CHESTEY PULLER, MARINE!

This space has been devoted to the signers of our Declaration of Independence for several days now, but today I want to speak to the subject of the only Marine in history to earn five Navy Crosses, Lewis B. (Chesty) Puller, Lt. General, United States Marines.
Chesty Puller joined the Marines in 1918 at the age of twenty years.  He commanded the Horse Marines in Peking, fought bandits in Haiti and Nicaragua, battled across the Pacific from island to island and fought a savage rearguard action in the "Frozen Chosin" in Korea.  After nearly forty years and forced to retire he never reached full General status.
The example of his leading troops is still a topic of class room discussions today.
Early in the Korean war our troops, ill prepared for the fight, were pushed back to the southern port of Pusan.  Col. Puller led his Marines in an Amphibious assault, from Tokyo, Kobe and Sasebo, on the western port city of Inchon.  There Chesty. once again, demonstrated his mettle by pacing back and forth on the sea-wall while urging his Marines over the wall in that "Mega-phone" voice he was famous for.  United States Marines and Army and United Nations troops pushed North Koreans all the way back the the Yalu river, which marked the border between Chine and North Korea.  There General MacArthur was fired and the Chinese sent thousands of  tennis shoe clad troops against us.  As a result the fighting retreat in minus 30-40 degree temperatures came to be known as "The Frozen Chosin" resulting in many casualties.  Chesty Puller was there, all the way!...Medicineman!