It's hard to say just what Willie and Joe would make of the failed plan to shut down the military's independent news source — Stars and Stripes.
Like most American troops, the World War II grunts made famous by cartoonist Bill Mauldin's pen would probably keep marching forward, keep fighting and keep doing their jobs for their country.
Willie and Joe were savvy to the reality of military life. Keep expectations low and you're less likely to be disappointed.
Well, to Willie and Joe and the rest of the men and women who honorably serve this country at great risk and sacrifice, here's one time when things broke your way. The military's independent newspaper, Stars and Stripes, will publish another day.
President Donald Trump flip-flopped on his own budget plan and announced that Stars and Stripes would get funding that had been stripped from the Pentagon's budget.
The newspaper is owned by the U.S. military but has editorial independence. Its $15 million annual subsidy amounts to a rounding error in the Pentagon's $686 billion budget from last year. Yet the paper by troops, for troops focuses on areas of importance to members of the military like no other publication.
The paper has a proud history dating to World War I. Its editor of that era, Harold William Ross, went on to found The New Yorker magazine. Many other famous journalists followed. By the time Willie and Joe appeared in World War II, winning Mauldin the Pulitzer Prize, it was a crucial news source producing editions around the world.
No one doubts that the digital age has changed the way people receive and consume information and that has impacted Stars and Stripes just like it has impacted every other newspaper.
