A younger, more diverse generation of gun owners has emerged, and is emerging, via a sub-platform on YouTube known as GunTube.
The New York Times says the new gun fans, “drawn to tactical training and self-defense, are regularly watching firearms videos…” As a result, the videos have “drawn more than 29 billion views” via the GunTube subculture.
The Times notes: “…Guntube is its own sprawling community. Some guntubers have cult followings, and there is an industry awards event known as the Gundies, a riff on the Dundies from the sitcom ‘The Office.’”
The paper added, “Much like video game streamers, some guntube stars make thousands of dollars per video.”
When would-be viewers go to guntube.org, they are met with options to watch short videos, longer videos, streaming firearm shows, various blogs, and myriad gun channels, among other things. Even a cursory glance at the webpage puts to death the tired leftist mantra that gun purchasers are a bunch of old white guys who just keep buying more and more firearms, ammunition, and accessories.
After the war, Audie Murphy went on to star in 44 different movies.
My wife and I were driving through Greenville, Texas, and found ourselves peckish. As we poked around for a fast food joint, we came across a fairly non-descript building situated in a wide grassy space. What caught my eye was the enormous statue out front wielding a German MG42 belt-fed machinegun like he meant it.
American presidents get sprawling libraries erected in their honor. Vapid media personalities who contribute little more than chaos find themselves ensconced in palatial digs suitable for the sultans of old. CEOs who risk nothing more than their reputations are paid enough to support a small West African nation state. And then — there was Audie Murphy.
Audie Murphy was the most highly decorated American soldier who ever drew breath. He contributed more to the cause of freedom than every movie star, social media influencer, captain of industry, General, Admiral and politician combined. This was his museum.
The facility is of modest size but is beautifully executed. Half of the place is dedicated to local history, while the other half orbits around Greenville’s favorite son. If ever you are in the neighborhood you’ll regret not checking it out.
I arrived about an hour before closing and, aside from a single museum staff member, had the place to myself. My bride broke out her oils and set up outside for a quick plein air landscape. I soon lost myself in the story of a truly great American.
The Audie Murphy Museum in Greenville, Texas, is full of cool-guy
stuff like this WWI-vintage MG08 Maxim machinegun.
It is a timeless drive for young warriors to take mementos of their military service.
Audie Murphy brought this German helmet home from the war in Europe.
Origin Story
The seventh of 12 children born to a sharecropper family, Audie Leon Murphy was a small man with a big heart. Abandoned by his father as a child, Audie’s mother died when he was 16. Murphy dropped out of school in fifth grade to pick cotton and keep his family from starving. Along the way he ran a rifle to help keep meat on the table.
Incensed by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Audie tried to enlist only to be rejected by the Army, Navy and Marines. The boy’s older sister falsified his birthdate so he could try again. On his enlistment physical, Murphy stood 5’5″ tall and weighed 112 lbs.
During infantry training, Audie passed out in the heat and his commander tried to have him reclassified as a cook. Private Murphy was having none of it. Through sheer force of will the young man survived his training and found himself deployed to North Africa for Operation Torch.
Audie Murphy was ultimately recognized as the most highly decorated American soldier in history.
This big guy with a big gun is what caught Doc Dabb’s eye as
he was passing through Greenville, Texas, enroute to Dallas.
War Ages A Man
Murphy helped take Sicily as part of Patton’s Seventh Army. It was here Audie Murphy took his first life. He later observed, “I have seen war as it actually is, and I do not like it. But I will go on fighting.”
Once on the Italian mainland, Murphy’s unit was moving along the Volturno River. Murphy along with two comrades unexpectedly came under fire from a German machinegun. One of his buddies died on the spot. Enraged, Murphy charged the enemy machinegun nest armed with a Thompson submachine gun and killed all five Germans manning the gun.
By September of 1944, Murphy was one of only three survivors of his original Infantry company not killed or removed due to wounds. Along the way, Murphy was shot in the hip and caught a piece of shrapnel in his heel. He was also wracked with malaria throughout.
By late January 1945, Murphy had been awarded a battlefield commission. While recovering from fresh wounds to both legs, his decimated unit was attacked by half a dozen German panzers and hundreds of dismounted troops. The young officer sent his soldiers to safety and advanced alone to a burning American tank destroyer.
Lt. Murphy mounted the flaming vehicle and fired his carbine until he ran out of ammunition. He then got behind the 50-caliber machinegun. Between running the Big Fifty and adjusting artillery, he singlehandedly kept the enemy tanks and infantry at bay for more than an hour. When finally he left the field, he did so at a slow walk. He later claimed he was so exhausted he didn’t care if they killed him or not. For this action, Lt. Murphy earned the Medal of Honor. He was 19 years old.
Audie Murphy received every award for valor the U.S. Army offered along with decorations from both France and Belgium. After he came home, Murphy slept with a loaded handgun under his pillow. Like so many of those old heroes, he struggled to leave the horrors of war behind. However, his fame did translate into a 21-year career as an actor, poet and a song writer. Toward the end, he fell upon hard times but steadfastly refused to appear in cigarette or alcohol commercials so as not to set a poor example for young people.
In May of 1971, Murphy was a passenger in a twin-engine Aero Commander 680 when it slammed into the side of a mountain Near Roanoke, Va., in foul weather. He was 46 at the time of his death. Murphy’s grave is the second-most visited at Arlington National Cemetery after JFK.
Where most Medal of Honor gravestones are embellished with gold leaf, Murphy insisted his be left unadorned like that of a common soldier. It still lists his birth year as 1924 in keeping with the prevarication originally attested to by his sister. What a stud.
After 11 years of sustained conflict in Afghanistan, the “Sky Soldiers” of 2d Battalion (Airborne), 503rd Infantry Regiment continued to contribute and sacrifice towards the Global War on Terror.
By the way, they were also the Unit that took back the Island of Corregidor ftom the Japs in 1945 during WWII. By parachuting on to the Island against some pretty stiff Japanese Oppostion. Grumpy
Project Excelsior was a series of parachute jumps made by Joseph Kittinger of the United States Air Force in 1959 and 1960 from helium balloons in the stratosphere. The purpose was to test the Beaupre multi-stage parachute system intended to be used by pilots ejecting from high altitude.
Medal of Honor, Major Richard Ira Bong, United States Army Air Forces
Major Richard Ira Bong, Air Corps, United States Army, Leyte, 12 December 1944. Major Bong is wearing the Medal of Honor. (U.S. Air Force)
17 December 1944: Major Richard Ira Bong, United States Army Air Corps, flying a Lockheed P-38 Lighting over San José on the Island of Mindoro, Commonwealth of the Philippines, shot down an enemy Nakajima Ki-43 Hayabusa (Allied reporting name, “Oscar”).
This was Bong’s 40th confirmed aerial victory and made him the leading American fighter ace of World War II. He is officially credited with 40 aircraft destroyed, 8 probably destroyed and 7 damaged.
Five days earlier, 12 December, during a ceremony at an American airfield on the Island of Leyte, Philippine Islands, General Douglas MacArthur, United States Army, had presented Major Bong the Medal of Honor.
An Associated Press reporter quoted the General:
“Of all military attributes, that one which arouses the greatest admiration is courage. It is the basis of all successful military ventures. our forces possess it to a high degree and various awards are provided to show the public’s appreciation. The Congress of the United States has reserved to itself the honor of decorating those amongst all who stand out as the bravest of the brave. It’s this high and noble category, Bong, that you now enter as I pin upon your tunic the Medal of Honor. Wear it as a symbol of the invincible courage you have displayed so often in mortal combat. My dear boy, may a merciful God continue to protect you is the constant prayer of your commander in chief.”
[On 18 December 1944, Douglas MacArthur was promoted to General of the Army, a five-star rank held by only nine other U.S. military officers. General MacArthur was the son of a Medal of Honor recipient, and had himself been twice nominated for the Medal for his actions during the occupation of Vera Cruz (1914) and the Meuse-Argonne Offensive (1918). He was awarded the Medal of Honor for his defense of the Philippines, 1941–42.]
Richard Bong’s citation reads:
MEDAL OF HONOR
The President of the United States of America, in the name of Congress, takes pleasure in presenting the Medal of Honor to Major (Air Corps) Richard Ira Bong, United States Army Air Forces, for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action above and beyond the call of duty while serving with the 49th Fighter Group, V Fighter Command, Fifth Air Force, in action in the Southwest Pacific area from 10 October to 15 November 1944.
Though assigned to duty as gunnery instructor and neither required nor expected to perform combat duty, Major Bong voluntarily and at his own urgent request engaged in repeated combat missions, including unusually hazardous sorties over Balikpapan, Borneo, and in the Leyte area of the Philippines. His aggressiveness and daring resulted in his shooting down eight enemy airplanes during this period.
General Orders: War Department, General Orders No. 90, December 8, 1944
Action Date: October 10 – November 15, 1944
Service: Army Air Forces
Rank: Major
Regiment: 49th Fighter Group, V Fighter Command
Division: 5th Air Force.
Major Bong flew a number of different Lockheed P-38s in combat. He is most associated, though, with P-38J-15-LO 42-103993, which he named Marge after his fiancée, Miss Marjorie Ann Vattendahl, a school teacher from Poplar, Wisconsin.
Richard Bong had flown 146 combat missions. General George C. Kenney, commanding the Far East Air Forces, relieved him from combat and ordered that he return to the United States. He was assigned to test new production P-80 Shooting Stars jet fighters being built at Lockheed Aircraft Corporation’s Burbank, California plant.
On 6 August 1945, the fuel pump of the new P-80 Bong was flying failed just after takeoff. The engine failed from fuel starvation and the airplane crashed into a residential area of North Hollywood, California. Major Richard Ira Bong was killed.
A younger, more diverse generation of gun owners has emerged, and is emerging, via a sub-platform on YouTube known as GunTube.
After the war, Audie Murphy went on to star in 44 different movies.
The Audie Murphy Museum in Greenville, Texas, is full of cool-guy
It is a timeless drive for young warriors to take mementos of their military service.
After 11 years of sustained conflict in Afghanistan, the “Sky Soldiers” of 2d Battalion (Airborne), 503rd Infantry Regiment continued to contribute and sacrifice towards the Global War on Terror.
