5 soldiers/badasses you will not believe existed, except they did

I found this list on Cracked, and I just had to share it. I won't be bad and copy the whole damn thing, so go over to Cracked and read it. Let me highlight some points that illustrate why you must read this!

Simo Hayha:

Since the majority of fighting took place in the forest, he figured the best way to stop the invasion was to grab his trusty rifle, a couple of cans of food and hide in a tree all day shooting Russians. In six feet of snow. And 20-40 degrees below zero.

Then they tried getting together a team of counter-snipers (which are basically snipers that kill snipers) and sent them in to eliminate Hayha. He killed all of them, too.

Over the course of 100 days, Hayha killed 542 people with his rifle. He took out another 150 or so with his SMG, sending his credited kill-count up to 705.

705? I think the only man who's killed more enemies with a rifle is The Punisher, and he's not real!

Yogendra Singh Yadav:

Since they didn't want to all climb up one at a time with ice-axes, they decided they'd send one guy up, and he'd fasten the ropes to the cliff as he went, so everyone else could climb up the sissy way. Yadav, being awesome, volunteered.

Half way up the icy cliff-o'-doom, enemies stationed on an adjacent mountain opened fire, shooting them with an RPG, then spraying assault-rifle fire all over the cliff. Half his squad was killed, including the commander, and the rest were scattered and disorganized. Yadav, in spite of being shot three times, kept climbing.

When he reached the top, one of the target bunkers opened fire on him with machine guns. Yadav ran toward the hail of bullets, pitched a grenade in the window and killed everyone inside. By this point the second bunker had a clear shot and opened fire, so he ran at them, taking bullets while he did, and killed the four heavily-armed men inside with his bare hands.

His bare hands? WTF!

Jack Churchill:

An allied commander in WWII, and an avid fan of surfing, Captain Jack Malcolm Thorpe Fleming Churchill aka "Fighting Jack Churchill" aka "Mad Jack" was basically the craziest motherfucker in the whole damn war.

He volunteered for commando duty, not actually knowing what it entailed, but knowing that it sounded dangerous, and therefore fun. He is best known for saying that "any officer who goes into action without his sword is improperly dressed" and, in following with this, for carrying a sword into battle. In WWII. And not one of those sissy ceremonial things the Marines have. No, Jack carried a fucking claymore. And he used it, too. He is credited with capturing a total of 42 Germans and a mortar squad in the middle of the night, using only his sword.

Churchill and his team were tasked with capturing a German fortification creatively called "Point 622." Churchill took the lead, charging ahead of the group into the dark through the barbed wire and mines, pitching grenades as he went. Although his unit did their best to catch up, all but six of them were lost to silly things like death. Of those six, half were wounded and all any of them had left were pistols. Then a mortar shell swung in and killed/mortally wounded everyone who wasn't Jack Churchill.

Best line so far: "killed/mortally wounded everyone who wasn't Jack Churchill". Sounds more like a Chuck Norris joke, except it's not a joke.

Alvin York:

About a year later, he was one of 17 men designated to sneak around and take out a fortified machine-gun encampment guarding a German railroad. As they were approaching, the gunners spotted them and opened fire, tearing nine of the men to pieces.

The few survivors that didn't have enormous balls of steel ran away, leaving York standing there taking fire from 32 heavy machine gunners.

After he killed the first 20 men or so, a German lieutenant got five guys together to try to take this guy from the side. York pulled out his Colt .45 (which only had eight bullets) and killed all of them with it, a practice he likened to "shoot[ing] wild turkeys back home."

You do not want to f*ck with a man who likens killing five men to "shooting wild turkeys". The only reason he doesn't top this list is because he let some live.

Last but not least, the greatest soldier to ever wear an American uniform, Audie Murphy.

During the invasion of Italy he was promoted to corporal for his awesome shooting skills, and at the same time contracted malaria, which he had for almost the entire war. Try to remember that.

He was sent into southern France in 1944. He encountered a German machine gun crew who pretended they were surrendering, then shot his best buddy. Murphy completely hulked out, killed everyone in the gun nest, then used their weaponry to kill every baddie in a 100-yard radius, including two more machine gun nests and a bunch of snipers. They gave him a Distiguished Service Cross, and made him platoon commander while everyone apologized profusely for calling him "Shorty."

About half a year later, his company was given the job of defending the Colmar Pocket, a critical region in France, even though all they had left was 19 guys (out of the original 128) and a couple of M-10 Tank Destroyers.

The Germans showed up with a shitload of guys and half a dozen tanks. Since reinforcements weren't coming for a while, Murphy and his men hid in a trench and sent the M-10s to go do the heavy lifting. They got ripped to shreds.

Then, this five-and-a-half-foot-tall kid with malaria ran up to one of the crippled M-10s, hopped in behind the .50 cal machine gun, and started killing everything in sight. Understand that the M-10 was on fire, had a full tank of gas and was basically a death-trap.

Holy f*cking shit

There is no way to describe the unbelievableness (is that a word?) of his actions. But if anything, this brief description understates the case! Read a more detailed explanation (via Wikipedia, emphasis mine):

The next day, January 26 (the temperature was 14 °F (−10 °C) with 24 inches (61 cm) of snow on the ground), the battle at Holtzwihr, (France) began with Murphy's unit at an effective strength of 19 out of 128. Murphy sent all of his men to the rear while he took pot-shots at the Germans until out of ammunition. He then proceeded to use an abandoned, burning tank destroyer's .50 caliber machine gun to cut into the German infantry at a distance, including one full squad of German infantry that had crawled in a ditch to within 100 feet of his position. Wounded in the leg during heavy fire, he continued this nearly single-handed battle for almost an hour. His focus on the battle before him stopped only when his telephone line to the artillery fire direction center was cut by either U.S. or German artillery. As his remaining men came forward, he quickly organized them to conduct a counter attack, which ultimately drove the enemy away from Holtzwihr. For these actions Murphy was awarded the Medal of Honor.

The Medal of Honor and 32 other medals!



Look at his chest! Good God!

There's a second part to each story about how Hollywood failed to match any of these guys, but I'm only going to give you part of the one about Audie Murphy because it underscores exactly how badass he was.

When some Hollywood producer wanted to make a movie based on Murphy's autobiography, he was determined to have Murphy play himself in the film. Murphy was afraid people would see the complete insane awesomeness the story had to offer, and think he was embellishing or trying to cash in on his fame, so he actually had them take parts out for fear that they wouldn't be believable to a Hollywood audience. Seriously.

Just think about that. And read the full stories on each of these guys over on Cracked.