SUPPORT TSP: Purchase Mauldin T-Shirts http://billmauldin.com/
Iraq Vet’s Suicide Stirs Mauldin’s Son To OK Willie And Joe T-Shirts For Soldiers Project. “Weekend Edition” on NPR (2/13, Simon) interviews the son of famed World War II Stars and Stripes cartoonist Bill Mauldin, who has authorized his father’s Willie and Joe GIs to appear on t-shirts being sold to aid The Soldiers Project, a non-profit offering free psychological treatment to military service members and their families. Sam Mauldin says that he was prompted by “reading a New York Times article back in August about a sergeant named Jacob Baylock, who had a very traumatic experience during his service in the Iraq conflict, and after he got out of the war, he was very psychologically troubled and the VA wasn’t very helpful to him. Be it understaffing or underfunding, they let him down and couldn’t give him the psychological treatment that he needed and that led him to commit suicide.” Noting that the uncaptioned t-shirts will meet military regs, Mauldin adds, “That would be something that would bring a big smile to my dad’s face, that people on active duty can wear Willie and Joe.”
