When this book came up as a recommendation, I thought back to the movie ‘Platoon‘ (Orion Pictures, 1986) by Oliver Stone. There is a scene before the final battle in which Bunny (Kevin Dillon) and Junior (Reggie Johnson) have been instructed by Sgt. Barnes (Tom Berenger) to get back in their fox holes. Junior is at his breaking point but Bunny is getting warmed up and says to him “don’t you worry my man, you’re hanging with Audie Murphy now“. I had heard of Audie Murphy before mainly through my father, who was quite familiar with his story and the 1955 film of the same name. This is the story behind the film of the most decorated soldier to return from World War II.
The book opens with a foreword famed NBC journalist Tom Brokaw before moving to Murphy’s story which begins in Kingston, Texas where we quickly learn that his father has walked out on the family. He is one of twelve children born to Emmett Berry Murphy and Josie Bell Killian. At the age sixteen, his mother dies and the young teenager is forced to grow up literally overnight. At the age of eighteen, he reports to the Marine Corps recruiting station but is initially refused enlistment because of his weight and age. Murphy is determined to sign up and eventually succeeds in his quest. His thirst for action is soon quenched as he finds himself on the front lines in the Mediterranean Theater off the shores of Morocco. As the story progresses, we are quickly thrown into the mix of the action as Murphy and his platoon are actively engaged in fierce combat. Soliders enter and exit the story quickly, some having been felled by a sharpshooter’s bullet and others having fell victim to shells and rockets. The scenes are graphic and death lingers over them like a storm cloud that breaks without any hint of warning.
The Marines needed killers and Murphy eagerly signed for the task. Yet the savagery of war is not lost on him and this quote sheds light on the humanity that resides in all soldiers: “But it is not easy to shed the idea that human life is sacred . The lieutenant has not yet accepted the fact that we have been put into the field to deal out death“. To say that war is hell is an understatment. Murphy understood the darkness of it all but make no mistake he believed in the job he was assigned to do and he takes pride in being a leatherneck. He is a killer but one who sees the dysfunction of war and realizes that death is everywhere at all times. Bravery is his speciality but not idiocy. Further, he was not invincible to the dangers of infantry including malaria which catches him in its grip on more than one occasion. His time in the infirmary where he meets the nurse known only as “Helen” is a needed relief from the constant descriptions of the last moments of fellow Marines.
The European Theater is undoubtedly where the story picks up pace and as they march across Italy, Murphy fills the book with recreation of battle scenes and hilarious anecdotes through the likes of fellow soldiers such as Novak, Swope and Kerrigan, whom Murphy calls the “Irishman”. He and Kerrigan develop a lasting friendship built upon the time they spend facing death and dishing it out to German forces. At the book’s closing, Murphy remarks “but I also believe in men like Brandon and Novak and Swope and Kerrigan ; and all the men who stood up against the enemy , taking their beatings without whimper and their triumphs without boasting . The men who went and would go again to hell and back to preserve what our country thinks right and decent “. Between the soldiers is a sense of humor that some readers may find to be somewhat macabre. But in war, the rules of reality and morality are changed in ways some of us cannot comprehend.
The book is less than three hundred pages but it is by far one of the best memoirs of war I have read. It is dark, humorous and enlightening at the same time. War creates a separate world in which soldiers navigate while trying to hold onto their morals and sanity. Both are sometimes sacrificed and no one who leaves alive, leaves the same. There are many books on World War II but to see the war from the grunt’s point of view is a separate experience and Murphy delivered the goods. Highly recommended.
ASIN: B008VDJGDA
If you have ever listened to a song by Sam Cooke (1931-1964), then I am sure you can agree that no one is ever the same after hearing his voice. My parents and grandparents played his albums and knew many of his songs by memory, singing them with as much passion as Cooke did while on stage. For millions of black Americans, Sam Cooke was the best singer of his time and his death on December 11, 1964, sent music fans into mourning as one of the most beloved singers in America was laid to rest. Today, almost fifty-six years after his death, the songs he produced sound as if they were recorded yesterday. In fact, earlier today, I listened yet again to ‘A Change is Gonna Come’ which many people believe to be his best recording. Spike Lee opted to use it in the 1992 film ‘Malcolm X’, in the scene where Malcolm (Denzel Washington) walks toward the Audubon Ballroom and his fate after parking his car. Cooke’s music has stood the test of time and will continue to do so. But just who was the real Sam Cooke?
On Easter Sunday, my mother would have my brother and I watched the epid Hollywoof Film ‘The Ten Commandements’. It is one Chartlon Heston’s (1923-2008) best roles and his agtonist in the film, Yul Brynner (1920-1985), delivers an equally compelling performance a Ramesses II. In fact, it remains the film by which I have always recognized Brynner. However, like most great stars of his era, often called the “Golden Era of Hollywood”, there was more to his life than the public was able to see. His son Rock Brynner decided to turn memories of his childhood into this memoir of the time he spent with his father, one of Hollywood’s leading men.
Many years have passed since I studied philosophy in college. Names such as Kant and Freud were part of my regularly assigned reading. However, one name I was not particularly exposed to was Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961), the late Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who is widely held high regard as a pioneer in the field of psychology. I saw this biography on Amazon and decided to take another look at his life and beliefs. When starting the book I had no judgments about Jung but was sure I would learn a new way of looking at the human mind and what lies behind our thoughts and actions. And while I did find some very interesting concepts put forth by Jung, there is far more to the book than meets the eye.
On December 25, 1979, the armed forces of the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in support of pro-Communist forces engaged in a power struggle with insurgent forces known as the mujahideen. Soviet forces marched into the capital city of Kabul and later succeeded in staging a coup in which President Hafizullah Amin (1929-1979) was removed and replaced with Soviet loyalist Babrak Karmal (1929-1966). Thousands of Afghan citizens were rendered homeless as bombs fells and brutal fighting produced collateral damage. For Enjeela Ahmadi-Miller, the war changed her life in ways she could have never imagined.
In the state of South Dakota, the Pine Ridge Reservation is home to the descendants of the Oglala Sioux Native American tribe. The children of Pine Ridge aspire to enroll in the Red Cloud High School with hopes of attending college. Many of their parent, suffer from alcoholism, a plague that has followed the Oglala Sioux since their first encounter with white settlers in the early 1800s. Poverty and discrimination have resulted in depression and despair which has yet to be fully addressed. The true story of the Native American experience remains misunderstood and in some cases neglected. They current day Oglala are the descendants of indigenous people whose home was a North American continent in which life was simple yet effective with languages largely unwritten and passed down through oral teaching. The Sioux were only one of hundreds of tribes, some of whom are now extinct such as the Canarsie Indians. Chief Luther Standing Bear (1868-1939) was born in Rosebud, South Dakota into the Oglala Sioux tribe and this is his story of his life and his people.
On September 22, 1980, the Iraqi military marched into neighboring Iran under the orders of President Saddam Hussein (1937-2006). Tensions between Hussein and Ruhollah Khomeini (1902-1989) had been brewing over control of the Shatt al-Arab river, Iraqi nationalism and Khomeini’s calls for the Ba’ath party to overthrow the Iraqi government. The conflict raged for eight years before a cease-fired was signed in August, 1988. It is estimated that the war resulted in the deaths of nearly 1.5 million Iraqis and Iranians. On both sides, villages were destroyed, leaving thousands homeless and families permanently separated. Children as young as thirteen were conscripted to serve, becoming trained killers before the age of twenty-one. After the cease-fire, prisoners of war remained held in prisons on both sides before they were slowly repatriated. This book is the story of two of those prisoners who survived the war, living to tell their story about the war that changed their lives.
The history of Native Americans was for many years, untold and in some cases omitted. the trail of tears is just one example of the systematic process of relocation enforced by the United States Government as America continued to expand. The natives were seen as uncivilized in comparison to their American and European counterparts. The natives would readily say their lives were uncomplicated and simple. Many resisted the influence of soldiers on their land and fought to the death to preserve their homes. Others did not resist and accepted the lifestyle and religion of the white man. Dr. Charles Alexander Eastman (1858-1939) was one of those who migrated from one world to another and in this short but interesting autobiography, he recalls his life and his path from the deep woods to civilization.
On October 4, 1970, singer Janis Joplin (1943-1970) died from a lethal combination of heroin and alcohol at the Landmark Hotel in Los Angeles. The building is still there but has been renamed the Highland Gardens Hotel. In death, she joined the 27 Club, a group of famous stars who all tragically died at the young age of twenty-seven. In stardom, she had come to symbolize the culture change taking place across America as the ideals of the 1950s and 1960s were replaced by the liberated generation of the 1970s. To some, she was everything wrong with the “hippie” culture and to others she was inspiration and an example of someone who came from humble beginnings to leave their mark on the world. To a small group of people, she was simply Janis, daughter and older sister. This book is a look at her life from the eyes of her younger sister Laura, born six years after her famous sibling.
On December 31, 1972, a DC-7, loaded beyond its maximum capacity, taxied down the runway at San Juan International Airport in Puerto Rico. The plane had been chartered by Pittsburgh Pirates star Roberto Enrique Clemente Walker (1934-1972), who set out to deliver supplies to the Central American nation of Nicaragua that was struggling to recover in the wake of a devastating earthquake. There were no survivors and Clemente’s body was never found. He was 38 years of age and left behind a widow Vera (1941-2019) and three sons. He was posthumously inducted in the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame and his number, 21, was officially retired by the Pirates in 1973. More than forty years have passed since his death, but to this day he is regarded as one of the greatest Latin baseball players to have ever played the game. This is the story of his life by fan and author David Maraniss.
FREETHINKING BIBLIOPHILE 
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