time. What an honor it is for me to be part of this remarkable event and what a pleasure it is for me to talk about for the first time really bill mauldins back home cartoons instead of his up front car tunes, the cartoons that he did overseas from the front line of europe. And events that happened to mauldin that he did when he returned home from war, but i think the work he did when he returns returned home are on parks is on par in many ways with the work he did overseas in terms of its insight. On june 10, 1945, sergeant bill mauldin returned home from war. He was a celebrity and a millionaire. He catapulted to fame with his drawing hand, penning gritty, sardonic cartoons in stars and stripes that cheered the folks up and taught the folks back home a bit about the in lives of the infantry men and women in europe. Now he had a lucrative deal with a syndicate and a hollywood movie deal. He was on the cover of time magazine, over 300 newspapers around the country carried his cartoons. Agents, politicians, movie stars, Army Generals all clamored for a meeting with the 23yearold sergeant. Even Eleanor Roosevelt demanded that he come by for tea. That wasnt bad for a High School Dropout from rural new mexico who had left home at age 14 at the hited of the great depression. He had joined the Arizona National guard in 1940 because he needed shoes, a new coat, and three meals a day. He would have been rejected for being malnourished and underweight if he had been given a physical, but he never was, so instead he became an infantry rifleman who started cartooning on the side. He really focused on the mud, the marches, the equipment, the mean sergeants in the prepearl harpor army and the men in his Division Just loved him instantly for it. After shipping overseas he was discovered by stars and stripes, which had the largest circulation of any newspaper in the world. He pent 1943 to 1945 traveling the font lines and bearing witness to the hard lives and frequent deaths of those condemned in the foxholes. Wished i could stand up and get some sleep. This cartoon always makes me think of something that snoopy said in peanuts once. You know, if you read the comics on veterans day snoopy was going to go out and quaf a few roolt bears with bill mauldin. In one cartoon, i cant remember the year, somebody asked snoopy why do you love bill mauldin so much, and snoopy says because he drew great mud. His cartoon feature up front by mauldin starring dog faces willy and joe, became a smash hit in europe and unexpectedly as a syndicated feature back home. In may 1945 he won the pulitzer prize, the youngest in history and i think he still is. At the time he had never heard of the prize and an officer had to explain to him, this is a really big deal. Now back home, out of the army and at peace, citizen mauldin faced his future with dread. Im a rookie out there, he said, i went into the army and i knowing in about civilian life. Now he had to meet his real family, his his wife, jean, who he hadnt seen in years and a child, bruce, who he had only seen in photographs. How could he pretend to represent the struggles of ordinary servicemen readjusting to civilian life . I put this one in here just because i think i like it so much. Its willy and joe running into an old officer. Major wilson, bag in uniform, i see. [laughter] it seemed almost blasphemous to have willy and joe survive and carry on. If these guys were real, he said, they would have been dead long ago. His plan had been to kill them on the last day of the war but his editors at stars and stripes forbade it so he approached his new editors at the sinned i canay. Give me some time off, he pleaded the i cant shift overnight from doing combat cartoons to domestic cartoons. The syndicate refused. Mauldin was making them a lot of money and he would be expected to deliver five cartoons a week for the next three years. As it turned out, he had a lot more in common with veterans who had been away from home too long than he would have wished. Today we remember the times square kiss and i ticker tape parade but as bill pointed out at the time, hardly any of the soldiers and sailors partying in the streets on vj day had been overseas. Most dogfaces were still languishing in europe on or heading to the pacific and the lucky few at home stayed away from the parade. This was a commentary on a huge parade thrown for generals patton and doolittle in 1945. You can see willy and joe there and theyre kind of upset because all the bars are closed. Returning soldiers wives might have greeted them with hugs and kisses, but feelings of euphoria faded quickly. More lasting was the awkward silence that grew in the gaps between husbands and wives wartime experienced. Honey, ive only worn it for a week. [laughter] mauldin experienced this awkwardness when he met up with his wife, jean, in los angeles and met his 22monthold son bruce for the first time. I have discovered that two people who have been living alone and apart for two years doing pretty much as they damn please, have a hard time getting together. They butted heads constantly. Jean seemed a stranger and he felt like an intruder. Even more disillusioning for bill was the prejudices jean seemed to share with other husbanded wives who asked why their husbands hadnt made officer grade or why they refused to show off the ribbons once in a while and what about the finery, silk scarves from paris . Other wives had received them. Why hadnt sne this is another one. Her husband spent months shopping for nice things in europe, willy. You never did that for me. Jean noticed willy seemed to be holding back. Jean had secrets of her own dont get so huffy. You talked in your sleep, too. The rubs between husband and wife that informed so many of mauldins early postwar cartoons was but the the leading edge of a gap that grew into a chasm when it came to cock bat veterans. They represented only 10 5 to 10 of uniformed personnel. Ease had relentlessly shown in his willy and joe cartoons, the American Army was really two armies, one that fought and the other that didnt. Up front had chronicled how those farthest removed from combat claimed the lions share of benefits alcohol, ribbons, good clothing, good food, hot baths, black market luxuries and women. Bill was stunned to see this disparity extended to the home front. Soldiers who had never had never ventured to within five miles of the front now demanded free drinks in bars and harassed young civilians like bill who that he queuesed of being 4f. Aint you going buy a war hero a drink . The public, it seemed, had learned nothing from willy and josme the public remained ignorean. Of the wars true nature. Less than four months after he returned home, his home life collapsed under the revelations of their mutual infidelities during the separation. Bill had had girlfriends in europe. Jean had had a boyfriend back home. So jean and bill joined the hundreds of thousands of other couples who made the year 1946 a recordbreaking one for divorce. Never had so many marriages broken up and it would take another 40 years for our nations divorce rate to match that of 1946. Bill and jean had become a statistic. 9 breakup of bills marriage marked a dramatic change in his cartooning. Always a meticulous pin and ink craftsman, bill had spent distressingly little time at the drawing board since coming home and the uneven results showed the neglect. In one, he scolds for not wearing rubbers, you will catch your davegt cold. The very next day though he previewed a new art. In a cartoon some newspapers refused to print, a soldier, face obscured, stands at the victory bar in california. A six hatch marks climb his left sleeve, indicating three years of combat overseas. The bartender tums back to a handwritten sheet taped over the mirror. Snojaps allowed, cant you read signed . He says be of the soldier. Bill saw these guys in italy. The most decorated fighting unit in world war ii history. Racial scrim offended bill to the core. As a dirtdpoor runt from the desert southwest, he faced his share of bullying and prejudice. Its just that i dont like a man being called unequal nell gets a chance to prove his inequality. He would later say. This came at a time of personal crisis when he could no longer bear the compound disillusionments of his homecoming. He needed a crusade to just not only his cartoons but the whole catastrophe of the war to which he had borne such eloquent witness. During the war, willy and joes camaraderie served as partial redemption for the brutalizing conditions of their existence. Now the real willy and joe were in the shadows, misunderstood and overlooked, alienated survivors out of the tens of millions dead. Their sacrifice bill always hated that word and refused to use it seemed for naught in a country that denied equal rights to citieses and deemed to be gearing up for world war iii against erstwhile ally the soviet union. While overseas, mauldin had avoided ideological outbursts and never allowed partisan politics into his cartoons. Back home, however, he jumped into the political fray with both feet. He moved to new york city and began giving speeches, offering interviews and joining all manner of organizations demanding civil rights, free speech, labor recognition, public housing, support for displaced persons in europe. A strong United Nations and a warmer alliance with the soviet union all in the name of redeem 00 the suffering of willy and joe. His cartoons from these four months found many targets for his ire, from conservative pundits and politicians like this one this is a commentary on somebody bill picked out people to hate. He really hated some people and one he really hated was senator bilbo from mississippi. He was a seg regularationist. You can see the sign on the podium says senator balbo. Wheres the communist that throws the egg . And he took owes hiss ire on a media he thought was ginning up a new red scare. And here durning the man in the shotgun is labeled House Unamerican Activities Committee followed by a can you clux klansman and tracking bear prints with a hammer and sickle in them and he says to a bystander, investigate memorandum investigate them in theyre my posse. And after the war, go home, junior, youre making me look silly. As bill increased the term tempo of hits attacks on the conservative right, newspapers began dropping mauldins cartoons. United features syndicates scolded bill that if he wanted to save his career and cans cartoons he would have to straighten up, clean up his act and drop the offensive politics. P such talk only raised bills hackles and changed his occasional political changed his occasional political commentary in an ongoing act of defiance. By february 1946 he was losing papers at a record rate, one a day. United features tried anything and everything to get bill to moderate his messages, but nothing worked. Finally to stop the hemorrhaging. Editors resorted to his contracts small print which permitted them to censor bills drawings and captions as they saw fit. They went to work immediate hi redacting offending words, names, and phrases. Soon the syndicate was making wholesale changes that altered the entire meanings of his cartoons. Ive just selected two here to give you an example. Heres one, the top caption is mauldins original. The syndicate didnt like it and xed that out and rewrote the caption. I dont think i understand that. I read it many times and ive never really gotten it. Heres another example. Its a man giving a speech at a fancy dipper and this is bills original caption. That was replaced. On average, at least one mauldin cartoon a week fell astronomy united features razor, whiteout and blue pencil. This censorship stunned and outraged bill. During his five years in the army he had been censored only only three occasions, each time for drawing a detalede drawing of equipment. He drew too well. Now he found himself effectively silenced for the first time in his life. He had wanted to be a cartoonist since age 11, not only for the promise it held for a naturalborn talent without access to education but because as a child bill possessed a powerful desire to be heard, to thumb his nose at authority and to bring attention to his many grievances. Im touchy, he admitted in years later. If i see a stuffed shirt, i want to punch it. If its big, hit it. You cant do far wrong. Bill hit back hard through 1946. Every time an editor bitched about my drawing a Race Relations cartoon, he later recalled, i drew eight or 10 of them in a row. Bills anger sometimes got the better of his cartoons, turning them into blunt force instruments that lacked subtlety and the satiric insights of his best efforts. Although pill would never admit it, the syndicate editors occasionally improved his drawing by toning down the stridency. Heres an example. He had drawn a nazi eagle and swastika on the door and the syndicate removed that just to allow the readers readers to focus on the door. It says Unamerican Committee for the investigation of activities and the man says wheres that goldurn sign painter . It didnt matter whether the swastika was taken offer the door. Roy howard from scrippshoward took one look at this cartoon and dropped mauldin entirely from the paper. He accused mauldin. He sought him out, wanted to tell him why he says is said you are a communist sympathizer and we cant have that in the paper. Mauldin say himself in the grip of a stifling situation. Your stuff is merchandised and sold like soap with an eye to pleags the greatest number of customers most of the time. You dont fee the greatest number of customers most of the time. You dont fn l the greatest number of customers most of the time. You dont fg l the greatest number of customers most of the time. You dont feeg the greatest number of customers most of the time. You dont fee the greatest number of customers most of the time. You dont feel like you are creating, but you are manufacturing. Instead of distributing instinct, relevant and immediately meaningful products, syndicates, he said, sold standardized, gutless comics and columns. The trick, bill concluded, was to regain possession of his craft, to produce intelligent and honest cartoons resistant to censurors. He got a drawing table at the times where he said i could at least feel like i was doing individual work on an individual publish carkse not trying to please every blasted editor atd every blasted paper in america. The strategy worked. His cartooning improved rapidly after a sixweek hiatus in february and m the break gave him a chance to react to the thinskinned editors. He said, i let fly with a sledgehammer whether i should have used a needle. Cartoons are no good it theyre soapboxy and pontifical. They have to be thrust gently so the victim doesnt know hes been stabbed until he has six inches of steel in his innards. Bill regained his balance as a craftsman. He still did battle with the syndicate and wrapped up some new enemies, including f. B. I. Director j. Edbarr hoover, who took personal offense at this cartoon and eventually ordered mauldin placed under surveillance. The headline is still no clues on lynchers of four in georgia. This is a reference to i think the last mass lynching in america, 1946, four veterans, one of whom was a veteran of the pacific war. The and bill did this cartoon as a protest. And the caption was i see the f. B. I. Cleared up another big postage stamp robbery. There would be no classic happy ending for bill. He simply got used to disillusion. Its very tough to live in this country and cling to young ideals, he lamented. The deepening conflict between ame the United States and the soviet union cast a pall on his hopes for a brighter future. He still did he tested red baiting and he increasingly blamed the soviets for the gloomy world situation. By the end of 1946, america would be on the verge of giving this burgeoning standoff a igname. The cold war. Loyalty tests, domestic snooping, civil liberty violations and a massive new rarms race would soon follow. In april 1948 when his United Features Syndicate contract ran out, bill quilt cartooning altogether as he had originallyi wisheded to do when he came hom in 1945. He would return to it only after a decade of airplane flying, hollywood at actingng and a tour of korea an even a run for congress. But the mauldin who returned to the drawing board in 1958 was a different man in a different world, far removed from the triumph and tragedy of 1946. Thank you. [ applause ] we have time for questions. I want to put in a plug here ive heard todds talk on up front and its fantastic as well. Would you talk about bill mauldins death . Thats one of the more poignant stories ive heard. Thank you for that softball question. Yes, i will talk about mauldins death. He suffered from alzheimers. He scalded himself in the bathtub, third degree burns from his neck to his knees and would later die from those injuries. He languished in a Rehab Facility and nursing home. He stopped speaking. He didnt seem to recognize friends and family. And one veteran, a man i got to know extremely well, a combat veteran from the pacific, he worshipped bill mauldin and heard mauldin was ailing and hec went and drove 200 miles to visit him in the nursing home. He sat with mauldin, shared vi clippings old cartoons, kind of held bills hand and told his story. At the end of this meeting, jay pulled out a combat badge. G, anybody whomb knows anything abt world war ii knows the significance of what this means, you were there. And he pinned that badgewi on bills pajamas. He looked up beaming with a smile, and jay said, bill do you want me to come back . And bill uttered his first words in months, yes. And so jay started giving talks, vfw and legions and said, hey, a if you are a veteran, combat veteran, heres your chance to meet bill mauldin and thank him for what hes done, what he did for you during the war. They came, on average, at a dozen a day, these veterans. They came with their wearing their caps and their memorabilia in hand, and they would shuffle in and get 1015 minutes with bill, and they would come out crying and walk out. Day afterer day it was like thi. The abc news and cnn did a story on a this and invited americans hey, if you want to send bill a card, please do so. Invited americans to do it. 10,000 cards and letters came to that nursing home within the next few months, so many that the family could no even open them all and read them to bill. Eventually i did to write the biography, and thea are absolute marvels. They are wonderful documents themselves because they share the veterans stories. They often point out a particular cartoon that they remember that was meaningful to them and their service, and these letters are h National Treasure and have then exhibited around the country, s and i hope they do more. So thank you very much for that question. Ve [applause] all right, we have one in your left over here. As i recall, bill mauldin ef appeared with audie murphy in the red badge of courage. Can you comment on what that experience was and the iconic role, appearing in that movie . T john houston had a vision that he was going to make the movie, and make it without actors. He recruited audie murphy and bill mauldin to staro in that. Bill mauldin thought the guy was crazy but lovedgh john houston and the pay was really good, so he agreed to work. Bill mauldin said it was mayhem. There was a book about this written by lillian ross, picture , and it was mayhem from start to finish. Audie murphy had severe posttraumatic stress problems. When they were not shooting the movie, he would go out and get into a bar fight. He would show up with a broken nose and bruises and they would have to cover it up to film. He would not talk to mauldin, would ma hardly look at him. He called him a rear echelon ink slinger, and mauldin worshiped murphy, and when murphy did die in 1971, i believe, mauldin wrote a beautiful eulogy to him that and, i believe, in People Magazine about the demons that possessed murphy and how he understood murphy so well because they came from the same background, the desert ss southwest, impoverished people who found their first home in the army and in more, and could never kind of escape that legacy. Thank you. D next question in the center. Were willie and joe based on real characters or were they figments of his imagination . Another great question. Yeah, willie, the one with the big c nose, he originally was j, and joe was willie. Theygi somehow switched right wn they got into combat. But willie, the guy who had the big nose, the bigger guy, he was originally a choctaw indian. The 45th infantry division, one of our most ethnically diverse with a lot of native americans in it. It was part of Oklahoma National guard. Sodi many of the people bill trained with were native americans, and bill worshipped them because they were such good soldiers. Probably more thanwi any other person, willie is based after raisinin billie, who was a chocw survived the war. Crazy story how he gets captured at anzio and is taken as p. O. W. And kills his captor and escapes, wounded and left for r dead but revised. Bill and willie would only renewt many years after the war but the hulking willie was originally a native american. That was very clear in how he spoke. Joe, i tell you, you look at him more and more, i think he is bill in a lot of ways. Hes an anglo soldier and i work with veterans now young ano old and i understand this relationship so much better than when i was researching the book, but bill always said that these two guys, they did not like each other. They did not agree on politics they did not have the same taste in anything. They did not have much in common. Ce what they had in common was that experience, and that experience made them brothers closer than brothers. They could not escape each they were entirely dependent on each other, and they operated as one. And he said that is the remarkable thing about these relationships that you form an combat. You dont have to like them, but they become very close to you, your second family, and for bill, it was his first family. All right, in the center towards the back. , did bill ever get remarried, have another family, stay in touch with his son from his first marriage . Yes, yeah, im laughing because im working through his marriages here. [laughter] yeah, bill had two other wives, eight kids, three of his his last wife was 27 years his junior. I think he had, his kids, the ages range, im trying to think of their ages today. Ly their ages range from probably about 70 years old today to 30 years old today. Sam is the youngest, and sam in many ways is a picture of bill. Yeah, his second wife, he had three children with his second wife. Hehe remained very close to his first son bruce. D bruce retired from the army as a colonel and served in vietnam. And bill went to visit him there in 1965. And while bill was visiting, this happen to bill all his life. Catastrophes followed him. He was, shelled in 1965, one o the beginnings of the vietnam war. And bill was racing around, patching men up, and cheering when the jets took off for s revenge. Ra so, yeah, it bill had a complicated family of three in different generations, three different families. One thing i find so interestingd about the family is that they have such reverence for bills work, and they are absolutely open about bills personal flaws. And i thought i would share this story because i dont know if i biographer has ever had this experience. When i hit upon the idea of writing a biography about bill i mauldin, i knew i would have to in touch with the family. That can be rocky. Ivegr had biography failed befe because the families are happy to have you write about their fathers, but they dont what you to say any of the bad stuff. And you cant write a biography that way. I reached out to david mauldin, son of the second wife. He was the first one i contacted. And he said Something Like make sure when you write this biography that you talk about what a son of a bitch he was and what abi bad father he was, but his art is so important. That was whathe i got i got into this wonderful dialogue with the family about a bill, aa person, and theno bill as an artist. We all agreed that bill is a magnificent artist. But because he did cartoons, he was not considered a serious artist. But he was, and i think he should. I think these tar toons, and the family would agree, really do form a 20th century masterpiece. Great question. Thank you. Staying in the back of the room to the right. I had heard that he brought back willie and joe together for the death of general marshall, is that true . Yes, he would bring willie and joe back. We were just talking that willie and joe never really leave. He drops willie and joe in 1946 when he turns to politics, but he absolutely brought them back periodically for events like general marshall,. For the vietnam war, he had willie and joe in vietnam a couple of times. For korea, he had a whole book about willie and joe in korea. One of his final cartoons was willie in 1991 to comment on the first gulf war, so they never le leave him. They were like a shadow he could they were like a shadow he could they were like a shadow he could never escape. I think he thought of them as real people, and he said, i didt not create them. They created me. They gave him a life that he never would have had as a poor e kid from the desert southwest, and he was always grateful to them, and he always of course knew that they stood for the suffering and the deaths of allt the men in his company. Th he got to escape that fate. He was plucked from the ranks. And put on stars stripes, and he said, i connived to do that from day one and i got my wish. I escaped combat. And he was always very aware ofb that and very guilty about it. Question to your right. Two things, did he ever do anymb cartooning that embodied combat . Secondly, did he have a body of work that wasnt published . Both good questions. Yes, he does have a body of work that was not published. He did a lot of sketches and preliminary drawings that were l never published. Over the course of his career, but the library of congress has a lot of wonderful sketches. He has a sketchbook that he kept in vietnam and never published. Did he ever draw combat . That is an interesting question. I would say, yeah, his cartoons upfront, upfront by mauldin were cartoons about combat. How he would travel is he would go up to the front lines and stay in the foxholes for maybe a week, four days, maybe seven days, as long as 14 days, and then he would d travel back to the rear. And for that same amount of time, exactly the t same amountf time, he would draw cartoons inspired by what he saw up front. Then he had to make that long trip back. Man, he said going back was really hard. Going back to the front lines was very difficult. And his friend and mentor and the guy who discovered him, ernie pyle, the great Scripps Howard correspondent, he told him you have to get drunk to go back. You cant do it any other way. Bill was a teetotaler. His father was an alcoholic, so he stayed away. But during thege war, he starte drinking, and that led to a lifelong drinking problem. But he drank to get back up front. Ut cd his cartoons are absolutely all about combat. However, i did a look to his 700 odd overseas ir cartoons, and i could only find one in which a character is firing a weapon. Only one time does willie and joe fire a weapon. He does not show them firing a weapon. He does not show the dead bodies. He does not show the worst of the war. He has censorship to e deal with. Nd i never found somebody who coule explain this to me, how a 21yearold kid, 22yearold kid knew exactly where the line was that he could not cross with the army, the censorship, and he would go right up to that line and stop, but he would never cross it. Thats why he was never censored. Ow he was self censored. He showed enough. Thank you dr. Depastino. W thank you. [applause] friday American History tv in prime time features more programs about world war ii. At 8 00 p. M. Examiner the origins of the cold war. At 9 25 p. M. U. S. Democracy and international relations. And at 10 55, a look at the legacy of the cold war. World war ii and the impact on the world 8 00 p. M. Eastern here on cspan3. N starting in january, weave well have live coverage of Trump Administration confirmation hearings. Well showw you the entire hearings when they happen, and well wreair each hearing at night in prime time. January 10th and 11th, Senate Judiciary hearing holds confirmation hearings for senator jeff sessions, president elect trumps nominee for attorney general. Its on cspan network tv, radio and online. Join us on tuesday for live coverage of theue opening day o the new congress. Watch the official swearing in of new and elected members of the senate and d speaker of the house. Our events from capitol hill begins 7 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan and cspan. Org. Or listen to it on the free cspan radio app. The