Posts Tagged ‘Chosin Reservoir’
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 Stood Proud and Strong
“We grunts never knew, one day from the next, where we were or what we were accomplishing. The mountains, valleys, stinking rice paddies, and frozen mountains all seemed the same to us. We were living and dying in our own violent little world.” – Marine serving during the Korean War with 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines The…
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 MoreFighting and Dying in a Frozen Hell
It’s a pivotal event of the 20th century. The Battle of Chosin, or “Changjin” as it’s called in Korea, a two-week-long bloodbath pitting 30,000 US, ROK, and British troops against 120,000 Chinese soldiers, was a defining moment of the Korean War. Fighting in the winter of 1950 in bitter cold and brutal terrain, men endured…
Read MoreOn a Hill Far Away
We’ll never know the terror 18-year-old Marine PFC Edward “Eddie” Thorn experienced in the final minutes of his life, but we do know that what he and hundreds of other Marines went through at the Chosin, or “Changjin,” Reservoir was unimaginable. Shivering on a wind-swept, snow-covered hill on the night of November 28, 1950, PFC Thorn…
Read MoreHe Promised Me He Wouldn’t Do Anything Heroic
On April 9, 1949, 2nd Lieutenant Robert “Bob” Reem and Donna Zimmerli, both 24, were married at the US Naval Academy Chapel in Annapolis, Maryland. Bob, a prior enlisted Marine and graduate of the Naval Academy, and Donna, the daughter of a US Navy Captain and an alumna of the University of North Carolina, had…
Read MoreMen of the Merchant Marine: Unsung Heroes of the Korean War
As the elderly American, surrounded by cameras, microphones, and reporters, walked towards the memorial, two Korean men stepped forward from the crowd. As if on cue, the sea of people suddenly parted, and the three men shook hands, their warm smiles and contagious laughs drawing everyone’s attention. It was a magical moment, one that words and pictures…
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