To Hell and Back by Audie Murphy Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of To Hell and Back
Book Review: Gripping
Summary: 5 Stars
I've been reading books about World War 2 for years and found To Hell and Back gripping. Audie Murphy was an humble man of great courage and ability. His book was inspiring.Book Review: Honest and humble memoir
Summary: 5 Stars
It was interesting to read this account of Audie Murphy's travails in World War II (Murphy was one of the most highly decorated soldiers of that war) having read Ambrose's eulogy Band of Brothers .Murphy received (every major medal, some more than once, that the army has to offer). He joined the army at age 17 to support six siblings after his mother died (his father had left the family earlier), and he doesn't talk about how the war haunted the rest of his life.
He portrays a brutal, harsh struggle to survive, where the only thing that matters is keeping oneself and one's friends alive. There are moments of great poignancy, others of humor. Once, hungry, dirty and wet, mired in their foxholes, they notice they are under a tree with ripe cherries. Not daring to stick a head up, let alone climb out of the foxhole, Murphy's buddy gets the idea of shooting down the branches with his machine gun, and soon they are delighted to have cherry branches falling on them, making the day just a little brighter.
Not once does Murphy mention his numerous awards, Clearly, Murphy believed that luck played as much a part in his survival as anything he did. He was however, the kind of person who tried to control his destiny, doing what was necessary and taking the initiative in order to get through the day. A little piece of Murphy died every time a friend was killed, and soon almost all of his friends were gone. He was delighted if they received a wound that would return them to the rear, away from battle. He sympathized and worried for the lieutenant who had been badly injured and returned voluntarily to the front only to lose his nerve under the intense shelling. It must have been horribly traumatic to develop such close bonds and to have them ripped apart.
At the risk of sounding a little chauvinistic, I quote from the last lines of his book:
" When I was a child, I was told that men were branded by war. Has the brand been put on me? Have the years of blood and ruin stripped me of all decency? Of all belief? Not of all belief. I believe in the force of a hand grenade, the power of artillery, the accuracy of a Garand. I believe in hitting before you get hit, and that dead men do not look noble.
"But I also believe in men like Brandon and Novak and Swope and Kerrigan; and all the men who stood up against the enemy, taking their beatings without whimper and their triumphs without boasting. The men who went and would go again to hell and back to preserve what our country thinks right and decent.
"My country. America! That is it. We have been so intent on death that we have forgotten life. And now suddenly life faces us. I swear to myself that I will measure up to it. I may be branded by war, but I will not be defeated by it.
"Gradually it becomes clear. I will go back. I will find the kind of girl of whom I once dreamed. I will learn to look at life through uncynical eyes, to have faith, to know love. I will learn to work in peace as in war. And finally - finally, like countless others, I will learn to live again."
Book Review: I came mostly to see what the town looked like
Summary: 5 Stars
This story of a military hero who became a movie star begins in Texas where 5 yr old Leon (Audie) lives in a shack, plants, weeds and picks cotton. After Pearl harbor at 112 pounds, he was rejected by the marines and paratroops before enlisting in the infantry. In basic training at Camp Wolters in June, 1942 he passed out in close-order drill and his cmdr tried to shove him into cook's school. At Fort Meade an officer tried to make him a clerk. He then went to Africa, Sicily, Italy, France and Germany spending over 400 days in the front lines, receiving 21 medals for capturing, wounding and killing 240 enemy. Published in 1949 before he was a movie star, Murphy said "The main reason I wanted the book to be written was to remind a forgetful public of a lot of boys who never made it home." Don Graham's biography "No Name On The Bullet" reports that of the original 235-man roster of Company B, only 2 remained at the end, Audie and a supply sergeant. Only a few had transferred, all the rest were wounded or killed. By 1955 Murphy was the most popular western actor in America. I have over 40 of his films on DVD and VHS. Recommended viewing: To Hell and Back, Red Badge of Courage, Night Passage (with Jimmy Stewart), The Texican, The Unforgiven (with Burt Lancaster), and No Name on the Bullet. Watching these movies is not like watching a hero or movie star, Murphy embodies all of the 18 yr old guys that never came home from Tarawa, Normandy, Viet Nam and Iraq to have a career, family and enjoy old age. A tribute to guys like Private Joe Sieja, Lattie Tipton, Jim Fife and John J. Fredericks.Book Review: Like no other soldier's book I've read.
Summary: 5 Stars
What impressed and surprised me most about Audie L. Murphy's "To Hell And Back" is its total lack of strutting and bragging. It is, through all 274 pages, like no other soldier's memoir that I have ever read. Murphy was no strategic genius- the highest rank he ever attained was Major in the Texas National Guard, and he's best known for reaching 1st LT in the active Army- but that's not terribly important here. What Audie L. Murphy is known for, what makes him one of the greatest soldiers in human history, is the fact that he recieved two Bronze Stars, two Silver Stars, a Distinguished Service Cross, the Medal of Honor, Legion of Merit, and the French and Belgian Croix De Guerre along with over a dozen additional decorations. No other soldier in the history of the United States Army has ever been decorated so highly by not only his country but two others. This, the baby-faced young man who was turned away by the Marine Corps and US Army paratroopers because he simply didn't look man enough. Coming from an extremely poor and broken home, Murphy ran into so much trouble, so much adversity, before he ever got to the battlefield for the first time that many, many lesser men would have at some point along the line said "It's not worth it" and quit. But Murphy kept going, and instead of becoming a cook he became a soldier who earned the kind of bragging rights most of us only dream of. But that's got a lot to do with his book, and my review. He never mentions any of that. Neither Croix De Guerre, none of his Silver Stars, not even his Medal of Honor is even mentioned. What I found so remarkable about the telling of "To Hell and Back" is that it is written by a man who sees himself as just another dog-faced grunt in the infantry. Not one of the most decorated soldiers in history. He tells of childhood and all its woes, of the early breakup of his family due to his father's desertion and his overworked mother's death, and then of his struggle to get to the fighting of World War II. His decision to "stick by my guns" from the very start saw him evade repeated attempts to ship him off somewhere where he'd never hear a weapon fired in anger, and he ultimately saw all the war anyone could've wanted and more. Murphy writes of battles, of soldier's humor and bravado, of the tremendous bravery of ordinary men doing extraordinary deeds. He writes of good friends and comrades, too many of whom died before the war's end. He also writes of the German enemy, speaking of him with no particular hatred in his heart. The Germans wanted to go home alive, so did the Americans. The Germans were scared and hungry, and so were the Americans. Murphy recognized this. And while he does mention the actions that earned him so many decorations, he speaks of himself and his own deeds so rarely, with such humility, that it seemed he was saying, "This is what happened, these were my friends and what happened to them I will tell you also. Oh, and by the way, I was there." That's all Murphy does, so often it seems, is do no more than mention his presence in the events he describes.
I have come to regard Audie L. Murphy as the true, real-life equivalent of John Wayne. He was decorated like no man before or since, because he fought like no man before or since. Murphy is credited with personally capturing, killing, or wounding more than 240 Germans and saw combat and endured hardship to a degree few of us could ever imagine. Unlike Douglas MacArthur and men like him, Murphy never beats his chest or struts his stuff. But he never hesitated in doing what he had to, and decking a man who was giving him trouble, whether he was German or American, is something Murphy could do with incredible ease. On almost every page, he is either in a fight, on the frontlines in between fights, or temporarily in the rear. On one occasion, a major finds him vomiting on the side of the road in Italy and asks what is wrong, and Murphy simply says, "Nothing, sir, I'm just puking my guts out for the h*ll of it." Turns out he had malaria. But the instant he recovered, Murphy was headed back towards the fighting.
Some, like a retired USMC Sergeant Major I knew in military school, seem to regard Murphy with disdain due to his many decorations, as if he has too many and they are somehow undeserved. I don't believe that for a minute, nor do I share the attitude of those people. Many medals have been awarded to men who don't deserve them. But to say a man like Audie Murphy doesn't deserve the decorations he has received is an insult to the Army, to the United States, and to all the Allied leaders who recommended him for the medals he got. If he'd had a character similar to glory-seekers like MacArthur, I could see where these critics are coming from. But he never displayed such an attitude, and despite all the fame he ultimately got Audie Murphy remained as humble as any other soldier in the Army.
Few other men have, from the beginning of their lives, endured so much. And even fewer have to such a degree triumphed over all they were forced to endure, all the adversity they were made to face. But I don't believe Audie Murphy fully triumphed over one trouble, that being the memory of all he'd been through. PTSD was not half as well-known and recognized in World War II and the years after as it is today, and consequently means of helping soldiers overcome it were few. But while memories of his many battles stayed with him for the rest of his life, I do believe that even they could not bring him down. For as he closes his book, a book written by a man of tremendous strength, courage, and humility, Murphy writes words I will always remember. Words that everyone, America and the world, should always remember.
"When I was a child, I was told that men were branded by war. Has the brand been put upon me? Have the years of blood and ruin stripped me of all decency? Of all belief?
Not of all belief. I believe in the force of a grenade, the power of artillery, the accuracy of a Garand. I believe in hitting before you get hit, and that dead men do not look noble. But I also believe in men like Brandon and Novak and Swope and Kerrigan; and all the men who stood up against the enemy, taking their beatings without whimper and their triumphs without boasting. The men who went and would go again to hell and back to preserve what our country thinks right and decent.
My country. America! That is it. We have been so intent on death that we have forgotten life. And now suddenly life faces us. I swear to myself that I will measure up to it. I may be branded by war, but I will not be defeated by it.
Gradually it becomes clear. I will go back. I will find the kind of girl of whom I once dreamed. I will learn to look at life through uncynical eyes, to have faith, to know love. I will learn to work in peace as in war. And finally-finally, like countless others, I will learn to live again."
Book Review: Namby Pamby Actor Contradicts His War History
Summary: 3 Stars
I'm 20 pages away from finishing "To Hell and Back." After Googling, still don't know who the ghost writer was.
Still mesmerized how such a daring infrantry man morphed to Hollywood and appeared on camera as such a wooz. In the book it's made clear that he didn't drink or smoke (despite his hard-scrabble youth), but geez.
Yes he was good-looking, but Hollywood made him into a boring goodie-two-shoes. Was it about, as usuall, $?