Audie Murphy is without a doubt one of the greatest men to ever live. Here’s a full list of his awards:

• Medal of Honor
• Distinguished Service Cross
• Silver Star w/ cluster (two awards)
• Legion of Merit
• Bronze Star w/ V Device & cluster (heroism instead of distinguished service, two awards)
• Purple Heart w/ two clusters (three awards)
• Presidential Unit Citation w/ cluster (two awards)
• Army Outstanding Civilian Service Medal
• Good Conduct Medal
• American Campaign Medal
• European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal w/ silver star, four bronze stars, one bronze arrowhead (nine campaigns in European theater)
• WWII Victory Medal
• Army of Occupation Medal w/ Germany clasp
• Armed Forces Reserve Medal
• Combat Infantryman Badge
• Marksman Badge w/ Rifle Component Bar
• Expert Badge w/ Bayonet Component Bar
• French Legion of Honor- Grade of Chevalier (Knight)
• French Croix de Guerre w/ Silver Star
• French Croix de Guerre w/ Palm
• French Liberation Medal
• Belgian Croix de Guerre w/ 1940 Palm
• French Fourragere in Colors of the Croix de Guerre
• Texas Legislative Medal of Honor

The Distinguished Service Cross, the second highest honor available after the Medal of Honor, was awarded for his actions in Anzio. After killing two Germans with his carbine, Murphy ran out of ammo. He retreated back down the hill, took a light machine gun from a soldier unwilling to advance, and used that to destroy multiple German machine gun crews, along with his best friend, Lattie Tipton. Tipton was killed when a German machine gunner pretended to surrender. Now alone, Audie killed the gunner, the rest of the gunners crew, then pretty much everything else on the hill unlucky enough to be wearing the wrong uniform. When the rest of the platoon finally caught up, Audie was sitting guard over Tipton’s body.

Here is his full Medal of Honor Citation. Keep in mind as you read that Audie had malaria for the entire duration of the war:

Rank and organization: Second Lieutenant, U.S. Army, Company B 15th Infantry, 3rd Infantry Division.

Place and date: Near Holtzwihr France, January 26, 1945.

Entered service at: Dallas, Texas. Birth: Hunt County, near Kingston, Texas, G.O. No. 65, August 9, 1944.

Citation: Second Lt. Murphy commanded Company B, which was attacked by six tanks and waves of infantry. 2d Lt. Murphy ordered his men to withdraw to a prepared position in a woods, while he remained forward at his command post and continued to give fire directions to the artillery by telephone. Behind him, to his right, one of our tank destroyers received a direct hit and began to burn. Its crew withdrew to the woods. 2d Lt. Murphy continued to direct artillery fire, which killed large numbers of the advancing enemy infantry. With the enemy tanks abreast of his position, 2d Lt. Murphy climbed on the burning tank destroyer, which was in danger of blowing up at any moment, and employed its .50 caliber machine gun against the enemy. He was alone and exposed to German fire from three sides, but his deadly fire killed dozens of Germans and caused their infantry attack to waver. The enemy tanks, losing infantry support, began to fall back. For an hour the Germans tried every available weapon to eliminate 2d Lt. Murphy, but he continued to hold his position and wiped out a squad that was trying to creep up unnoticed on his right flank. Germans reached as close as 10 yards, only to be mowed down by his fire. He received a leg wound, but ignored it and continued his single-handed fight until his ammunition was exhausted. He then made his way back to his company, refused medical attention, and organized the company in a counterattack, which forced the Germans to withdraw. His directing of artillery fire wiped out many of the enemy; he killed or wounded about 50. 2d Lt. Murphy’s indomitable courage and his refusal to give an inch of ground saved his company from possible encirclement and destruction, and enabled it to hold the woods which had been the enemy’s objective.

During the event that earned him his Medal of Honor, an officer asked Audie over the radio how close the Germans were. He responded, “Hold on and I’ll let you talk to one.” After returning from the war, Audie Murphy suffered heavily from PTSD and got addicted to pills, at which point he locked himself in a hotel room for a week until he got over it. He became an actor after writing his autobiography, To Hell and Back, and starred as himself in a film adaptation of the same in 1955, which remained the highest grossing film up until Jaws. He downplayed significant elements of the Medal of Honor citation event in the film because he thought people would accuse him of making it up. When he was shooting a film in Vietnam in the fifties, he was so horrified by the conditions there that he emptied most of his earnings into an orphanage in Saigon. He became involved in the drug war when he visited an addict’s home with a policeman friend and saw the addict’s two young daughters playing on a dirty floor. He helped bring about more than twenty convictions. In 1970, he was tried for attempted murder after getting into a fight with a 6’3" man who had abused a dog belonging to Murphy’s female friend, and who had also sexually harassed the friend. The man claimed Murphy had fired a gun at him after a scuffle, Murphy’s response to which was, and this is a direct quote, “I think it is injurious to my reputation to think that I could fire a shot at a target as large as Mr. Gofstein and miss.” He was acquitted after the rest of his defense boiled down to, “If I had wanted to kill you, Mr. Gofstein, you would not be here now.”

If I could spend one hour with anyone, alive or dead, it would be Audie Murphy.