Tonight I did watch "To Hell And Back" (1955), the story of Audie Murphy's WW2 experience starring Audie himself. As WW2 movies go, it had all the ingredients for a film from that era, the wisecracking GIs, the multi-ethnic platoons, the intense battle scenes. "Hell" used a lot of stock combat footage shot by actual military cameramen to augment the dramatic recreations of the action in Italy. This gives the movie a very realistic look during those sequences, the most extended of which take place in the final 30 minutes of the film, when Audie Murphy's heroics are shown as they really happened. "Heroics" is only a word, of course, and it must have felt like pure terror and chaos in real time, but there is no doubt that he saved the lives of his platoon members, and I am sure he was a hero to them.
The first twenty minutes of the movie are devoted to his 1930s childhood in Texas farm country. His family was dirt poor. It is insinuated that his Dad ran out on them, and Audie had to quit school and take a job at age 12 to help his Mom put food on the table. By the time he turned 18 he was enlisted in the Army, and was in North Africa headed for Sicily a year after that, and then into Italy headed for Rome. All of the stuff he earned his medals for happened before he was 20 years old.
"To Hell And Back" gets two big thumbs up from me, and it also inspired me to once again make an effort to trace my Dad's troop movements through North Africa in late 1943 and into Sicily in early '44.
Dad wasn't in combat, thank goodness. He was in a Signal Air Warning Radar Battalion that landed in Casablanca, Morocco in November 1943. I am not 100% sure of that date, but I did similar research about ten years ago, and though I was stupid and didn't write anything down, I am pretty sure of the November '43 date. Dad used to talk about watching the eruption of Mount Vesuvius from a distance away, so I looked up the dates of Mount Vesuvius eruptions, and the last one was in March 1944. So if Dad's Radar Group was in Italy by March 1944, it stands to reason that the aforementioned November 1943 departure date from Virginia is probably accurate. I will do more research in the future. The last time I did it I hit a dead end, because a fire in 1973 in a Federal building in Washington destroyed an enormous amount of WW2 personnel records. I just wanna try to trace Dad's troop movements from the time he landed in Morocco until he wound up in Germany at the end of the war. He was there for several months, until (I believe) November 1945, as part of the US military presence in postwar Berlin.
Well anyhow, the movie inspired me to do some research. I also did a little research on Audie Murphy and I found an online record that shows that he did indeed reside at 9054 Rathburn Avenue for a while, probably in the late 1950s or early 1960s, in the same house in which our neighbors, who were long time residents, used to say he lived. 9054 would be four doors up from our house at 9032, although we moved there probably 5 to 10 years after he moved out.
If I already mentioned any of this in my Audie Blog from a couple weeks ago, I apologize for the rerun.
I am still working on my most recent FOIA request to the CIA, with Dad as the subject. I sent the request letter in early June, and just last week they got back to me, stating that they will need a copy of his death certificate to prove he is deceased and therefore avoid any privacy concerns. In my original letter I had given them Dad's social security number and his dates of birth and death, and asked them to look it up on the Social Security Death Index, but they don't consider that to be official, apparently.
So I spent a fair amount of dough just yesterday to obtain a death certificate. My sister must have the original one, but it would likely take forever to find, and I need a copy asap as per the CIA's request.
I don't have my hopes up too high that it will produce any results, as far as my receiving any information pertaining to September 1989, but the important thing right now is just to keep writing and requesting FOIA information for specific people. Right now I am working on people who are now deceased but who would be expected to have at least been on the immediate perimeter of What Happened In Northridge. It follows that, if Lillian's parents were told what had happened to her, and were "asked" (told) to keep quiet about it, and/or made to sign a secrecy oath like I was, then perhaps my parents were "asked" (told) the same thing. On the other hand, my folks always denied knowing anything about it, but then.......that's what everyone has always said.
Lillian was taken away in an ambulance after the experience in the Northridge Hospital parking lot, and somewhere, there is a record of that, though it would likely be next to impossible to find or get a hold of. Similarly, a record must exist somewhere of my own medical experience after I was rescued from Jared Rappaport's house, though I was not taken to a regular hospital but to a military facility.
Lillian's sister Ann, a registered nurse, was present when I was made to sign the non-disclosure papers at Concord Square on the morning of September 2, 1989. So Ann knows, for certain.
And Ann knows that her sister was taken to the hospital the night before, or at least revived in an ambulance.
Ann knows.
And so it stands to reason that, because what happened to us was bizarre beyond belief, and because Federal agents were involved, that probably some parents were notified of what had happened. I would guess that Lillian's parents would have had a greater chance of being notified than my parents, because she was "in on the secret" of whatever it was that was happening, whereas I had no idea what was going on, and I still don't.
She was in the loop and I was not.
And so if I had no knowledge, why bring my parents into the loop? Why tell them what was happening to me? All that would do would be to give them knowledge to perhaps tell me and give me information to fight back with.
But my Dad did try to help me fight back. He was gonna take me up to the Devonshire Division Police Station in the middle of the whole two week thing, so that I could make a report. But that effort came crashing down in yet another catastrophe, too lengthy to mention here.
So Dad knew, too. Just as I have said that Ann knew, I can say that Dad knew too. Both knew what was happening, and I know this because I was with them at different times during the period in question.
And I figure that anybody who knew what was happening must have been visited by some Federal agents and told what to say or not say. Or made to sign some papers.
So this is why I am now working on FOIA requests for records on deceased people who were directly involved or at least on the periphery of 1989.
I don't expect to get much from my inquiries, but you never know.
And if I give up, I might as well be dead myself.
See you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxxo :):)
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