In the war Audie Murphy was wounded three times, killed some two hundred-odd Germans, and won every medal for valor that the United States had to offer (one of them, the “Silver Star,” twice in four days). He became America’s most decorated soldier ever, lauded by two presidents and millions of humbler folks. Yet he was unable to sleep, twenty years after the war ended, without the lights on and a loaded Walther automatic pistol beneath his pillow.
