Heritage

I’ve dabbled with some of the heritage clubs, mostly in an effort to build up an offspring’s grad school applications.  Growing up when we did, such clubs as DAR and others were known only by the awards they presented to a few of us at the end of each year. 

In my house those clubs were mostly thought of as society ladies or climbers and given little thought.  However, I discovered that although they are those things, many of them are also serious genealogists and depend on others developing the interest in their own heritage to ensure the survival of the clubs and the history.  Most of them are very nice people with a sincere interest in preserving American history.

The lineage proofs can be difficult and must meet a legal standard.  Many of the early proofs developed in the 1900s tended to be fanciful and are no longer accepted as legitimate references…suggesting that our impressions of the early DAR ladies as social climbers might have been partially correct.

A few years ago I challenged a Manhattan heritage group to recognize the service of my Arkansas grandpappy.  After about 2-years of gentle, nudging they agreed to do so.  It wasn’t so much that they didn’t want to do it, it was more that they hadn’t done very often before and had apparently lost the knowledge of how to go about it.  Be that as it may, they got it done at a lovely venue in mid-town, across from 30-Rock.

The society was clearly a social club where the original mission had given way to more of an old-style pecking order exercise.  Seeing actual veterans like me and my grandpappy was atypical for them.  Nevertheless, they did a magnificent job and never once made me feel unwelcome.

When the club president discovered that we were also Jamestowne Society members, she was openly and unabashedly impressed.  She had been trying for years to make her own connections to that group.  It’s kind of like the Mayflower Society, only for southerners. 

Most of the heritage clubs I’ve encountered are based on some form of military service of an early ancestor…a great grandpappy way back up the line somewhere.  A veteran would understand better than most that serving in a war is mostly a matter of being born within a fairly narrow range of years and being drug into it as a result of arguments between some old guys.

Bill Mauldin understood the facts of these matters and illustrated them as succinctly as anyone I’ve seen.  I forwarded Mauldin’s cartoons to the society president a few months after the ceremony…she got a kick out of it.

Chicken Shit

During my Vietnam military service it seemed that a tremendous amount of time was simply wasted. I suppose it’s just the nature of it—better to waste time than getting your ass shot off. With so much time available to observe things, you couldn’t miss seeing a lot of both funny and dumb stuff.  And sometimes, just for your own amusement, you made something up to see how someone would handle the situation.

The WWII Sad Sack comics lampooned military silliness; so did Bill Mauldin’s Willie & Joe; but for me the less well known Private Breger in Britain comics made some of the more lasting impressions. A couple of my favorites are included in this posting.

Is it any wonder that when we went off to Vietnam service, the military establishment had trouble figuring out how to deal with us? A significant percentage of us had either a degree or part of one. And with our having been exposed to the WWII attitudes of our fathers, is it any wonder that we took certain notions into the service with us?

The term chicken-shit came out of WWII and wasn’t lost on us.  For a great example of chicken-shit illustrated in film, take a closer look at John Larroquette's Captain Stillman character in Stripes. Pay special attention to his odd salute, repeated several times…that’s chicken-shit.  Guess you had to be there...and I think that at least one of the sceen writers had been.


Adios

General George S. Patton & Sgt. Bill Mauldin

While I was growing up, there were 3 small WWII cartoon books in our home library that Dad had purchased while he was in the Army Air Force. I discovered them sometime in the mid-1950s when I was about 10 and many times went through them cover to cover. Those little books no doubt had a significant part in shaping my sense of humor.

The books were: Sad Sack, by Sgt. George Baker, who worked for Yank, the Army Weekly; Private Breger in Britain, by Sgt. Dave Breger, who also worked for Yank, the Army Weekly; and the last one was Up Front, by Sgt. Bill Mauldin, who worked for Stars and Stripes, the Army newspaper.

Bill Mauldin’s book was the most interesting of the 3 because Mauldin drew the most attention from the Army brass and most especially, the attention of General George S. Patton. A Wikipedia article rightly relates, “Those officers who had served in the army before the war were generally offended by Mauldin, who parodied the spit-shine and obedience-to-order-without-question view that was more easily maintained during that time of peace. General George S. Patton once summoned Mauldin to his office and threatened to "throw his ass in jail" for "spreading dissent," this after one of Mauldin's cartoons made fun of Patton's demand that all soldiers must be clean-shaven at all times, even in combat.

But Dwight Eisenhower, Supreme Commander European Theater, told Patton to leave Mauldin alone, because he felt that Mauldin's cartoons gave the soldiers an outlet for their frustrations. Mauldin told an interviewer later, "I always admired Patton. Oh, sure, the stupid bastard was crazy. He was insane. He thought he was living in the Dark Ages. Soldiers were peasants to him. I didn't like that attitude, but I certainly respected his theories and the techniques he used to get his men out of their foxholes.”

Mauldin described walking into Patton’s office for that meeting as “gazing into four of the meanest eyes I had ever seen.” The extra pair of mean eyes belonged to Patton’s dog, Willie. The Mauldin cartoon of the magnificent scenery is one that particularly rankled Patton.

Mauldin wrote, ”The ideal officer in any army knows his business. He is firm and just. He is saluted and given the respect a man who knows enough about war to boss soldiers around in it should have. He is given many privileges, which all officers are happy to accept and he is required, in return, to give certain things which a few officers chose to ignore. I try to make life as miserable as possible for those few.

”Since I am an enlisted man, and have served under many officers, I have a great deal of respect for the good ones and a great deal of contempt for the bad ones. A man accepts a commission with his eyes open, and if he does not intend to take responsibilities as well as privileges, he is far lower than the buck private who realizes his own limitations and keeps that rank.

”I never worry about hurting the feelings of the good officers when I draw officer cartoons. I build a shoe and if somebody wants to put it on and loudly announce that it fits, that’s his own affair."


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