Audie Murphy: Too Young to Fight! The big Marine recruiting sergeant looked up at the thin face of the kid in front of the desk. "How old are you?" he asked. "Eighteen, sir!" "Yep," the sergeant said dryly. His experienced eyes studied the thin frame of the young Texas boy. "How tall?" he asked at last. "Five feet, seven, sergeant." The sergeant nodded, then looked the kid full in the eyes. "How much do you weigh?" The kid hesitated. "One hundred and eight pounds, sir." The sergeant shook his head. "You can't make the US Marines. Try the Army down the street. I hear they have a war on, too." He turned away to avoid the hurt look in the kid's eyes. The boy walked toward the door. "What did you say your name was?" called out the sergeant. The kid turned. "Murphy. . .Audie Murphy. . . ." Then he was gone. The sergeant shrugged. He had to face many of these boys trying to worm their way into the Marines. The Marines wanted men. "Audie Murphy," he said with a grunt, then promptly dismissed the episode from his mind. It wasn't until three or four years later that he would remember that name with a start. . . Audie Murphy. The kid had a hard time. He was seventeen, not eighteen, in that blazing war year of 1942, and he wanted to be a Marine, a flier, or a soldier--anything so that he could get away from the cotton fields of this part of Texas. But the paratroopers turned him down, too, although an experienced recruiting sergeant tipped the boy off to filling up on bananas and milk. It was a good tip. He made four pounds that way and was finally accepted in the infantry. It didn't take him long to get a nickname in his training outfit at Camp Wolters, Texas. Service outfits have a neat way of tabbing a man with a nickname that sticks. For thirteen weeks of basic training the skinny, sharecropper's kid was called "Baby." In August of 1944 units of the Third Division, Seventh United States Army, landed at Yellow Beach in the invasion of southern France. Company B of the Fifteenth United States Infantry was pinned down by accurate enemy machine-gun fire soon after they had landed. The German machine guns were on a wooded hill with command of the vineyards and canebrakes where Baker Company had taken cover. The murderous fire ripped through the canes and trees. "Medic! Medic! Medic!" rose from dust-hoarse voices in the canes. Baker Company was truly held up and they couldn't go back. A young staff sergeant ran his M-l carbine dry, then realized he needed a lot more firepower than he had. He crawled back to a light machine gun and dragged it forward. There was only one place to set up the machine gun for accurate fire on the enemy guns. Out in the open. The non-com dashed out, set up the gun, sighted quickly and opened fire, stitching a row of bullets along the rim of the enemy position. The enemy fire died away. "Come on!" yelled the young sergeant. He ran forward and opened fire with his carbine. One of his men followed and hurled grenades until he was killed. Then the sergeant began throwing them. When the smoke cleared the young non-com was master of the hill and B Company advanced. The sergeant was a hard-bitten veteran of the fighting in Sicily. He had been in the bitter fighting near Salerno and he had fought along the bloody Volturno River. At Anzio, which almost ended in the Germans driving the Americans back into the sea, he gained his staff sergeancy and command of a platoon of veterans, and later he had led them on the advance to Rome. He was just a few months past his nineteenth birthday when be brought his platoon ashore at Yellow Beach. His name was Murphy. . .Audie Murphy. . . .(pp. 142-146, by Captain Gordon D. Shirreffs)