Happy 88th birthday to one of my all-time favorite Americans and
one of my top 20 favorite actors---the man who has turned me into an
appreciator of Westerns---the brave and courageous war hero-turned-actor, Audie
Murphy. (June 20, 1925[1]-
May 28, 1971)
Born into extreme poverty to sharecropper parents in Texas's cotton country, Audie Leon Murphy was the seventh of twelve children. His father, who was never particularly successful in his role as a provider, abandoned the family when Audie was 15, at which time, Audie dropped out of school in order to support the family. He had left school often through the years, in order to work and help support the family, but after 5th grade, he dropped out for good. (He hadn't started school until age 9, and with breaks, he was 15 after 5th grade.) Following his beloved mother's death in the summer of 1941, teenage Audie was on his own.
Upon the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Audie desired to join the war effort and sought to enlist in the military. After being rejected by both the Marines and the Navy because of his size and his age, Mr. Murphy was accepted into the U.S. Army in the summer of 1942 . He was 17 at the time---too young to enlist---but, with his oldest sister's help, he falsified his birth year, claiming it to be 1924, rather than 1925.
Although his size might have dictated otherwise, Audie was a fierce and committed soldier, and he quickly moved up the ranks. A capable leader, he never expected or asked his men to do anything he wouldn't do himself. It wasn't that Audie was fearless; on the contrary, he said that he "never moved into combat without having the feeling of a cold hand reaching into (his) guts and twisting them into knots" and also that "he and fear had each other by the throat, and he never knew which was going to conquer."[2] Audie was always the victor, conquering his fear and refusing to allow it to render him immobile or cowardly. In the course of his wartime service, he was wounded three times, and each time, he always returned to the front.
Audie regularly received promotions and decorations. Ultimately, he became the most-decorated soldier of the Second World War (some sources say in all of American history), being awarded a total of 33 decorations---12 of them for valor---including the Medal of Honor. His Medal of Honor citation states the actions which resulted in the Medal "prevented the encirclement and destruction of his company." Visit the Audie L. Murphy Memorial Website (HERE) for information about each decoration he received.
Mr. Murphy's battlefield heroics are the stuff books and movies are made of---which, in fact, they were, with the publication of his war memoir, To Hell and Back, and the production of the film of the same name. Audie wrote the book, he said, "to remind a forgetful public of a lot of boys who never made it home."
After the war ended and Audie returned to the states, he sought to figure out a direction for the future. A telegram from James Cagney helped him in that regard. Mr. Cagney invited Audie to visit Hollywood, at his expense. He ended up staying at the Cagney's home for several weeks and was encouraged by many to pursue a film career. Eventually, he decided to accept Mr. Cagney's offer and went on Cagney's company payroll, taking acting and speech lessons (to lessen his strong Texas accent) and developing his social skills while waiting for film work.
That first film role finally came---in the form of an 8-word line in the 1948 Alan Ladd/Donna Reed film Beyond Glory. Always humble, Audie joked that it was about seven more words than he could handle. His first starring role came the following year, in Bad Boy, a performance which resulted in a 7-year contract with Universal and the establishment of a career which would span the course of 20 years and 44 films, mostly Westerns.
In addition to his success as a soldier and an actor, Mr. Murphy also wrote poetry and, with Scott Turner and other songwriters, penned the lyrics to county & western songs. "Shutters and Boards" is one of his most famous collaborations.
Writing poetry was a bit of a balm to Audie during the somewhat-discouraging period between arriving in Hollywood and beginning his acting career. While nearly all of the poems Audie penned have been lost, a few remain and are posted on the Audie L. Murphy Memorial website (HERE). They are all moving and heartfelt. "Freedom Flies in Your Heart Like an Eagle" (as copied from the website) was written as part of a speech Audie gave at the dedication of the Alabama War Memorial.
| FREEDOM FLIES IN YOUR HEART LIKE AN EAGLE |
| Dusty old helmet, rusty old gun, They sit in the corner and wait. Two souvenirs of the Second World War That have witnessed the time and the hate. Mute witness to a time of much trouble Where kill or be killed was the law. Were these implements used with high honor? What was the glory they saw? Many times I've wanted to ask them... And now that we're here, all alone, Relics all three of that long ago war. . . Where has freedom gone? Freedom flies in your heart like an eagle. Let it soar with the winds high above Among the Spirits of soldiers now sleeping. Guard with care and with love. I salute my old friends in the corner. I agree with all they have said . . . And if the moment of truth comes tomorrow, I'll be free, or by God, I'll be dead! . . . Audie Murphy, 1968 |
Always involved with the military, Audie joined a division of the National Guard in 1950 and remained with the Guard (in both active and inactive statuses) for 16 years. In 1966, he transferred to the United States Army Reserve, with the rank of major, and was still with that group at the time of his death.
All was not roses in Mr. Murphy's life, though. As discussed in a previous post (HERE), his valiant fight to uphold the cause of freedom came with an enormous price tag---his own health. He battled the devastating effects of PTSD for all the remaining years of his too-short life. Said a man who interviewed him in 1967, "He was more than the most decorated soldier of World War II, more than the war hero of our time. He was also a casualty---so much of his spirit, in fact, had been killed in action." [2] Especially by the late 1960's and into the 1970's, Audie was deteriorating rapidly, and even his good friends hardly recognized him. Wrote dear friend, "Spec" McClure, after an early 1971 get-together with Murphy, "He seemed awfully tired---spent. I looked at him and realized that I would not have recognized my old friend had I seen him on the streets...For years Audie seemed to be eternally young and then, as if the raging emotional and mental fires within had surfaced, he seemed to grow old overnight..."[2]
Audie's troubled life came to an end less than a month before his 46th birthday. It was Memorial Day weekend, 1971, when the private plane in which he was a passenger, crashed in the mountains of southern Virginia. He was killed instantly, leaving behind a wife, two teenage sons, and the forever example of valor and courage, even in the face of fear. As the most-decorated U.S. soldier of World War II, his final resting place, quite fittingly, is in Arlington National Cemetery, where his grave is second only to that of President John F. Kennedy in the number of visitors received.
While I appreciate, admire, deem a hero, and am incredibly thankful for the tenacious teenage warrior who bravely fought for the cause of freedom, it is the troubled man I've come to love. The man who, though hurting inside, strapped on a gun belt, donned the charming, movie-star image into which he had been typecast, and entertained film-going audiences. The man whose humility, combined with his concern for the needs of other vets, allowed him to be public---in a time when it was taboo to mention such things---about his battle with the emotional effects of war. The man who didn't call attention to himself or his many decorations but, instead, called the real heroes those left behind in the ground of Europe. The man who, despite financial problems, refused offers for liquor and cigarette commercials, because such things weren't good for kids. The man whose inner pain had become so great that, according to director Budd Boetticher, he intended to "blow his brains out," but refrained from doing so after Boetticher reminded him how it would affect those who looked up to him. [3] The man who, even before his death, had been largely forgotten by a fickle, forgetful, complacent America. [4]
So, Mr. Audie Murphy, I am remembering you on your 88th birthday. Thank you for all the entertaining films you made, but more importantly, thank you for your selfless service to our country and to the cause of freedom! I love you and am forever grateful for all that you did to uphold the freedom we so often take for granted! In the words of George Eliot, "Our dead are never dead to us, until we have forgotten them." I have not forgotten you, Audie, dear...nor will I ever!
[1] Both IMDB and the Audie L. Murphy Memorial Website (HERE), list 1925 as Audie's year of birth; other sites (and even his gravestone) list it as 1924. The discrepancy is due to the fact that Mr. Murphy filed a falsified birth certificate at the Hunt County, Texas Courthouse, in order to join the military before he was of legal age.
[2] From American Hero, The Life and Death of Audie Murphy, by Charles Whiting, Eskdale Publishing, 2000.
[3] From Audie Murphy: Great American Hero, A&E Biography, 1996.
[4] From Real Men: Ten Courageous Americans to Know and Admire, by R. Cort Kirkwood,
NOTE: All photos used in this article were obtained from the Audie L. Murphy Memorial Website (HERE)