March 2 is Dr. Seuss Day, and though the creator of the children’s books was a famous member of the Army’s Signal Corps, officials have no plans to mark the day on Fort Gordon.
The post’s Morale Welfare and Recreation organizers had a Dr. Seuss Run on Feb. 12, but nothing official is scheduled for March 2, which is the late author Theodor Seuss Geisel’s 118th birthday, said Anne Bowman, spokeswoman for Fort Gordon.
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From 1998 until 2019, the National Education Association had teamed up with Dr. Seuss Enterprises to promote child literacy with its Read Across America initiative each March 2. But with complaints about racist imagery within his books, Dr. Seuss Enterprises announced last year that it would cease publishing six of the Dr. Seuss books, and on the NEA’s website page promoting Read Across America day, there is no mention of the author.
Geisel joined the Signal Corps’ Army Pictorial Service during World War II and created Private Snafu, a bumbling character who did the opposite of what soldiers were supposed to do, said Robert Anzuoni, the Signal Corps Museum director.
The cartoons depicted Private Snafu getting drunk in a bar and spilling secrets to the enemy. Or German spies listening in on unsecured telephone lines.
Some of Geisel’s propaganda artworks did depict Japanese with buck teeth, slanted eyes, round glasses and yellow skin.
“Considering it was wartime, we would consider it racist now,” Anzuoni said.
Geisel also worked with director Frank Capra and Stan Lee, the Marvel Comics icon who created Iron Man, the Hulk and the X-Men.
Anzuoni remembers when Maj. Gen. Randolph Strong, a former Fort Gordon commanding general and Chief of Signal, read “Hop on Pop” to children at the Freedom Park Elementary School. He donned the tall, colorful hat made famous from Cat in the Hat and on the way to the reading while riding in a van, the post commander practiced and ordered Anzuoni to be his audience.
“So, I had a general read ‘Hop on Pop’ to me,” Anzuoni said.
Joshua B. Good is a staff reporter covering Columbia County and military/veterans’ issues for The Augusta Press. Reach him at joshua@theaugustapress.com
