I’ll tell you what bravery really is. Bravery is just determination to do a job that you know has to be done.
The true meaning of America, you ask? It’s in a Texas rodeo, in a policeman’s badge, in the sound of laughing children, in a political rally, in a newspaper… In all these things, and many more, you’ll find America. In all these things, you’ll find freedom. And freedom is what America means to the world. And to me.
I never liked being called the ‘most decorated’ soldier. There were so many guys who should have gotten medals and never did–
guys who were killed.
After the war, they took Army dogs and rehabilitated them for civilian life. But they turned soldiers into civilians immediately, and let em sink or swim.
I was scared before every battle. That old instinct of self-preservation is a pretty basic thing, but while the action was going on some part of my mind shut off and my training and discipline took over. I did what I had to do.
Sometimes it takes more courage to get up and run than to stay. You either just do it or you don’t. I got so scared the first day in combat I just decided to go along with it.
Actual combat experience is the only teacher. You never come out of a skirmish without having picked up a couple of new tricks; without having learned more about your enemy…Total involvement with the war was the only thing that kept me alive and pushing.
It’s not easy to shed the idea that human life is sacred.
Now I have shed my first blood. I feel no qualms, no pride, no remorse. There is only a weary indifference that will follow me throughout the war.
They were singing in French, but the melody was freedom and any American could understand that.
I Knew why I felt at home. The spirit of freedom was hovering over that play yard as it did all over France at that time. A country was free again.
I’m glad that it didn’t take as long to get Shepard off the ground as it’s taken this series. I’d begun to think the Congo would be ahead of us in the space race before Whispering Smith ever got on the air.
No soldier ever really survives a war.
And freedom is what America means to the world.
Audie Murphy
