L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2020 www.italoamericano.org 14 L'Italo-Americano LA VITA ITALIANA TRADITIONS HISTORY CULTURE D ear Readers, on Veteran Day I am re- m i n d e d that on No- vember 11, 1918, the Armistice agreement was signed and fighting on all bat- tlegrounds ceased at 11 a.m. as the guns of World War I fell silent after 4 long years. The "war to end all wars" was finally over and a year later, in 1919, President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed Novem- ber 11 as Armistice Day to re- mind Americans of the tragedies of war. In 1938, the day by law became a Federal holiday a n d i n 1 9 5 4 , C o n g r e s s c h a n g e d t h e n a m e t o "Veterans Day" to honor all United States Veterans, because WWI, "the war to e n d a l l w a r s " d i d n ' t a n d World War II and others fol- lowed. *** W o r l d W a r I I V e t e r a n s , s t i l l f o n d l y remember artist/cartoonist Bill Mauldin (1922-2003) who enlisted in the Army, was assigned to the 180th Infantry as a rifleman and later became the voice of the World War II infantryman t h o u g h h i s d r a w i n g s o f weary, dog-face GI's Willie and Joe. Bill Mauldin, serving in I t a l y a n d o t h e r b a t t l e - scared parts of Europe, gave readers back home a fox- hole-level view of the war front, from 1940 to 1945, via his cartoons featuring GI's Willie and Joe, two slump s h o u l d e r e d s o l d i e r s w h o s l o g g e d t h r o u g h t r a i n i n g camp and European battle fronts sarcastically mocking everything, from their orders to their equipment and even their allies. The cartoons, published i n " S t a r s a n d S t r i p e s " , delighted his fellow soldiers and endeared Mauldin to Americans at home. H o w e v e r , h i s n o n c o n - formist approach, brought him a face-to-face upbraid- i n g f r o m G e n . G e o r g e Patton. But Mauldin contin- ued to draw what he wanted and in 1945 his series "Up Front with Mauldin" featur- ing Willie and Joe won him a Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning. In his book "Up Front," Bill Mauldin wrote: "Those of us who have spent a long time in Sicily and Italy are more amazed every day that such a run-down country could have had the audacity to declare war on everyone, even with the backing of the krauts. The dog-faces over here have pretty mixed feelings as far as Italy is concerned. You can't work up a good hate against soldiers who are sur- rendering to you so fast you h a v e t o t a k e t h e m b y appointment. The average dogface feels dreadfully sorry f o r t h e s e p o o r t r a m p l e d w r e t c h e s , a n d b e a t s h i s brains out doing something good for them." *** "Most people in Italy and Sicily gave us a rousing wel- come in all their towns and cities, but nowhere was there s u c h e x c i t e m e n t a s i n Rome. W e g o t a w f u l c y n i c a l about it, because the enthu- siasm seemed to stop, and the complaints seemed to start, twenty-four hours after everybody was kiss- ing everybody else. When were we going to bring shoes and food and clothes and phonograph records? Who was going to pay for Uncle Antonio's bombed vino shop, and why did we have to shell Aunt Amelia's ristorante? " W h e n t h e m o u n t a i n fighting in Italy first started t o g e t t o u g h , a n d i t w a s i m p o s s i b l e f o r t r u c k s o r j e e p s t o b r i n g f o o d a n d water, companies were mus- tered and calls for experi- enced mule skinners went out through the divisions. Mules were sought out and bought from farmers. They carried supplies to many sol- diers who hadn't seen a jeep for week." "The American army gets the best equipment. The dogface knows that when he sees other armies. But we m i s s e d t h e b o a t o n o n e thing. Every other army gets a liquor ration. The British soldier gets a spot of whiskey regularly, the size of the spot depending upon his rank. He gets a little beer also. And the Frenchman gets his wine. It's not much, but his palate is soothed with honest liquor. We have a pretty strong hunch. It's only because folks would scream their heads off at any hint of the clean-cut l a d s o v e r s e a s b e s o t t i n g themselves. So stuff is bought at very high prices from street ven- d o r s o v e r h e r e , s t u f f t h e A m e r i c a n s a r e f o r c e d t o drink because they can get nothing else. Some intelligent brass hat repaired a big brewery in N a p l e s a n d s t a r t e d t o send beer to Anzio, the boys at the beach-head were fixing up their own distil- leries with barrels of dug-up vino, gasoline cans, and cop- per tubing from wrecked air- planes. The result was a fiery stuff which the Italians call grap- Advancing our Legacy: Italian Community Services CASA FUGAZI If you know of any senior of Italian descent in San Francisco needing assistance, please contact: ItalianCS.org | (415) 362-6423 | info@italiancs.com Italian Community Services continues to assist Bay Area Italian-American seniors and their families navigate and manage the resources needed to live healthy, independent and productive lives. Since Shelter-in-Place began in San Francisco, Italian Community Services has delivered over 240 meals, over 900 care packages and made over 2000 phone wellness checks for our seniors. pa. The Germans seemed to go out of their way to sabo- tage wineries. What they couldn't eat, drink or carry a w a y , t h e y m e s s e d u p s o nobody else could use it. B u t t h e y m i s s e d o n e opportunity, Corps head- quarters in Anzio was set up in a twisting maze of cata- combs far below the earth's s u r f a c e . T h e t u n n e l s h a d been used for wine storage for centuries, and once you got down there it was hard to leave. It wasn't only a good p l a c e t o s t a y a w a y f r o m s h e l l s . M a n y o f t h e l i t t l e niches had big vino barrels. Note: Sergeant Mauldin notified the publishers that shortly after he had written this section of the book, the W a r D e p a r t m e n t g r a n t e d o f f i c e r s ( b u t n o t e n l i s t e d men) a liquor ration." *** Shortly after Rome fell, all of the city's better hotels were grabbed by brass hats and the Air Forces. Did the infantry have a hotel? Hell, no. The sightseeing doggie was out of luck if he wanted a place to sleep after he had ogled some of Rome's sights. This was a heck of a note for the doggie who had sweated out A n z i o a n d C a s s i n o and who had pushed north t o t a k e R o m e a f t e r n i n e awful months in Italy. It was always a little infu- riating for the dogfaces to take a town away from the Germans by dint of consider- able effort, to be treated roy- ally by the liberated inhabi- tants and given the golden key to the city, and, after moving on farther, to come back to that town and find everything changed. All the choice spots are occupied by brass hats and the CIC and AMG and ACC. All the liquor had been drunk and the pret- ty babe who kissed the dog- face tearfully as he liberated her is already going steady with a war correspondent. *** "Grazie" to Bill Mauldin, who via his editorial car- toons, left us with a potent reminder of the sacrifices m a d e b y t h e m e n a n d women who fight our wars, whether that fighting takes place in Italy, France, Korea, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf or Iraq. God bless America and all the men and women who will be making those sacrifices again... " N o o n e w o n t h e l a s t War, and no one will win the next." Eleanor Roosevelt

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