To Hell and Back by Audie Murphy Summary and Reviews
|
List Price: Our Price: $8.12 You Save: $7.88 (49%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $5.52 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of To Hell and Back
Book Review: A GREAT BOOK BY A GREAT AMERICAN HERO!
Summary: 5 Stars
If you have never read this book, buy it and read it. It is a very powerful and moving account of the most decorated American soldier of WWII. Audie Murphy was born outside of Kingston, Texas in June 1925, grew up poor, was deserted by his father, and joined the US Army at the age of 17 in 1942. His hunting skills as a boy served him well in hunting and killing an estimated 240 German and Italian soldiers in WWII.
An amazing aspect about Audie Murphy is that he was not limited to one feat of heroism in WWII. For almost two years, he distinguished himself as one of the greatest combat soldiers of all time with repeated acts of heroism, earning every medal our country could give including the Congressional Medal of Honor, the Distinguished Service Cross, 2 Silver Stars, 2 Bonze Stars, and 3 Purple Hearts.
Audie Murphy was a humble man and a born leader who would rather put himself in harms way than to risk the lives of his men if at all possible. Even though he didn't have a good father as a role model, he was a father to the men who served with him. If a soldier under his command was afraid to do a job, he would do it himself.
The book doesn't mention his life after the war (it was written in 1949). After WWII, Audie went on to become a fine actor in Hollywood and made a few critically acclaimed films. He suffered for many years from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) as a result of his time in combat. He died tragically at the age of 45 in a small plane accident in the mountains outside of Roanoke, VA in May, 1971.
Audie Murphy was not a perfect man (there was only one - the Lord Jesus Christ) and he had his faults and problems to deal as we all do. However, he was a true American hero who deserves our nation's (and Europe's) respect and honor. May God bless Audie Murphy!
Book Review: A must read
Summary: 5 Stars
Audie Murphy is truly a hero. This is self-evident. His book deals very well with giving the feeling of being a soldier, with the incredible stress that comes from being in a life-and-death situation. This feeling includes anger, and apathy, and friendship. Murphy describes the events of his time in service straight-forwardly and clearly.For anyone studying war, whether in terms of history, military science, morality in war, etc., this book is a must read. In the bird's eye view of war, one sees strategies, tactics, political imperatives, and the like. This work will always serve to remind scholars and interested amatuers of the costs of battle, and the strength of the men who risk their lives for their country. The reader will remember, not just that battles occur, but that in these conflicts, soldiers must face (as Murphy talks about) friends dying, men they were just talking to being vaporized by a mortar, good soldiers having their nerves suddenly break (having heard one bomb too many), and the like.
This book helps those who study war to always remember the human element - both in terms of the tragedy for those involved, but also the courage of those involved. Highly recommended.
Book Review: An American Hero
Summary: 5 Stars
An American Hero
I had read Audie Murphy's To Hell and Back many years ago and always marveled at the man's incredible unassuming nature. After a recent POW-MIA commemoration I annually attend, I decided to revisit the heroism of Audie Murphy. The autobiography is the essence of combat in World War 2. It is even more poignant in that Mr. Murphy does not elaborate on his own heroic actions but rather simply tells the story of a front line combat solider and those who he had the honor to serve with. Now don't get me wrong, the actions that caused him to be the most decorated American soldier of WW2 are all written about, but never once did Mr. Murphy state that he was awarded any medals for his extraordinary heroism. Rather, Audie Murphy simply writes as one who was there. He talks about his friends and fellow fox hole mates not just as gritty combat vets, but as men who were asked to do a very dangerous job and who accepted their nation's challenge with dignity and grace. The personal battle scenes are gritty and graphic and not for the squeamish, but then that is the nature of war: Ugly, messy, smelly, dirty, and stalked by the specter of death, yet boring and loving at the same time. All of Audie Murphy's original company mates were either killed or grievously wounded, and sadly in the end only he survived to see VE Day on the field of combat. Audie Murphy was a true American hero of mega proportion whose heroic feats will be long remembered.
This autobiographical book is a memoir of Audie Murphy's World War 2 experiences only. It does not cover his entire life before or after his heroic service during World War 2. It covers all the battles that Mr. Murphy fought in but does not specifically delineate which awards he received for which battle. This is in character with the unassuming nature of the man. For more on which medal Mr. Murphy earned for which particular act of heroism, you will have to visit the various Audie Murphy web sites. Needless to say, not delineating the specific medal to the specific battle does not detract from the excellent nature of this fine memoir.
Must Read for WW2 buffs. Highly recommended for everyone else. One of the very best personal combat sagas of World War 2. In the same league as E.B. Sledge's With the Old Breed, Robert Leckie's Helmet for my Pillow, and William Manchester's masterpiece Goodbye Darkness. Simply an American combat classic.
Book Review: An American hero's story
Summary: 5 Stars
I was moved by reading the positive reviews on Amazon of this book. I read the book many years ago , and it is confused in my mind with the movie based on it. As a young person I wondered how one became a hero, and wondered whether I would ever have the kind of courage that Audie Murphy displayed time and time again in the war. Now my own Army days are long gone and I have not ever been tested, and the question of what I might have been remains academic and now irrelevant. Murphy has courage which means the ability to put oneself in danger and take those actions which remove danger from one's own people, and in the process do injury to the enemy. His boyhood training in hunting no doubt helped him develop the instincts of a soldier . The reviewers on Amazon tell how movingly Murphy writes about his fellow soldiers, and their loss in battle. After the Second World War researches about combat came to center on the idea that what mattered in motivation in war was the small unit, one's nearby fellow soldiers. The loyalty to those nearby was more important than the grand ideal. It is also said that Murphy had luck , and that goes without saying. To survive a war one must not be in the place where the grenade explodes or the bullet hits. And one can never have absolute control on that. But Murphy it is also clear also made his luck . He was a true soldier with real instincts of the right action to take. No doubt part of this was his readiness to kill. He apparently was with all the glory heaped upon him a modest person, deeply traumatized afterwards by all he had gone through. One reviewer reports that Murphy died in a small plane crash when he was only forty- six. What is important is that he was a true hero, a man who fought for his country risked himself time and time again, and played a decisive role in the combat he was involved in. Every country and maybe every war needs its heroes. Sergeant York in the first world war, and Audie Murphy ( among others)in the Second.
And here I would add one point. A nation has its freedom and Jefferson understood this only because there are Audie Murphys, those who will fight for it. The least that can be done for them is that they be recognized( as many are not) and given some kind of thanks( though they may resist this) I think now of my own dear uncle Larry Leo Zeibert of Troy, New York who was an Army Ranger and in the first landing boat in General MacArthur's invasion of the Phillipines in the battle of Leyte Gulf. My uncle fought in the jungles of New Guineau. When he came home he said to never ask him about the war, and he never talked about it. I do not want to think about the things this quiet good man saw and did . He too went through this world in a humble, backseat way and never really built anything for himself. He had a joke and a story and a way of making everyone laugh all the time. And how deeply sad and broken he was inside only God knows. May his memory like Audie Murphy's too, be for a blessing.
Book Review: Audie Murphy, as he tells it
Summary: 4 Stars
The bones of his story are here. As with all autobiographies, there is some tweeking of the actual conversations, events, and time periods. Regardless, it is an interesting read, and I take nothing away from this true American hero. So he is not quite the innocent that he wishes to portray, as in the story of the hospitality of the Italian family. It is the innocent that we want to imagine that gained him such celebrity. He earned the right to the Hollywood treatment.