We need Audie Murphy

Audie Murphy was the most decorated soldier in WWII.  What he did was nothing short of amazing, and unbelievable.  If you didn’t know about it, Google him.  He was a 19-year-old boy.  He didn’t get his Medal of Honor like the murderers at Wounded Knee did.  He was practically a one man army protecting his squad at the risk of certain death.

After the war he became a movie actor.  He was never a top star.  Mostly he was a B movie western actor.

But he had this gentle, sweet manor about him that, all of these years later, we find appealing, and comforting.

He spent his post war years suffering from PTSD, and died young in an airplane accident.  We read once that next to Kennedy’s, his grave is a the most frequently visited site at Arlington.

We have tried watching current movies to get us through these times, and finally said “We need a 50s Western with Audie Murphy.”  So two nights ago we watched Walk the Proud Land, a story about an Apache Indian Reservation Agent, based on a true story.  Audie Murphy, all 5 foot 6 inches of him, carried the story about a man who tried to help the Apaches and who treated them with dignity.

And last night we watched Kansas Raiders, a highly “creative” story about Quantrill’s Raiders.  Audie Murphy plays, of all people, Jesse James, as a member if the Raiders who was horrified at Quantrill’s brutality.  He was the most gentle and kind Jesse James you could imagine.  The producers just couldn’t cast Murphy as the killer Jesse James really was.  Stupid movie, but once again he was just nice to watch.

He was also, to be fair, in some much better Westerns—Night Passage, The Unforgiven, etc.  Then there was the movie about his war experiences—To Hell and Back.  It was first class, but what he did was actually, true to form for him, understated in the movie.

When Medal of Honor recipients had their graves redecorated with fancier emblems, Murphy's family requested his not be.  They said he would have wanted the simpler, more low-key design.

We need heroes like him right now.  It is too bad he isn’t President.