Posts Tagged ‘Battle of Chosin’
The Best Christmas Present Ever
Seventy years ago, US Navy demolition teams, Army engineers, and hundreds of other American servicemen, all part of a UN force that weeks earlier had numbered over 100,000, watched as a massive explosion – the largest since World War II – erupted over a small port in North Korea. With docks, warehouses, and wharfs bursting…
Read MoreThree Men, Two Wars, and One Classroom
During wartime and peace, the power of an inspirational mentor can never be underestimated . . . One such mentor, a WWII Medal of Honor recipient once referred to by his commanding officer as “the bravest man I ever saw,” was a math professor and US Navy chaplain. The Early Days at Holy Cross A…
Read MoreListening to Our Better Angels
“I have always thought of Christmas as a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time.” – Fred, the nephew of Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol With the holiday season once again upon us, Americans from all walks of life – and every race, creed, and religion – become observers, and in many cases, active…
Read MoreThey Pray Like Angels and Fight Like Demons
“The Puerto Ricans are proud of their heritage, and on top of that, the soldiers of the 65th Infantry are very proud of their Regiment . . .” – William W. Harris, Commanding Officer, 65th Infantry Regiment Fought in sub-zero temperatures, brutal terrain, and knee-deep snow, the Chosin-Hungnam campaign, the most costly and potentially disastrous four weeks…
Read More1,010 Days of Hell
“They closed in steadily on us. There was no rush, no storming our positions. We kept knocking them down like ducks in a shooting gallery but they kept coming.” – Marine SSgt James Nash Chosin: Hellfire Valley Throughout the horrific night of November 29, 1950, Major John “Jack” McLaughlin and his men fought off wave…
Read MoreA “Timeless” Tribute to the Korean War
In one of the most unlikely events of holiday primetime television, the writers of “Timeless,” a science fiction drama series with a following of millions, showcased the Korean War’s Hungnam Evacuation. The show’s final episode, which aired on December 20 and highlighted the little-known military and humanitarian operation, became the talk of the town on…
Read MoreA Christmas Miracle
Thousands of refugees, huddled at the water’s edge and anxiously waiting to board American ships, knew what would happen if they were left behind. The Chinese, massing in the nearby mountains, would storm into Hungnam and make an example of anyone who had defied them. US and ROK collaborators, Christians, anti-communists, and anyone deemed a…
Read MoreAn Eternal Brotherhood
On a cold, starless night deep in the snow-covered mountains of North Korea, John Lee, a Korean interpreter with 1st Marine Division, watched as about twenty people cautiously entered a small building. Worried that the suspicious-looking North Korean civilians might be communist sympathizers plotting to infiltrate American units at Chosin, he made his way silently…
Read MoreA Wall That Beckons
We all have one, and long after we’re gone, it becomes a memorial to what we did or didn’t do during our time on earth. Whether chiseled in stone, recorded in a legal document, or written on the page of a book, our name, the unique combination of surname and given name, represents our personality,…
Read MoreFollowing in His Father’s Footsteps
Fighting In Korea On the night of November 27, 1950, PFC Joe Dunford, a Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR) gunner, sat shivering in his foxhole at Yudam-ni, a village deep in the mountains of North Korea. It was his 20th birthday. Having already fought at the Pusan Perimeter, Inchon, and Seoul, Dunford, like all the Marines…
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