[Of related interest: “Thursday Early Morning and Evening, TCM Broadcasts War Pictures Featuring Real World War II Heroes: PT 109 (1963) at 2:30 a.m. ET, Starring Cliff Robertson as Lt. John F. Kennedy, and a Rare Viewing of To Hell and Back (1955) at 8 p.m. ET, Starring America’s Greatest WWII Hero, Audie Murphy, Playing Himself.”]
Audie Murphy wasn’t the Only Hero in His Family
Sunday, April 15, 2018
By David in TN
The story of an American hero’s wife never gets too old to tell
By Dennis McCarthy | dmccarthynews@gmail.com |
April 5, 2018 at 3:59 p.m.
Daily News
All these years later, she’s still remembered by newspaper editors and publishers in small towns across this country wanting to know if they can reprint for their readers a column I wrote on her death.
Sure, I tell them, go ahead. We had her all to ourselves out here for so long working at the Sepulveda VA, we almost took her for granted — as if that was ever really possible.
There’s never been a woman who commanded so much attention and respect from the first moment the veterans heard whispers in the VA hallways about who the sweet lady carrying the clipboard was.
Pamela Murphy, widow of America’s most decorated fighting man in World War II – Medal of Honor recipient Audie Murphy. Mr. Hell and Back.
It was like somebody told them Gen. Patton was knocking at the front door or Ike was flying in from the White House to pay the troops a visit. Their backs stiffened and they snapped to attention.
RELATED STORY: Dennis McCarthy: Remembering shy heroine Pam Murphy on Veterans Day
Audie Murphy’s widow? No fooling?
Pam Murphy had lived in Audie’s massive shadow for 20 years. She never complained publicly when his gambling took all their money, and his philandering stole their marriage.
After he died at age 46 in a 1971 private plane crash, we all learned of the demons the war-hero-turned-Hollywood-actor had still been fighting – the faces of buddies he lost and men he killed (an estimated 250 German soldiers) were returning now as nightmares, not medals.
Pam always defended him, even as she was forced to move from their sprawling ranch-style home in Van Nuys to a small, one-bedroom apartment near the VA in Mission Hills – taking a clerk’s job in the main reception area to support herself, and begin paying off Audie’s considerable debts.
RELATED STORY: Dennis McCarthy: Pam Murphy, widow of actor Audie Murphy, was veterans’ friend and advocate
It took her nearly 10 years, but she paid off every one – 100 cents on the dollar. Nobody would ever say Audie Murphy welched on a deal.
Men with tears in their eyes would walk up to her in the hallway, and ask for a hug when they learned who she was. “Thank you,” they said, over and over. The first couple of years, the hugs were more for Audie.
The last 30 years, they were for her.
She was the one who held their hand when they were in pain, the one cutting through the red tape to get her boys in to see the specialists they needed. She never looked for quitting time to arrive. She left when the last veteran on her clipboard had seen the doctor.
And if one was still sitting there an hour after his appointment time, she thought nothing of taking him by the hand, and marching him past the objecting receptionist, and straight into the doctor’s office.
She got reprimanded more than a few times, but she didn’t care. They were her boys, Audie’s war buddies, and she was going to take care of them. If that meant stepping on some toes, well, tough.
The VA was there to serve the veterans, not the other way around.
In 2002, she was one of the employees who were going to be laid off because of budget cuts. She was considered “excess staff.”
Excess, hell, said the old vets. If she goes, we go. For a week, they protested outside the VA gates until Pam Murphy wasn’t considered excess staff anymore.
It had been many years since she had been back to Arlington National Cemetery to visit Audie’s gravesite because money was always tight. She had a friend in Washington D.C. who would put flowers on his grave for her every Veteran’s Day.
With all Audie had put her through, all the heartbreak, she still loved the guy.
Pam worked at the VA right up to her 87th birthday, and died three years later peacefully in her sleep in the same small apartment she took after Audie died.
It was standing room only at her memorial in a little chapel on the VA grounds. Old soldiers and Marines who had looked death in the face with her husband, and never blinked, couldn’t hold back their tears at her passing.
And now, I’m sitting here eight years later getting ready to send an email to the publisher of the Midwest Country News in Southern Iowa and Northern Missouri, who wants to know if she can reprint the story of Pamela Murphy for her readers.
Absolutely.
Dennis McCarthy’s column runs on Friday. He can be reached at dmccarthynews@gmail.com.
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