Prime's Worm Hole : The passing of an American lady

Saturday, July 10, 2010

The passing of an American lady

A dear and sweet hero of a lady passes? And the media never notices. But let Lebron James up and move to Miami? Or Lindsey Lohan go to jail for 90 days? And the world stops on its axis in American media land and everyone swoons.

Ever wonder what's wrong with this country? Well there are a lot of things that are wrong with this country. Too many to mention here, but what better example of one of the major things wrong, than the fact that this dear lady passed away back in April of this year. And no one really knew of her passing or who she was or what she did for those who served this country.

Pam Murphy, the widow of Audie Murphy, was involved in the Sepulveda VA hospital and care center over the course of 35 years, treating every veteran who visited the facility as if they were a VIP. Pam Murphy died last week at the age of 90

By Dennis McCarthy

After Audie died, they all became her boys. Every last one of them.

Any soldier or Marine who walked into the Sepulveda VA hospital and care center in the last 35 years got the VIP treatment from Pam Murphy.
The widow of Audie Murphy – the most decorated soldier in World War II – would walk the hallways with her clipboard in hand making sure her boys got to see a specialist or doctor — STAT. If they didn’t, watch out.
Her boys weren’t Medal of Honor recipients or movie stars like Audie, but that didn’t matter to Pam. They had served their country. That was good enough for her.
She never called a veteran by his first name. It was always “Mister.” Respect came with the job.
“Nobody could cut through VA red tape faster than Mrs. Murphy,” said veteran Stephen Sherman, speaking for thousands of veterans she befriended over the years.
“Many times I watched her march a veteran who had been waiting more than an hour right into the doctor’s office. She was even reprimanded a few times, but it didn’t matter to Mrs. Murphy.
“Only her boys mattered. She was our angel.”
Last week, Sepulveda VA’s angel for the last 35 years died peacefully in her sleep at age 90.
“She was in bed watching the Laker game, took one last breath, and that was it,” said Diane Ruiz, who also worked at the VA and cared for Pam in the last years of her life in her Canoga Park apartment.
It was the same apartment Pam moved into soon after Audie died in a plane crash on Memorial Day weekend in 1971.
Audie Murphy died broke, squandering million of dollars on gambling, bad investments, and yes, other women.
“Even with the adultery and desertion at the end, he always remained my hero,” Pam told me.
She went from a comfortable ranch-style home in Van Nuys where she raised two sons to a small apartment – taking a clerk’s job at the nearby VA to support herself and start paying off her faded movie star husband’s debts.
At first, no one knew who she was. Soon, though, word spread through the VA that the nice woman with the clipboard was Audie Murphy’s widow.

It was like saying Patton had just walked in the front door. Men with tears in their eyes walked up to her and gave her a hug. “Thank you,” they said, over and over.
The first couple of years, I think the hugs were more for Audie’s memory as a war hero. The last 30 years, they were for Pam.
She hated the spotlight. One year I asked her to be the focus of a Veteran’s Day column for all the work she had done. Pam just shook her head no.
“Honor them, not me,” she said, pointing to a group of veterans down the hallway. “They’re the ones who deserve it.”
The vets disagreed. Mrs. Murphy deserved the accolades, they said.
Incredibly, in 2002, Pam’s job was going to be eliminated in budget cuts. She was considered “excess staff.”
“I don’t think helping cut down on veterans’ complaints and showing them the respect they deserve, should be considered excess staff,” she told me.
Neither did the veterans. They went ballistic, holding a rally for her outside the VA gates.
Pretty soon, word came down from the top of the VA. Pam Murphy was no longer considered “excess staff.” She remained working full time at the VA until 2007 when she was 87.
“The last time she was here was a couple of years ago for the conference we had for homeless veterans,” said Becky James, coordinator of the VA’s Veterans History Project.
Pam wanted to see if there was anything she could do to help some more of her boys.

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Prime's Worm hole

This is a place for me to muse about the issues that affect our world. My world and my country and my life in particular. I can say what I want to here and those who may stumble across my musings, are welcome to comment,or not. America is under siege. Everything this nation has ever represented, is now being torn asunder and crushed by the onslaught of egalitarian socialism. All morals and social values have been devolved into the belief that systemic racism, is the only underlying cause or reason for any societal ills in America. And that representation, is nothing but a Trojan Horse argument. A means of getting the egalitarian camel's nose into the tent. And now that it has been inserted? There is mayhem and anarchy and burning and looting all across America. And the only questions that remains to be asked and answered? Are these. When is enough enough and when will the American people call full stop and take the law into their own hands, to repel this socialist based attack on the Constitution and our personal freedoms.

Thinking

It started out innocently enough. I began to think at parties now and then -- just to loosen up and be a part of the crowd.
Inevitably, though, one thought led to another and soon I was more than just a social thinker.

I began to think alone -- "to relax", I told myself -- but I knew it wasn't true.
Thinking became more and more important to me and finally I was thinking all the time.

I began to think on the job. I knew that thinking and employment don't mix, but I couldn't help myself.

I began to avoid friends at lunchtime so I could read Thoreau, Muir, Confucius and Kafka. I would return to the office dizzied and confused, asking, "What is it exactly we are doing here?"

One day the boss called me in. He said, "Listen, I like you and it hurts me to say this, but your thinking has become a real problem. If you don't stop thinking on the job, you'll have to find another job."

"Honey," I confessed, "I've been thinking..."

"I know you've been thinking," she said, "and I want a divorce!" "But Honey, surely it's not that serious." "It is serious," she said, lower lip aquiver.

"You think as much as college professors and college professors don't make that much money, so if you keep on thinking, we won't have any money!"
She exploded in tears of rage and frustration, but I was in no mood to deal with the emotional drama.

"I'm going to the library," I snarled
I headed for the library, in the mood for some John Locke. I roared into the parking lot with NPR on the radio and ran up to the big glass doors.

They didn't open. The library was closed.

To this day, I believe that a Higher Power was looking out for me that night.

Leaning on the unfeeling glass, whimpering for Emerson, a poster caught my eye, "Friend, is heavy thinking ruining your life?" it asked.

This is why I am what I am today: a recovering thinker.

I never miss a TA meeting. At each meeting we watch a non-educational video; last week it was "Porky's." Then we share experiences about how we avoided thinking since the last meeting.

I still have my job, and things are a lot better at home. Life just seemed easier, somehow, as soon as I stopped thinking. I think the road to recovery is nearly complete for me.

Today I took the final step...I joined the Democratic Party

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If you are able,
save them a place
inside of you
and save one backward glance
when you are leaving
for the places they can
no longer go.
Be not ashamed to say
you loved them,
though you may
or may not have always.
Take what they have left
and what they have taught you
with their dying
and keep it with your own.
And in that time
when men decide and feel safe
to call the war insane,
take one moment to embrace
those gentle heroes
you left behind.

Major Michael Davis O'Donnell
1 January 1970
Dak To, Vietnam

Captain Michael O'Donnell was lost in Cambodia on March 24 1970, while flying a UH1 rescue helicopter, trying to rescue an eight man LRRP team under attack in Cambodia. He was listed as MIA along with the eight he had attempted to rescue after his UH1 Huey was shot down by enemy fire. The official military report listed the eight as shot down 'non survivable' and 'non recoverable.'

Michael O'Donnell was submitted for the Congressional Medal of Honor for his actions that day. He was awarded the Distinguished flying cross, the Bronze Star, The Air Medal and The Purple Heart and he was promoted to the rank of Major (posthumously).

In 1978 he was officially listed as KIA by the Department of Defense.

A little about the philosophy of the author

The Borg Conspiracy is one man's purely pedestrian thoughts, independent musings and frequently cheeky commentaries...Mixed with an abundance of patriotism, love of God, and love of country.

My thoughts?

In my opinion........in another generation, all that will remain of our once great republic, may be little more than what is left to weather the passage of time in the form of a few obscure and forgotten monuments to the great American experiment.

If America should fail....let it be written as her epitaph.....died by her own hand. The greatest experiment in freedom ever undertaken, lost in the end to the pursuit of the illusion that egalitarian tolerance was more valuable than individual freedom.

Let us be warned.
Franklin, Payne, Jefferson. They all knew the consequences of the lack of vigilance and they tried to warn us. They gave us a document as our guide post. We were to guard it and revere it and use it to guide and govern our future and our posterity.

No one listened.