Sunday, June 28, 2009
Audie Murphy had the kind of face you find on a baby shampoo bottle. He was every grandma’s grandson.
So, after World War II, Hollywood wanted a crack at one of history’s most heavily decorated American soldiers.
Among the amazing things about this man’s story is that, at least on the set, he didn’t crack.
It was only afterward that the war Murphy left, and which carried his fame to theaters across the country, brought him down.
Murphy’s psychological makeup came to mind as I paused on a cable dial awash with war films over Memorial Day weekend. To see him in the movie version of his autobiography To Hell and Back is to be amazed at two kinds of steel — first, on the battlefield; second, that shown recreating hell on a movie set. I wondered how someone who’d experienced real war didn’t collapse into a quivering heap.
That, apparently, was later.
With all that’s been said, and rightfully, about Murphy’s heroics, too little attention was given to the horrific mental toll that war took on him.
Isn’t that the way it always is? The war ends when the director barks, “It’s a wrap.”
Born to sharecroppers in North Texas (Hunt County), Murphy enlisted in the Army at age 18. He was anything but a cherubic-faced innocent on the battlefield. He won 33 battle commendations, including the Medal of Honor.
In To Hell and Back his heroism flows right off the screen — manning a machine gun on a soon-to-explode tank to fend off advancing Germans; taking out an enemy pill box when his unit has been destroyed.
Seeing him re-create these moments playing himself, seeing the re-creation of his friends perishing on Europe’s bloody soil, one wonders how Murphy handled it.
Not very well, it appears, at least when they dimmed the stage lights.
For more than 20 years, though his film career thrived, he suffered extreme depression and insomnia. He reportedly had violent outbursts aimed at his loved ones.
Before Murphy departed from the public scene quite prematurely, he became one of the first and most prominent military figures to build public consciousness about what was then called battle fatigue and is now called post-traumatic stress syndrome.
Murphy, who died in a plane crash in 1971, would find some comfort in what’s happening at Waco’s Veterans Affairs Medical Center.
At risk of being shut down only a couple of years ago, the hospital recently received $9.8 million to help it become a Center of Excellence for veterans suffering psychological trauma.
At the hospital’s newly created center for PTSD studies, one of the efforts will be tracking 1,000 veterans back from war for the rest of their lives to see how PTSD develops and how it manifests itself in different environments.
I’ve interviewed PTSD sufferers who, at the height of their suffering, reported diving under beds at the sound of a lawn mower or seeing approaching armored vehicles which were in fact golf carts on a next-door golf course.
Americans in the ’50s and ’60s who, popcorn in hand, watched Murphy on the big screen probably never imagined the scenes he re-enacted weren’t a nostalgia quest. They were a trip back to someplace his mind was telling him not to go.
Reportedly as many as one-third of our veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan will return with chronic psychological wounds, not including traumatic brain injuries that will necessitate medical and psychiatric care.
One-third may sound like a lot. Then again, maybe it only seems that way because too often in years past when the director said “wrap,” people thought war was over. For countless soldiers like Audie Murphy, it wasn’t even close.
John Young’s column appears Thursday and Sunday. E-mail: jyoung@wacotrib.com.
Comments
By HardCore American
Jun 30, 2009 9:57 PM | Link to this
Youngwatch,I like what you had to say. I believe the media spends too much time showing negative of our solders instead of writing of their heroics. You are right, very rarely, is anything written or shown on the TV about the accomplishments of the American Soldier. The reason could be is that the media still wants to call it Bush's war instead of what it really is - a war to keep our country safe from terrorism. So, yes, we should honor the American Soldiers.
By YoungWatch
Jun 29, 2009 5:00 PM | Link to this
Very nice column, John, and I know it was well-intentioned although it reminded me of the stark contrast in the treatment afforded our deceased and returning war veterans and their stories from WW II and Korea, and of those returning from Vietnam and the Middle East wars.
There has to be a happy medium between the outright glorification of war and adulation of warriors and heroism, and the total condemnation of any/all war and vilification of all warriors and heroism.
Totally ignoring the warriors and their heroism, except in a very generic and lukewarm manner--ie "We support the troops (but not their commander)", yada, yada, yada--as with those from the more recent Middle East wars, is not a happy medium IMHO.
Very few individual warriors from the Middle East wars have been singled out with special media attention for their heroism and meritorious combat achievements, and no movies have been made honoring them and their heroism.
To the contrary, most of the singling-out with media attention and movies has been of the negative kind, the negative stories, the real or invented atrocities, the wounded, the amputees, reflecting the overall negative attitude and the anti-war ideology of the entertainment-media complex.
Undoubtedly, genuine battle fatigue/PTSD is all it's cracked up to be as a detrimental and disabling aspect of the lives of returning war veterans and their families. I don't know this personally but rather vicariously after processing and evaluating the VA claims of such men, and women, for almost 30 years.
But let's not pretend that this problem was first invented or classified during WW II, only to be worsened by the horror of modern warfare. I dare say that ancient warriors, including the professional soldiers of the Roman Legions and other early civilizations, had it just as bad, or worse. The Roman soldiers got to retire after only 25 years of loyal service, some if not much of it undoubtedly involving hand-to-hand combat.
I'm appealing for a little perspective here, John. Any thoughts you want to share in rebuttal?
By BDDH
Jun 28, 2009 10:28 PM | Link to this
I join Waconative in thanking you, John Young, for a very timely op ed. I feel that we are glorifying war too much. Yes, we need to remember and to honor our fallen soldiers, but we need to temper our patriotism with knowledge. Knowledge of what war does to our young and that it should be an action of last resort.
My heart aches for the young men and women who come back with such a burden that we who never go to war cannot imagine. Our memorials need to cease to be glorifying. They need to be somber remembrances with less flag waving and marching music.
By waconative
Jun 28, 2009 5:56 PM | Link to this
Recalling the public life of Audie Murphy, I see many similarities with the movie "Sergeant York". Sad to say Audie's life was not like a typical movie script. He didn't live happily ever after. The similarities in Audie and Alvin York was they did what was expected of them and far beyond their duty, but with not so pleasant after effects.
It's good that "battle fatigue" is now sometimes viewed as PTSD and those who need the after-care can get it. Just not often enough.
Thank you John Young for the reminder that the "hell of war" doesn't end with coming home from the battlefield.
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