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When he sold eight cartoons to the Arizona Highway magazine, he wrote Mom exuberantly: "By return mail will come a BEE-OO-TIFUL check for $16! Of course $2 isn't a heck of a lot to get for a gag, but—."
Finally he went back home to his mother in Phoenix, Ariz, (his parents were divorced). He kept on drawing cartoons. In 1940 he joined the Arizona National Guard, later switched to Oklahoma's 45th Division, so he could draw for the Division's News.
Boy Meets Girl. No one then could have guessed the final destination of the 45th, least of all Private Bill Mauldin, who was spending more than his share of time on K.P. and dreaming of his cartoonist future. In 1941 the 45th was training at Texas' Camp Barkeley. One day Mauldin went in to nearby Abilene. It was raining. On a street corner, he met two girls and another boy. Mauldin knew one of the girls. The other was named Norma Jean Humphries; she was a student at Abilene's Hardin-Simmons University. Jean, now 21, remembers the scene: "Well, he came up to us, and my girl friend said: 'Jean, I want you to meet another friend of mine, Bill Mauldin.' Well, I looked at him and said hello, and he looked at me and said hello, and I guess I gulped and blushed because he did. And then I had to turn my head away. And all this time, this other boy was trying to date me, and I kept telling him I didn't date boys until I knew them pretty well—at least for a month—and pretty soon, I saw my girl friend talking to one side with Bill Mauldin. He kept talking, and kept looking at me, and I thought he was probably saying, 'Gosh, what a silly girl.' But later my girl friend came over and said that he wanted to know if he could have my telephone number, and could he call me up. 'Gosh, yes, I said.'
"That was a Wednesday. On Sunday he called and said 'Now, this is the 30th time I've called you, isn't it?' I said, 'Yes, that's right.' And he said: 'Well, supposing a man was madly in love with you, how often would he call you?' And I said, 'Oh, about once a day, I guess.' And then he said: 'All right, so I've called you 30 times, that means that actually I have known you for quite a long time—like 30 days at least, haven't I?' And I guess I said that was right, and then he said: 'All right, then, if you have known me for 30 days will you have a date with me?' I said, 'Oh yes, if you like. And he came over right away.' "
Two months later, a soldier's wife, Jean was following Private Bill Mauldin on the dreary round of Army camps. In the spring of 1943, when she told him that a baby was on the way, Bill persuaded the Army Times to bring out a book of his cartoons. The Army Times paid him $100 down. Bill sailed off to war. He was in Sicily when his son was born.
Rags to Riches. There he persuaded an Italian printer to bring out another book of sketches, Sicily Sketchbook, which sold 5,000 copies to one regiment, earned him $1,800, earned the News $600. He switched from the 45th Division News to Stars & Stripes, with an assignment to cover the war in cartoons. He landed at Salerno. He was wounded near Venafro. He brought out Mud, Mules and Mountains (sale: 300,000 copies, which the Army printed; he made nothing).