Bill Mauldin’s Willie and Joe Return to the Front Lines in New Orleans
Bill Mauldin’s Willie and Joe, the weary infantrymen he drew during World War II, have returned to the spotlight in New Orleans as the central figures of Drawn to Combat: Bill Mauldin and the Art of War at The National WWII Museum.
The exhibition opened on July 16, 2026, and runs through April 18, 2027. Organized by the Pritzker Military Museum & Library, Drawn to Combat follows Mauldin from his early drawings and wartime work through the political cartoons of his later career. For the New Orleans presentation, The National WWII Museum has added objects from its own collection.
Willie and Joe looked very different from the idealized image of the American serviceman. Mauldin drew them exhausted, mud-covered and dealing with the everyday frustrations of infantry life.
He knew that world firsthand. Mauldin served during the war and drew from what he saw at the front. Willie and Joe appeared in Stars and Stripes and other publications, becoming familiar figures to American troops. Enlisted soldiers recognized their own experiences in the cartoons, while some senior officers objected to Mauldin’s depiction of fatigue, frustration and irreverence toward military formality.
Mauldin kept drawing what he saw. In 1945, he won his first Pulitzer Prize for his wartime cartoons.
Drawn to Combat goes beyond the cartoons themselves. The exhibition includes original drawings and sketches, wartime publications, correspondence and personal material from Mauldin’s career.
The original Pritzker exhibition brought together 125 original Mauldin drawings, 35 reproduced images and more than 20 original artifacts, with work spanning from 1937 to 1994. The broader Pritzker presentation also included his Pulitzer Prize awards, fan letters and Purple Heart medal.
The National WWII Museum has expanded the exhibition with objects from its own collection. It has also recreated environments familiar from Mauldin’s drawings, including foxholes, makeshift command posts and bombed-out buildings, placing his cartoons alongside the physical world he knew as a soldier.
The exhibition follows Mauldin beyond World War II. After the war, he turned increasingly to veterans’ issues, civil rights and politics. He worked as a political cartoonist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and later the Chicago Sun-Times, winning a second Pulitzer during a career that lasted nearly half a century.
His subjects changed, but war and military power remained recurring themes. Mauldin’s later cartoons addressed segregation in the U.S. Army, Vietnam and the Soviet war in Afghanistan.
Selected Cartoons by Bill Mauldin
“All the boys chipped in on it”
An early Mauldin drawing about soldiers away from home for Army training. Pritzker includes it among the works selected for Drawn to Combat.
“It’s either enemy or off limits”
Willie and Joe look over a mountain town in France. The drawing is one of the wartime works built around the experiences and restrictions of infantry life.
“Since we can’t vote or drink liquor, we ought to have some privilege”
A cartoon about the contradiction between the young age of many soldiers and the responsibilities placed on them by the Army.
“Them old eagles sure spoil that new uniform, Colonel”
Pritzker presents the cartoon in the context of Jim Crow and segregation in the U.S. Army in 1947, showing Mauldin turning his attention to social issues after the war.
“We Just Seem to Be Pounding His Feet Into the Ground” — 1965
A 1965 political cartoon dealing with the Vietnam War, from the later period in which Mauldin continued to question military and political decisions.
“Let’s declare ourselves winners and get the hell out”
A later cartoon about Soviet troops in Afghanistan, drawing a parallel with the American experience in Vietnam.
Sources
The National WWII Museum — Drawn to Combat: Bill Mauldin and the Art of War
https://www.nationalww2museum.org/visit/exhibits/special-exhibits/drawn-combat-bill-mauldin-and-art-war
The National WWII Museum — Drawn to Combat Opening Reception
https://www.nationalww2museum.org/events-programs/events/drawn-combat-bill-mauldin-and-art-war-opening-reception
Pritzker Military Museum & Library — Drawn to Combat: Bill Mauldin & The Art of War
https://www.pritzkermilitary.org/exhibits-and-events/drawn-combat-bill-mauldin-art-war
Pritzker Military Museum & Library — Drawn to Combat Press Release
https://www.pritzkermilitary.org/sites/default/files/files/press-release/Mauldin%20Release%20FINAL.pdf
Pritzker Military Museum & Library — We Just Seem to Be Pounding His Feet Into the Ground
https://www.pritzkermilitary.org/explore/museum/past-exhibits/hunting-charlie-finding-enemy-vietnam-war/we-just-seem-be-pounding-his-feet-ground
