The Middle of the Forest

...he endured the shame
           of being sent home
                      a living trophy
to the blood and death
              of too many friends.

A Myth in Action: The Heroic Life of Audie Murphy

by Ann Levingston Joiner

relates the life of a Texas farmboy who enlisted in

the Army in 1942. By the end of WWII, 5‘ 6“ and

barely twenty, he had been field-commissioned

and had won more medals for valor than any sol-

dier in American history. Coming home a legend,

he spentthe rest of his life portraying heroes in

Hollywood films. He died tragically at 45. His story

echoes those of mythological heroes described by

comparative mythologist, Joseph Campbell

(Hero with a Thousand Faces), psychologist Rollo May

(The Cry for Myth) and others. Heroes' lives follow an

“archetypal” pattern, from Homer’s Perseus through

the Arthurian Percival,to Luke Skywalker - and Audie Murphy.