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Want to see how much the rallypoint community knows about Audie Murphy. If you are a member of the SAMC feel free to share your board experience.
WWII World War Two
Sergeant Audie Murphy Club (SAMC)
Audie Murphy
Posted >1 y ago
Responses: 14
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He was tiny...even compared to 1940's standards (a common consequence of people from his generation from not getting proper nutrition during the Depression). He was disqualified from both the Marines and Navy for not meeting minimum weight standards....and the Army barely took him....
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1SG (Join to see)
Very true Sir, in fact he was 5'5" and 110 pounds!! He was denied by the marines and "paratroopers" actually, and to my knowledge never attempted to join the Navy.
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He was working/flopping at a YMCA before he was recognized by a Hollywood higher up that convinced him to do To Hell and Back. He was a thrill seeker, often getting into trouble with gambling. He slept with a pistol under his pillow and struggled with PTSD all his life. He was a very human being.
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1SG (Join to see)
PTSD as we now know it, pretty much consumed him! Then it was known as "shell shock" and not much was done to help those Soldiers back then.
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Capt Lance Gallardo
The vets at the local American Legions that he would frequent and drink at loved the hell out of him! Everyone noticed what a down to earth guy he was, completely with out a whiff of arrogance, despite his MOH and Movie star good looks and success. When he was at the American Legion he was just Audie and just another WWII vet trying to drink away his demons (or at least get some temporary relief from them).
Who he was as a man, a person, was always better than what he had done in life, and he had done a helluva a lot. If John Wayne had been a real honest to God, "War Hero" he would have been something like Audie Murphy, an unassuming, modest, approachable quiet guy, whom you did not want to mess with, but if you were friendly towards him, he was friendly towards you. I never heard my grandfather or any of the WWII vets say a negative word about Audie. They respected what he had endured and did, and they just accepted him as one of their own. Maybe that is why Audie liked to hang out at American Legions. It was definitely a place he could go to and just be around combat vets who had become old men in their late teens and twenties by all that they had seen and done and experienced in WWII. Audie Murphy and his life story, is one of the most remarkable American lives that our great country has ever produced! You are gone but never forgotten Audie Murphy!
Who he was as a man, a person, was always better than what he had done in life, and he had done a helluva a lot. If John Wayne had been a real honest to God, "War Hero" he would have been something like Audie Murphy, an unassuming, modest, approachable quiet guy, whom you did not want to mess with, but if you were friendly towards him, he was friendly towards you. I never heard my grandfather or any of the WWII vets say a negative word about Audie. They respected what he had endured and did, and they just accepted him as one of their own. Maybe that is why Audie liked to hang out at American Legions. It was definitely a place he could go to and just be around combat vets who had become old men in their late teens and twenties by all that they had seen and done and experienced in WWII. Audie Murphy and his life story, is one of the most remarkable American lives that our great country has ever produced! You are gone but never forgotten Audie Murphy!
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Capt Lance Gallardo
Hey Mark, thanks for that tidbit. I have known quite few Iraq and Afghanistan combat vets, "couch surfing" as they try to figure out their next move in life after leaving the Army or the Marine Corps. It is interesting to know that Audie Murphy, MOH and most decorated combat vet from WWII was doing his era's version of couch surfing.
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Since I was a Dog Face Solider "3ID" we had to know all his info for our boards. Let me tell you he did a lot of stuff. Movie star, song writer, most decorated, bred horses etc..
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After WWII he served in the Texas Army National Guard. We have a statue of him outside our RTI building on Camp Mabry in Austin.
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