Audie’s second wife was a Saint. Hand Salute.
Pam Murphy By Dennis McCarthy 4/5/2018
...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.
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.
...
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...
Last edited by BOWSINGER; 05/31/19.
