Monday, March 30, 2009

Badass - Audie Murphy

Audie Murphy


Simply being a member of the U.S. military automatically thrusts you forward to "badass" level, but when there's a badass that even the badasses consider badass, you know that badass is truly the king badass of all badasses. Audie Murphy was one of the greatest soldiers in the history of the world. Every one of us should fall on our knees and weep at the sheer mention of his name.

Audie wasn't old enough to join the military when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. But he didn't care, he just lied about his age. He tried joining the Marines, but he was too scrawny lookin'. He tried joining the Air Force, but he was too short. The Army finally accepted him, because they could always use more meat shields. He was 16 years old. What were you doing when you were 16? Loser.

They shipped him off to Northern Africa, and he kinda just stood around in the desert for a while kicking cans. He first saw combat during the Allied invasion of Sicily. He proved himself in several key battles, and was quickly promoted to Sergeant.

Shortly after landing at a beachhead in Southern France, Audie and his best friend saw some Germans approaching them, waving a white flag with their guns in the air. Audie was suspicious. When his buddy rose up, the Nazi shitheads suddenly dropped the flag and shot the shit out of him. Audie became fucking enraged, and killed every god damn one of them. He sprinted forward blindly looking for more Nazis to kill. A machine gun nest opened fire on him from a nearby hill. Murphy charged up the slope straight at them, and smoked the entire crew.

He wasn't done.

Yet another machine gun emplacement opened fire on him. So he simply picked up the MG42 the dead Nazis weren't using anymore, and turned it on them. He wiped those guys out too. He carried it off with him Rambo style and demolished two more gun emplacements. Plus two sniper positions. By himself.


But what he did later in Holtzwihr Forest tops even this.

Murphy had been assigned to hold the critical Colmar Pocket from German counterattack. He had two M-10 Tank Destroyers and 19 men. His company had been decimated; they were once 128 strong. On one cold rainy morning, Audie noticed a fucking shit ton of Nazis bearing down right on top of them. He radioed HQ, but the only two companies that could have reinforced them were too busy holding the flanks.

He sent his men back to take up defensive positions in the rear, but kept the two M-10s forward to take out the German tanks. They were both torn to shreds. Now, right here, a sane person would probably fall back to the defensive position not too far behind him. Not Audie Murphy. The word "sanity" isn't in Audie Murphy's book of word-lernin'. Instead, he jumped up on top of the god damn burning tank right next to him, and manned the fucking .50 cal. Because he's Audie god damn Murphy. He got on the radio with HQ and started calling in artillery strikes. From his completely exposed position on this tank, with artillery shells raining down fucking everywhere around him, Audie held down the trigger and shot the shit out of every fucking Nazi in sight. I would like to imagine him screaming "I'M AUDIE MOTHERSHITTING MURPHY!" at the top of his lungs the entire time. Because that's what I would have done.



He wiped out an entire platoon that had taken cover in a ditch a hundred feet away. The Tiger tanks? Yeah, those pulled back because their infantry support were all suffering from a severe case of getting shot in the god damn face. Audie finally dismounted the tank an hour later, only after he ran out of ammunition – just seconds before the whole fucking thing exploded. Wounded, dazed, and in a state of utter exhaustion, Murphy then called his men forward and organized a counterattack to sweep the rest of the Germans out of the forest. This one man just stopped six tanks and 250 soldiers. I do that in motherfucking Call of Duty, you're not supposed to be able to do that in real life.

Malaria kills people. Its symptoms include, but are not limited to, fever, sudden coldness, shivering, vomiting, and convulsions. Audie Murphy contracted Malaria in Italy. He's had it this entire time. He did all of this while suffering with motherfucking Malaria. It's impossible to fully grasp this without causing your ears to spontaneously start bleeding.

Audie Murphy received 33 medals during his service, including the Medal of Honor and the Distinguished Service Cross. Plus five more from France. And one from Belgium. He's the most decorated American soldier in history.

After coming back from the war, Audie became a successful actor and composer. He was an action hero in To Hell and Back. You know who he played? HIMSELF. You really wanna know how fucking badass this guy was? His own autobiography is an action movie. And he was modest about it too. He had the producers take out scenes from HIS OWN AUTOBIOGRAPHY because he was afraid people might not believe the very things he actually did.



For the rest of his life, Murphy struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder, which at the time was very misunderstood and considered taboo. Upon witnessing the same things happening to veterans returning from Korea and Vietnam, he became one of the first voices to openly speak out about it, and called on the U.S. government to take the emotional impact of war more seriously. He died tragically in a plane crash in 1971. His grave is the second most visited in Arlington Cemetery, right after John F. Kennedy's.

I can't wait for Inglorious Basterds. I love watching Nazis getting their fucking shit blown.

1 comment:

  1. Do you know which tiger tanks were involved in the battle and if any was taken out by allied steel rain? In other posts about murphy's defense i see almost never mentioned details about the tanks or the tank casualties on the battle, just mentions of their effectiveness and in one a mention about the m10's being destroyed by 88mm cannon fire, but not from which tank type is came from. What's you source for this post?

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