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Post by marianne48 on Jul 13, 2024 12:43:25 GMT
The subject of PTSD wasn't really discussed publicly until the 1970s post-Vietnam era. Prior to Vietnam, veterans of earlier wars had to suffer in silence; those struggling with addiction, thoughts of suicide, anger issues, etc. were expected to keep it to themselves. Audie Murphy was one of the first to reveal his issues publicly. He was known to have a quick temper, slept with a gun under his pillow, and became addicted to sleeping pills. He eventually slept alone in his garage, with the lights on, because of his sleep disorders. A lot of earlier veterans did not get the support they needed because of the attitudes toward mental health and keeping personal issues in the dark back then.
James Stewart also suffered from PTSD and was reluctant to return to making war movies, unlike draft-dodgers like John Wayne who made a career out of playing phony patriots. Author Thomas Heggen, who made light of his war experiences in Mister Roberts, suffered from enormous survivor's guilt and committed suicide a few years after writing the comedy.
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Post by mikef6 on Jul 13, 2024 14:44:56 GMT
During the pandemic when I had a lot of time on my hands, I did some research on Audie Murphy while watching every movie he was in and several TV shows. Here are some excerpts from a little essay I wrote up about him. I hope this is not overload.
Audie Leon Murphy was born on June 20, 1925 in a rural, depressed area of north Texas. He had eleven siblings, six older and five younger. His father was in and out of the family until finally leaving them altogether and never coming back. Audie left school after the fifth grade to take odd jobs (picking cotton, working in a store) to help support the others. He also became a sharp shooter while hunting game for the family table. He always admired and looked up to his mother and grieved the rest of his life after she died when he was 16.
He tried to enlist in the Armed Forces after the United States entered World War II in December, 1941. All the services turned him down for being underage and underweight. In those days in Texas, babies born in rural areas often did not have their births registered. If they later needed a Birth Certificate, a family member would go with them to the county courthouse and swear an affidavit affirming the birth date. Audie Murphy got his by having his sister sign the affidavit. This is how this author’s own father had to get himself a Birth Certificate so the process is familiar to me. The difference was that Audie’s sister made him a year older than he actually was by entering the date of 1924, so he could join the Army. The recruiters, thinking he had just turned 18, called him to active duty on June 30, 1942 – 10 days after his actual 17th birthday. The Internet Movie Database, like some other sources, still publish the 1924 date. This is incorrect. Wikipedia has it right.
On January 24, 1945, Murphy – now a 2nd lieutenant with a battle field commission – and his company were in a spot in France called the Colmer Pocket when they were attacked by German soldiers. Murphy ordered his men to withdraw to prepared positions in a woods, while he remained forward at his command post and continued to give fire directions to the artillery by telephone. As the German’s got closer, he climbed on the burning tank destroyer, which was in danger of blowing up at any moment, and employed its .50 caliber machine gun against the enemy. Still on the phone to artillery, he called in fire on his own position. Artillery asked him, “How close are the enemy?”, Murph replied with one of WW11’s most remembered catchphrases, “Hold the phone, I’ll let you talk to one of the bastards.” After an hour (he was wounded in the leg), the enemy fell back. For this he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest decoration for valor in combat. Some of his fellow soldiers described him as “crazy brave,” taking a lot of chances and a lot of risks.
All of this contrasts highly with his public persona: a youthful “baby face” and amiable manner, all of which comes across in his performances. He was always soft-spoken and unfailingly polite. His movie fans would never see the tormented person that war had turned him into. His first wife, actress Wanda Hendrix, who was only married to him for a little over a year, said that he always slept with a gun under his pillow, had panic attacks at loud noises (startle reflex), and had violent episodes where he threatened her life. She later said that she always had sympathy for him and understood what he had gone through, but concern for her own safety compelled her to leave him.
I will conclude with a paragraph from the introduction of the 1989 biography of Murphy, “No Name On The Bullet: A Biography Of Audie Murphy” by Don Graham (highly recommended if you can find it),
“Audie died in 1971, in a plane crash, at the height of the Vietnam War. Since Vietnam, Americans have had trouble believing or honoring the kind of warrior that Murphy represented. We prefer video fantasy – Rambo – a kind of MTV celebration of American machismo in which the nation wins that unpopular war it never should have fought and which, of course, it lost. Audie Murphy could have had Sylvester Stallone for breakfast. Audie Murphy was the real thing, not some pumped-up, aerobicized celluloid palooka. And the real thing is always more interesting, more human, more tragic, more blood-and-death-ridden than the made up, the phony. It was that real hero, the man behind the bronzed statuary, that I had come to find.”
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Post by Teleadm on Jul 19, 2024 19:15:29 GMT
Sorry all fans of Audie Murphy I accidentally erased my profile post.
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Post by politicidal1 on Jul 19, 2024 21:24:20 GMT
Saw twelve of his movies so far. Some of them are more memorable than others. I’ll be honest though, I get mixed up about the titles a lot.
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