TSPTR Flying Ace Pocket Sweat - Red

During the early 1960s Schulz gave permission for the USAF and US Navy to use Snoopy as their official 'war dog' mascot. His name and image was emblazoned on everything from missiles to fighter aircraft. Schulz had created Snoopy’s alter ego, the World War One Flying Ace in October 1965, just six months after the first American combat troops ‘officially’ waded ashore in Vietnam. In reality US Special Forces Advisors had been in Vietnam training local forces since 1962. As a WWII veteran himself, Schulz began to use the Flying Ace scenarios as an allegory for what was happening in Vietnam, expressing his own feelings about the horrors of war. Rather than explicitly criticise the strategy or politics of the US military, he used the Flying Ace and his battle against The Red Baron to communicate the absurdities of war and convey his empathy for the American troops and his deeply ambivalent feelings about the Draft.