Born near Kingston, Texas, Audie Murphy (1924-1971) won fame as the most decorated soldier in U.S. military history.

During World War II and for many years afterward, Audie Murphy personified heroism on the battlefield. His death-defying exploits were the stuff of legend, but to many Americans Murphy is a virtual unknown. As Don Graham observed in his biography of Murphy, "we prefer video fantasy--Rambo--a kind of MTV celebration of American machismo.... [But] Audie Murphy was the real thing.... And the real thing is always more interesting."

Audie Leon Murphy, the seventh of twelve children of Emmett "Pat," a sharecropper, and Josie Murphy, was born June 20, 1924, in a Texas cotton field. Leon, as Audie was known until he went into the army, had chores to do at an early age, and when he was five years old, he was hoeing and picking cotton alongside his parents...