Audie Murphy

Last week I watched an old Audie Murphy western. Audie Murphy had fought in World War Two, and he had been perhaps the most effective infantry soldier in history. He’d won every medal possible, including the Medal of Honor, and he’d killed, on his own, more than 100 German soldiers (as I recall).

Murphy was a small man, and on screen he usually looked worried and bit pinched. He suffered from PTSD. When there was a showdown in a movie and he went for his rifle or pistol, it was nothing like John Wayne going for his gun. Wayne had never faced a weapon in real life, and he walked with a swing of the hips associated with bone spurs.