Audie Leon Murphy was & probably still is, the bravest soldier that ever actually lived to tell the tale. He was the most highly decorated US soldier of the Second World War. He did'nt just court death. He actively seemed to seek it out. He consistently failed to get himself killed, through a combination of guile, courage & dumb luck.That's the sort of Warrior I admire. He is reckoned (conservatively) to have ended the war permanently for approximately 250-300 German Soldaten. He was 21 when in one famous encounter he killed more than 50 German soldiers (from a group of 250, supported by SIX PANZERS!) when stranded alone on the back of a burning Tank Destroyer with only the TD's machine gun functioning. The German force eventual wavered & retreated. For this act of courage verging on the suicidal he recieved the Congressional Medal Of Honor (see citation above). If only half of his memoir above is true, it's still an unbelievable story. Harry Trumann called him the "Babyfaced Killer" with good reason. He went on (with the help of one James Cagney) to a lucrative, if artistically frustrating career as a "B" Movie Star, mainly in "Cowboys". His "nervous stomach" (undiagnosed PTSS) was never treated. He slept with a gun under his pillow every night until the day he died, in a planecrash, in 1971...
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I'm not sure if your praises for Baby Face are sincere or in jest .... but somehow his story has the look & feel of the US Propaganda Machine at it's finest. When governments send troops off to slaughter & be slaughtered, they realize that families can only tolerate having their young men come home in body bags for so long before national pride wavers & discouragement sets in. Troops beome depressed & overwhelmed seeing their buddies die. So governments hire propaganda specialists to skillfully manufacture heroes to keep spirits high & to reignite feelings of national pride and glory. I mean .... who was actually keeping tallys of the numbers of dead Germans amid the constant volleys of gunfire and all those Panzers? Did Baby Face, who lived to tell it all, cross enemy lines to check the pulses of the downed Germans to ascertain if they were merely injured or indeed certified corpses? To my way of thinking, this is Shiteology at it's very finest ... and regarding Baby Face's later stint as a B-grade movie star ... likely his pay out for agreeing to be the Pretty-boy Poster Child for the US Propaganda machine ... but heh, I'm a natural born sceptic .... I tend to question all things that reek of faulty logic .... even the supposed US moon landing where the US flag was blowing in the 'wind' at 'zero gravity', but that is another discussion for another day .... (I submit this comment with humble respect, fully realizing that the shiteology might very well reside in my own head ... and my theories might be out in left field), - Gale Franey, Vancouver Canada
p.s. forgot to mention that nowadays, with the advent of modern media & live broadcasts, it is much more difficult for propagandists conjure up stories of heroic conquests. Just when we are led to believe that US soldiers are magnanimous, fair & adhereing to the Geneva Convention, the media reveals images of tortured and sexually mortified prisoners piled in pyramids, covered in feces, dogs leashes around their necks, amid smiling, empty-headed soldiers who are posing for trophy photographs. These are the true stories of war, there is no chivalry.
Well Gale...
1. This posting IS genuinely sincere on my part (I've read all available books on the subject). He WAS a "Babyfaced Killer!". I'd just rather have him on my side than the other Guy's! He WAS a crappy B Movie "star". But then REAL killing could'nt be simulated in Hollywood until Saving Private Ryan was made. He did suffer terribly from PTSD for the rest of his life...
I commend your suspicion that this posting was adding to my abhorrence of Shiteology in general1 But poor Audie was the one stuggling with medioctity after the War...how can a 22yr old trained killer find satisfaction in ANYTHING short of death & destruction after his "killing career" has ended.
And he WAS killing Hitler's soldier's, so morally he was on a firm a piece of ground as a multiple killer could be on...
Ps. The infamous/famous action I mentioned where he single handedly killed over 50 German's was witnessed deeper in the woods he was defending by gobsmacked buddies in his Unit, & the dead Germans were counted when the assault by the Krauts was called off...
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