A Myth in Action: The Heroic Life of Audie Murphy (2006)
In many ways I’m probably typical of most Campbell fans. I tend to think of the Hero Cycle in terms of ancient myth or fairytale - or else some of the fantasy stories in modern film. Even when I do think of the Hero in real life it’s a religious leader or a creative artist, a scientist, or perhaps a scholar such as Joseph Campbell.
But where does one find a real hero in the classic sense? A literal, warrior hero? One that answers the call, leaves his home and travels to a place of horror to do battle, slays a menacing dragon, and then returns home with all the honor and the glory of a mythic hero. AJ’s answer seems elementary to me now. You take the greatest war of all time, the world’s darkest hour, and find the greatest hero of that war.
AJ writes:
In case anyone reading this is as clueless as I was about the life of Audie Murphy before I read AJ’s book, I’ll offer a brief sketch of his early life:P27 In our own time, especially during the last thirty years, we have attempted to deny the reality of the archetypal “warrior” hero, because of our knowledge of the total devastation another major war would bring. War in our time is a terrible and fearsome happening, but rejection and repression of the warrior archetype, which is a psychological reality within each of our own mends, will not eliminate war. Repressing the aggressive side of human nature doesn’t get rid of it. It is merely removed to what Carl Jung called our “Shadow, “ the parts of our personalities we don’t want to see or have recognized.
Refusing to accept our Shadow qualities may very well cause us to externalize our aggression and project it onto others. Refusing to admit that as humans we are naturally aggressive creatures might also prevent us from recognizing the danger from outside our own communities when it is present. The warrior must be remembered, upheld as an essential part of our selves and our culture and retuned to a place of honor, if we are to survive.
- Ann Livingston Joiner, A Myth in Action, (2006)
- Audie Murphy was born in 1924-25 to a poor Texas family. His father and mother did not provide well for their children and he had to learn to fend for himself at a very early age. Sometimes he would have to go out in the Texan wilderness and hunt just to feed the family.
- When Pearl Harbor was bombed in 1941 he was too young to enlist so he had his sister forge a birth certificate so he could meet the minimum age requirement.
- He was quite the runt, five-foot five and slight of build. AJ says he had to stuff his backpack with tissue paper in boot camp because he couldn’t handle the 60 lbs of gear.
- They tried to give him a non-combat position because of his apparent lack of stamina but he insisted on a combat position. He managed to get through boot camp, and served in North Africa, Sicily, the Italian mainland, southern France, and Germany.
- During his 27 months of overseas service he experienced all the horrors of war and watched many of his friends die in battle. He also fought two bouts with malaria and one of gangrene for a bullet wound to the hip.
- Audie Murphy was the most decorated soldier of WWII.
You might think of such a real life hero as someone who, coming from a poor Texas family, probably didn’t have a lot of morals or a lot to lose, and took the opportunity to make a hero of himself in an ugly war. A tough guy, with a flaring temper - a General Patton-like character without the benefit of officers training, who found his niche because he loved to fight and loved war.
Nothing - could be further - from the truth.
He was a selfless hero, unassuming of his hard won heroship, who had but two primary interests: to end the war, and to protect the lives of the men he served with.
From AJ’s book:
Like all soldiers, Murphy had to learn the art of war by experience,P95 Charles Owens, recalling his own first days with Murphy as his commanding officer, indicates why his men thought so much of him. “We could hear artillery fire in the distance. And we were wondering what in the world was going to happen to us, you know. Fresh recruits from the states…. And he said, ‘Now there’ll be times when you’ll be scared to death. I’m always scared when we’re up front. Don’t be ashamed of it.’ And he said, ‘there’ll be times when you’ll want to cry. There’s nothing wrong with that….” Owens went on to say Murph was “different from other officers. He’d sit in a foxhole and just talk to us about personal things. You know, you’d never do that with any other officers. And we’d cover up with the same blanket.
P94 Horace Ditterline remembers his first day in action and being sent to Lieutenant Murphy’s company. “I was scared to death. Murph was just a second lieutenant…and he WAS A LITTLE KID. I mean, actually. He [looked] about 17 and I was 27. And I thought, ‘What are YOU doing telling ME what to do?’ but I soon got the feeling that he was our company commander and God bless him, I’d do anything I could to help him.”
- A Myth in Action, Ann Livingston Joiner, (2006)
By 26 January 1945, Audie Murphy had already attained war hero status. But what happened on this day would lift him to mythic status for the ages.P81 “If I discovered one valuable thing during my early combat days”, [Murph says], “it was audacity, which is often mistaken for courage or foolishness. It is neither. Audacity is a tactical weapon. Nine times out of ten it will throw the enemy off-balance and confuse him.”
- Audie Murphy
- A Myth in Action, Ann Livingston Joiner, (2006)
AJ writes:
From the Congressional Citation:P98 On this particular day, however, even though the artillery was slowing down the enemy advance, especially of the tanks, the infantrymen kept coming. The two tank destroyers that had been assigned to him were both disabled, but he noticed that one of them still had a .50 caliber machine gun intact on its turret. It was also on fire, but that fact did not detain Murph. Carrying the field phone with him, he climbed onto the tank destroyer and began to rake the approaching Germans with it. In between bursts, he continued to call artillery in, closer and closer to his own position, responding to the headquarters lieutenant’s anxious questions with humorous barbs. When asked how close the enemy was to his position, he responded, “Hold the phone and I’ll let you talk to one of the bastards.”
- A Myth in Action, Ann Livingston Joiner, (2006)
Lieutenant Murphy ordered his men to withdraw to a prepared position in the woods while he remained forward at his command post and continued to give fire directions to the artillery by telephone. Behind him to his right one of our tank destroyers received a direct hit and began to burn. Its crew withdrew to the woods. Lieutenant Murphy continued to direct artillery fire, which killed large numbers of the advancing enemy infantry. With the enemy tanks abreast of his position, Lieutenant Murphy climbed on the burning tank destroyer, which was in danger of blowing up any instant, and employed its.50 caliber machine gun against the enemy.
He was alone and exposed to the German fire from three sides, but his deadly fire killed dozens of Germans and caused their infantry attack to waver. The enemy tanks, losing infantry support, began to fall back. For an hour the Germans tried every available weapon to eliminate Lieutenant Murphy, but he continued to hold his position and wiped out a squad which was trying to creep up unnoticed on his right flank. Germans reached as close as 10 yards only to be mowed down by his fire. He received a leg wound but ignored it and continued the single-handed fight until his ammunition was exhausted. He then made his way to his company, refused medical attention, and organized the company in a counterattack, which forced the Germans to withdraw.
Five minutes would feel like an eternity in a gunfight – especially when alone and greatly outnumbered. This twenty-one year old fought off six tanks and scores of infantry for sixty minutes! Talk about facing the dragon.
But AJ’s book is much more than a retelling of the story of a real life hero. It is relating the ‘real life’ experience to the ‘Hero Cycle’ as presented by Joseph Campbell.
I’ve never heard of this approach with Campbell’s ‘Hero Cycle’. Rather than looking at fairy tales or the mythic tale and seeing how it relates to a real life, she takes a real life hero and shows how it relates to the fairy tale image - and Campbell’s Hero Cycle.P89 The knowledge gained from seeing oneself in the face of the enemy is one of the most important elements of the message of the returning hero…
Campbell continues, referring to studies by Geza Roheim, “Whatever is killed becomes the father,” and from this crisis arises “the irresistible impulse to make war: The impulse to destroy the father is continually transforming itself into public violence.” Eventually, if the hero is to conquer the dark forces, he must become aware of this unconscious projection
It was not only the individual warrior, Audie Murphy, who carried this unconscious projection with him in World War II. All of America was at war with “The Fatherland.” And much of our culture is tied up with the language it speaks. The English language itself developed out of Germanic roots, so Germany, in many senses, was a “father” image to the country.
- A Myth in Action, Ann Livingston Joiner, (2006)
And she does it with stunning affect.
It is uncanny that Audie Murphy died accidentally on Memorial Day weekend 1971. A true-life hero had died, to be sure. But in my mind, it was just at this time that America witnessed a much more profound death, and one that we are still struggling with: the death of the warrior hero.P138 One of the lessons that Murphy learned during the war was that there are positive values even in the greatest evil, and he came home to see that there was also great evil in what was purported to be the “world of light.” “War brings out the very best in a man, “ he would say later. “You have everything, and you know that you can depend on the guy who stands shoulder to shoulder with you,” and again, “War taught me how to get along with people, not to be selfish. War is a pretty good course in public relations.” Conversely, he pointed out that fear often brings out the worst. Murphy clearly understood a psychological truth. War itself is evil, but warrioring is an essential part of being human.
- A Myth in Action, Ann Livingston Joiner, (2006)
Great book AJ.
- NoMan