To Hell and Back

Rating:
Summary: A must read
Review: Audie Murphy is truly a hero. This is self-evident. His book deals very well with giving the feeling of being a soldier, with the incredible stress that comes from being in a life-and-death situation. This feeling includes anger, and apathy, and friendship. Murphy describes the events of his time in service straight-forwardly and clearly.

For anyone studying war, whether in terms of history, military science, morality in war, etc., this book is a must read. In the bird's eye view of war, one sees strategies, tactics, political imperatives, and the like. This work will always serve to remind scholars and interested amatuers of the costs of battle, and the strength of the men who risk their lives for their country. The reader will remember, not just that battles occur, but that in these conflicts, soldiers must face (as Murphy talks about) friends dying, men they were just talking to being vaporized by a mortar, good soldiers having their nerves suddenly break (having heard one bomb too many), and the like.

This book helps those who study war to always remember the human element - both in terms of the tragedy for those involved, but also the courage of those involved. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: The Modest Hero
Review: Audie Murphy's To Hell and Back is one of the quintessential front-line soldier accounts of the Second World War. The book is not a memoir or autobiography, since Murphy wrote little of it himself and describes little of his life before or after his combat experiences. Nor does Murphy even mention any of awards, including the Medal of Honor, or the fact that he served the entire war in B Company, 1-15th Infantry, 3rd Infantry Division. The book focuses entirely on the period July 1943 to March 1945, with most of the emphasis on the Anzio, Southern France and Vosges campaigns. On the negative side, Murphy's account is extremely self-effacing and at times is more focused on his squad members, whose GI Joe conversations appear fake and silly. Nevertheless, Murphy's comrades appear as real human beings and the reader will regret the death of each. To Hell and Back is not particularly well written - it is in fact a rather pedestrian account that wanders at times - but what it lacks in style it delivers in frank reality. Murphy's wartime account is often brutal - sometimes humorous - but it makes other more recent homogenized efforts like Band of Brothers seem contrived in comparison.

Currently, the myth has been propagated that only highly trained specialists in peak physical and mental condition should engage in close infantry combat. Audi Murphy, the scrawny, orphaned teenager from Texas who was rejected by the marines and paratroopers, stands to discredit that myth. In combat, Murphy found his niche in life. With a carbine in his hands, Murphy became a real killer. Quick reflexes, common sense and a certain amount of luck gave him the edge and allowed him to survive all his original squad mates. A great deal has been written and speculated about Murphy's psychology and motivations; there is no doubt that he sought out combat even when he could have avoided it. Was he a war-lover or have a death wish? No. Murphy fought because he was good at it. As the main character in the French film Capitaine Conan noted, "millions were in the war but only a few thousand actually fought it." Murphy was one of those soldiers who was never content just to survive the war but rather, he was strongly motivated to play an active role. While Murphy never cracked under the strain of nearly two years of combat, there is little doubt that the war marked him indelibly. By Anzio, Murphy had become imbued with a tough, no-nonsense set of values. At the end of To Hell and Back, Murphy writes, "when I was a child, I was told that men were branded by war. Has the brand been put on me? Have the years of blood and ruin stripped me of all decency? Of all belief? Not of all belief. I believe in the force of a hand grenade, the power of artillery, the accuracy of a Garand. I believe in hitting before you get hit, and that dead men do not look noble."

Unfortunately, the weakest aspect of To Hell and Back is the author's failure to paint a complete portrait of himself. Important issues, like how did a combat-wise Sergeant Murphy deal with his inexperienced lieutenants in Anzio or France are virtually ignored. The fact that Murphy rose from squad leader, to platoon sergeant, to platoon leader to company commander in the same company is never addressed, but would have been very interesting. How did Murphy handle the transition from enlisted, to NCO to commissioned officer surrounded by his peers? To Hell and Back is enhanced by the fact that it was written only shortly after the war when memories were still sharp, but the rush to publish a "blood and guts" account undermines the value of Murphy's story. The brief introduction by Tom Brokaw also appears a blatant attempt to market a dead hero, as if his name was brand-name merchandise. Brokaw says nothing of value in this introduction, and it should have been written by somebody who actually knew the man, rather than some publicity-hog talking head from NBC who never met him or served in the military.

Hopefully, the reprint of To Hell and Back will help to keep alive the notion that America can produce fine soldiers from places other than West Point. Murphy's book should also be compared with other war memoirs from other authors and other wars. Recently, I read the Persian Gulf War memoir entitled The Eyes of Orion, and was struck by the authors' near-obsession with post-war graduate school plans while remaining virtually oblivious to their potential for battlefield death. Murphy said, "until the last shot is fired, I will go on living from day to day, making no postwar plans." Compared with the pretentious, homogenized, backbiting Band of Brothers, Murphy's book seems incredibly modest and civil. Although Murphy's unit suffered heavy casualties and was often short of food in the front-line, the author never complained about his superiors or the US Army. Murphy's unselfish and uncritical reflection of his wartime service should stand as an example of others who serve and write.

Rating:
Summary: The Modest Hero
Review: Audie Murphy's To Hell and Back is one of the quintessential front-line soldier accounts of the Second World War. The book is not a memoir or autobiography, since Murphy wrote little of it himself and describes little of his life before or after his combat experiences. Nor does Murphy even mention any of awards, including the Medal of Honor, or the fact that he served the entire war in B Company, 1-15th Infantry, 3rd Infantry Division. The book focuses entirely on the period July 1943 to March 1945, with most of the emphasis on the Anzio, Southern France and Vosges campaigns. On the negative side, Murphy's account is extremely self-effacing and at times is more focused on his squad members, whose GI Joe conversations appear fake and silly. Nevertheless, Murphy's comrades appear as real human beings and the reader will regret the death of each. To Hell and Back is not particularly well written - it is in fact a rather pedestrian account that wanders at times - but what it lacks in style it delivers in frank reality. Murphy's wartime account is often brutal - sometimes humorous - but it makes other more recent homogenized efforts like Band of Brothers seem contrived in comparison.

Currently, the myth has been propagated that only highly trained specialists in peak physical and mental condition should engage in close infantry combat. Audi Murphy, the scrawny, orphaned teenager from Texas who was rejected by the marines and paratroopers, stands to discredit that myth. In combat, Murphy found his niche in life. With a carbine in his hands, Murphy became a real killer. Quick reflexes, common sense and a certain amount of luck gave him the edge and allowed him to survive all his original squad mates. A great deal has been written and speculated about Murphy's psychology and motivations; there is no doubt that he sought out combat even when he could have avoided it. Was he a war-lover or have a death wish? No. Murphy fought because he was good at it. As the main character in the French film Capitaine Conan noted, "millions were in the war but only a few thousand actually fought it." Murphy was one of those soldiers who was never content just to survive the war but rather, he was strongly motivated to play an active role. While Murphy never cracked under the strain of nearly two years of combat, there is little doubt that the war marked him indelibly. By Anzio, Murphy had become imbued with a tough, no-nonsense set of values. At the end of To Hell and Back, Murphy writes, "when I was a child, I was told that men were branded by war. Has the brand been put on me? Have the years of blood and ruin stripped me of all decency? Of all belief? Not of all belief. I believe in the force of a hand grenade, the power of artillery, the accuracy of a Garand. I believe in hitting before you get hit, and that dead men do not look noble."

Unfortunately, the weakest aspect of To Hell and Back is the author's failure to paint a complete portrait of himself. Important issues, like how did a combat-wise Sergeant Murphy deal with his inexperienced lieutenants in Anzio or France are virtually ignored. The fact that Murphy rose from squad leader, to platoon sergeant, to platoon leader to company commander in the same company is never addressed, but would have been very interesting. How did Murphy handle the transition from enlisted, to NCO to commissioned officer surrounded by his peers? To Hell and Back is enhanced by the fact that it was written only shortly after the war when memories were still sharp, but the rush to publish a "blood and guts" account undermines the value of Murphy's story. The brief introduction by Tom Brokaw also appears a blatant attempt to market a dead hero, as if his name was brand-name merchandise. Brokaw says nothing of value in this introduction, and it should have been written by somebody who actually knew the man, rather than some publicity-hog talking head from NBC who never met him or served in the military.

Hopefully, the reprint of To Hell and Back will help to keep alive the notion that America can produce fine soldiers from places other than West Point. Murphy's book should also be compared with other war memoirs from other authors and other wars. Recently, I read the Persian Gulf War memoir entitled The Eyes of Orion, and was struck by the authors' near-obsession with post-war graduate school plans while remaining virtually oblivious to their potential for battlefield death. Murphy said, "until the last shot is fired, I will go on living from day to day, making no postwar plans." Compared with the pretentious, homogenized, backbiting Band of Brothers, Murphy's book seems incredibly modest and civil. Although Murphy's unit suffered heavy casualties and was often short of food in the front-line, the author never complained about his superiors or the US Army. Murphy's unselfish and uncritical reflection of his wartime service should stand as an example of others who serve and write.

Rating:
Summary: Rubbish
Review: I am an ex-soldier of 13 years service with the Australian Army. I have seen active service and read many soldiers’ accounts of war. This book is truly awful. Poorly written (which is his editor’s fault), it attempts to glorify himself and war and includes a seemingly endless list of clumsily used clichés in an attempt to make the reader care about the characters, and fails miserably. The book aside, a hero - in the true sense of the word - Audie Murphy is not, a successful killer – absolutely, a sociopath – extremely likely. If you want to read a truly exceptional book written by a surviving soldier of WWII, then throw this book away and read Slaughterhouse 5, by Kurt Vonnegut.

Rating:
Summary: An American hero's story
Review: I was moved by reading the positive reviews on Amazon of this book. I read the book many years ago , and it is confused in my mind with the movie based on it. As a young person I wondered how one became a hero, and wondered whether I would ever have the kind of courage that Audie Murphy displayed time and time again in the war. Now my own Army days are long gone and I have not ever been tested, and the question of what I might have been remains academic and now irrelevant. Murphy has courage which means the ability to put oneself in danger and take those actions which remove danger from one's own people, and in the process do injury to the enemy. His boyhood training in hunting no doubt helped him develop the instincts of a soldier . The reviewers on Amazon tell how movingly Murphy writes about his fellow soldiers, and their loss in battle. After the Second World War researches about combat came to center on the idea that what mattered in motivation in war was the small unit, one's nearby fellow soldiers. The loyalty to those nearby was more important than the grand ideal. It is also said that Murphy had luck , and that goes without saying. To survive a war one must not be in the place where the grenade explodes or the bullet hits. And one can never have absolute control on that. But Murphy it is also clear also made his luck . He was a true soldier with real instincts of the right action to take. No doubt part of this was his readiness to kill. He apparently was with all the glory heaped upon him a modest person, deeply traumatized afterwards by all he had gone through. One reviewer reports that Murphy died in a small plane crash when he was only forty- six. What is important is that he was a true hero, a man who fought for his country risked himself time and time again, and played a decisive role in the combat he was involved in. Every country and maybe every war needs its heroes. Sergeant York in the first world war, and Audie Murphy ( among others)in the Second.
And here I would add one point. A nation has its freedom and Jefferson understood this only because there are Audie Murphys, those who will fight for it. The least that can be done for them is that they be recognized( as many are not) and given some kind of thanks( though they may resist this) I think now of my own dear uncle Larry Leo Zeibert of Troy, New York who was an Army Ranger and in the first landing boat in General MacArthur's invasion of the Phillipines in the battle of Leyte Gulf. My uncle fought in the jungles of New Guineau. When he came home he said to never ask him about the war, and he never talked about it. I do not want to think about the things this quiet good man saw and did . He too went through this world in a humble, backseat way and never really built anything for himself. He had a joke and a story and a way of making everyone laugh all the time. And how deeply sad and broken he was inside only God knows. May his memory like Audie Murphy's too, be for a blessing.

Rating:
Summary: A GREAT BOOK BY A GREAT AMERICAN HERO!
Review: If you have never read this book, buy it and read it. It is a very powerful and moving account of the most decorated American soldier of WWII. Audie Murphy was born outside of Kingston, Texas in June 1924, grew up poor, was deserted by his father, and joined the US Army at the age of 18 in 1942. His hunting skills as a boy served him well in hunting and killing an estimated 250 German and Italian soldiers in WWII.

An amazing aspect about Audie Murphy is that he was not limited to one feat of heroism in WWII. For almost two years, he distinguished himself as one of the greatest combat soldiers of all time with repeated acts of heroism, earning every medal our country could give including the Congressional Medal of Honor, the Distinguished Service Cross, multiple Silver Stars, Bonze Stars, and Purple Hearts.

Audie Murphy was a humble man and a born leader who would rather put himself in harms way than to risk the lives of his men if at all possible. Even though he didn't have a good father as a role model, he was a father to the men who served with him. If a soldier under his command was afraid to do a job, he would do it himself.

The book doesn't mention his life after the war (it was first written in 1949). After WWII, Audie went on to become a fine actor in Hollywood and made a few critically acclaimed films. He suffered for many years from post traumatic stress disorder as a result of his time in combat. He died tragically at the age of 46 in a small plane accident in the mountains outside of Roanoke, VA in May, 1971.

Audie Murphy was not a perfect man (there was only one - the Lord Jesus Christ) and he had his faults and problems to deal as we all do. However, he was a true American hero who deserves our nation's (and Europe's) respect and honor. May God bless Audie Murphy!

Rating:
Summary: Honest and humble memoir
Review: It was interesting to read this account of Audie Murphy's travails in World War II (Murphy was one of the most highly decorated soldiers of that war) having read Ambrose's eulogy Band of Brothers .
Murphy received (every major medal, some more than once, that the army has to offer). He joined the army at age 17 to support six siblings after his mother died (his father had left the family earlier), and he doesn't talk about how the war haunted the rest of his life.
He portrays a brutal, harsh struggle to survive, where the only thing that matters is keeping oneself and one's friends alive. There are moments of great poignancy, others of humor. Once, hungry, dirty and wet, mired in their foxholes, they notice they are under a tree with ripe cherries. Not daring to stick a head up, let alone climb out of the foxhole, Murphy's buddy gets the idea of shooting down the branches with his machine gun, and soon they are delighted to have cherry branches falling on them, making the day just a little brighter.
Not once does Murphy mention his numerous awards, Clearly, Murphy believed that luck played as much a part in his survival as anything he did. He was however, the kind of person who tried to control his destiny, doing what was necessary and taking the initiative in order to get through the day. A little piece of Murphy died every time a friend was killed, and soon almost all of his friends were gone. He was delighted if they received a wound that would return them to the rear, away from battle. He sympathized and worried for the lieutenant who had been badly injured and returned voluntarily to the front only to lose his nerve under the intense shelling. It must have been horribly traumatic to develop such close bonds and to have them ripped apart.
At the risk of sounding a little chauvinistic, I quote from the last lines of his book:
" When I was a child, I was told that men were branded by war. Has the brand been put on me? Have the years of blood and ruin stripped me of all decency? Of all belief? Not of all belief. I believe in the force of a hand grenade, the power of artillery, the accuracy of a Garand. I believe in hitting before you get hit, and that dead men do not look noble.
"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.
"My country. America! That is it. We have been so intent on death that we have forgotten life. And now suddenly life faces us. I swear to myself that I will measure up to it. I may be branded by war, but I will not be defeated by it.
"Gradually it becomes clear. I will go back. I will find the kind of girl of whom I once dreamed. I will learn to look at life through uncynical eyes, to have faith, to know love. I will learn to work in peace as in war. And finally - finally, like countless others, I will learn to live again."

Rating:
Summary: THE American War Hero
Review: The cover of this new edition of "To Hell And Back" shows a very young soldier with an incredible display of decorations, behind the cover are the exploits of how the most decorated combat soldier of WWII earned those medals, although you would never know that from the text of this book. Nowhere in this book does Audie Murphy mention that he was ever decorated, the deeds speak for themselves. Because of several bios of Audie Murphy it is known that while Audie wrote, or told to a writer, the combat stories in this book are is own, Audie's ghost writer connected his first hand accounts with pages of banter from Audie's fictionalized platoon buddies. When Audie Murphy tells his story it rings true. Only a combat veteran would write that when he stood alone, blazing away with a 50 cal. machine gun on top of a burning vehicle against six tanks and infantry that "...for the first time in three days, my feet were warm." This book follows Audie from his first day, as a green soldier on the beaches of Sicily and follows him through combat in Italy, France, and Germany. When Audie landed in France, in August of '44 he had been awarded two Bronze Stars, from August to January '45 he would earn the Distinguished Service Cross, two Silver Stars, the Legion of Merit, three Purple Hearts, and the Medal of Honor. Germany made two errors in WWII, one was attacking Russia, the other was on the first day that Audie Murphy landed in France they killed his best friend, after they pretended to surrender. The last paragraph of this book is as powerful as anything that you will read in war fiction. This is a great book, I'm glad that the legend of Audie Murphy is available to new generations.

Rating:
Summary: A Dogface Classic
Review: This book is a classic of infantry warfare. It should be noted that Murphy wrote less than 10 percent of the book himself. In fact, the bulk of the book was written buy a fellow veteran and Hollywood screenwriter (and full-time alcoholic) David "Spec" McClure. Their collaborative process in writing the book is interesting. McClure would use Murphy's medal citations and Donald Taggart's classic "History of the Third Infantry Division in World War II," for solid reference, then he would interview Murphy, that is, provided if he was so inclined to speak. If the session was fruitful, much was done. If it wasn't, it went slow. Murphy would then read over what was done and either he would approve it or send it back. Sometimes, McClure would get so annoyed when Audie would send a passage back he'd yell at Murphy, "Well what DID happen?" then Murphy would tell him. It took them a year, but they finally completed it. The result was a bestseller and a future movie adaptation.

One thing about this book for a more contemporary reader: this book is packed with a lot of dialogue much of which borders on the hokey. Still, that doesn't lessen the impact of Murphy's story. Also he never mentions his medals. His tone at times screams of modesty. Sometimes, you don't even know he's there, he lets his friends and comrades-in-arms do most of the talking (in here, their names are fictionalized). The book's dedication to two of his buddies who were killed in action should come off as no surprise.

I'm glad to see this classic being reprinted. Let's hope it never goes out of print.

Rating:
Summary: Bad
Review: This is one of the corniest and poorly written books I have ever read. With GI Joe conversations and mentality, it boasts about American superiority in everything. The book doesn't even really describe Murphy himself, since the descriptions seem to focus on secondary characters. And how does Murphy know how many soldiers he incapacitated? What, did he carve notches in his gun? REAL soldiers aren't proud of how many people they killed. Anybody can pin a whole bunch of medals on somebody; they don't have to deserve it. Those medals could have gone to soldiers who really deserved them. This book is a joke. If you want REAL heroism, check out Ghost Soldiers or The Forgotten Soldier. Don't waste your time.