Audie Murphy
Audie Murphy comes Home
From The Examiner, June 21, 1945
Lt. Audie L. Murphy a grinning freckle-faced boy who hasn't changed a bit, came home to Farmersville Thursday night with every decoration his country can give a fighting man.
this little Collin County town of 2,206 residents gave him a real hero's welcome. He rode into town with Mayor R. B. Beaver behind a McKinney fire struck will all sirens screaming.
The parade of more than 20 cars met him at McKinney swished him through town, then drove into Farmersville. Excited men and women and little boys and girls waved wildly and shouted above the honking horns as the parade looped the Farmersville square. American flags decorated the narrow sidewalks.
But the best welcome of all was at a small frame house six blocks from town. There Lieutenant Murphy met his family, three sisters, and a little brother, for the first time in three years.
And through it all Lieutenant Murphy, appreciative but bewildered, grinned a little nervously, waved back and made his sly-Irish-witted remarks that have stumped hero-hunters across the nation.
On his new khaki worsted uniform hung the Congressional medal of Honor, the highest Honor, the highest award this country can give; the Distinguished Service Cross, a Silver Star and Cluster Equivalent to two Silver Stars, three awards of the Purple Heart, the Bronze Star and the Legion of Merit.
In the hard-fighting campaigns of the Seventh Army through Africa, Sicily, Italy and France Murphy showed the stuff he was made of.
At Holtzwihr, France, Lieutenant Murphy ordered his company back, then stayed inn the flaming tank destroyer to blat two advancing German companies to a half. After he stalled the Nazi infantry, and his ammunition was gone, he limped back to his company. Seriously wounded, he refused treatment, reorganized his outfit and led an attack that routed the Germans.
That was only one of the times. But it was the sort of bravery that won for him a commission out of the ranks and a promotion to first lieutenant while in the fighting lines. He commanded the same company he fought with overseas for about forty months.
Lieutenant Murphy was just glad to get out alive, he said.
"Sure the going's rough, but I guess it isn't as bad as we think when we're in the midst of it," he said.
Glory is something he doesn't quite understand, this by who thinks straight and with experience-born realism.
Lt. Gen. Alexander M. Patch, commander of the Seventh Army, presented him with the congressional Medal of Honor and the Legion of Merit in Austria.
At the Burns home in Farmersville, Lt. Murphy greeted sister, brothers, cousins, and neighbors. The thing that amazed him most was that his pretty sister, Nadine, was growing up.
The Farmersville hero, who had done odd jobs around town before enlisting at 18, visited some old clients, had a 21st birthday party with his orphaned brother and sisters and finally went to Dallas to see his girl. Lieutenant Murphy, whose Medal of Honor entitles him to get out of the Army, thinks he will stay in.
From The Examiner, June 21, 1945
Lt. Audie L. Murphy a grinning freckle-faced boy who hasn't changed a bit, came home to Farmersville Thursday night with every decoration his country can give a fighting man.
this little Collin County town of 2,206 residents gave him a real hero's welcome. He rode into town with Mayor R. B. Beaver behind a McKinney fire struck will all sirens screaming.
The parade of more than 20 cars met him at McKinney swished him through town, then drove into Farmersville. Excited men and women and little boys and girls waved wildly and shouted above the honking horns as the parade looped the Farmersville square. American flags decorated the narrow sidewalks.
But the best welcome of all was at a small frame house six blocks from town. There Lieutenant Murphy met his family, three sisters, and a little brother, for the first time in three years.
And through it all Lieutenant Murphy, appreciative but bewildered, grinned a little nervously, waved back and made his sly-Irish-witted remarks that have stumped hero-hunters across the nation.
On his new khaki worsted uniform hung the Congressional medal of Honor, the highest Honor, the highest award this country can give; the Distinguished Service Cross, a Silver Star and Cluster Equivalent to two Silver Stars, three awards of the Purple Heart, the Bronze Star and the Legion of Merit.
In the hard-fighting campaigns of the Seventh Army through Africa, Sicily, Italy and France Murphy showed the stuff he was made of.
At Holtzwihr, France, Lieutenant Murphy ordered his company back, then stayed inn the flaming tank destroyer to blat two advancing German companies to a half. After he stalled the Nazi infantry, and his ammunition was gone, he limped back to his company. Seriously wounded, he refused treatment, reorganized his outfit and led an attack that routed the Germans.
That was only one of the times. But it was the sort of bravery that won for him a commission out of the ranks and a promotion to first lieutenant while in the fighting lines. He commanded the same company he fought with overseas for about forty months.
Lieutenant Murphy was just glad to get out alive, he said.
"Sure the going's rough, but I guess it isn't as bad as we think when we're in the midst of it," he said.
Glory is something he doesn't quite understand, this by who thinks straight and with experience-born realism.
Lt. Gen. Alexander M. Patch, commander of the Seventh Army, presented him with the congressional Medal of Honor and the Legion of Merit in Austria.
At the Burns home in Farmersville, Lt. Murphy greeted sister, brothers, cousins, and neighbors. The thing that amazed him most was that his pretty sister, Nadine, was growing up.
The Farmersville hero, who had done odd jobs around town before enlisting at 18, visited some old clients, had a 21st birthday party with his orphaned brother and sisters and finally went to Dallas to see his girl. Lieutenant Murphy, whose Medal of Honor entitles him to get out of the Army, thinks he will stay in.
