Why 'Chesty' Still Inspires the Marines

The Korean War rarely gets a mention these days. Sandwiched between the epic struggle of World War II and the moral carnage of Vietnam, the conflict has suffered by comparison. It is all the more reason why the 60th anniversary of the Korean Armistice should not pass us by this week without a few moments of reflection.
The 2½-mile-wide demilitarized zone that separates North and South Korea was officially established on July 27, 1953. To some, the DMZ's existence is another reason not to dwell on the war. But to others, it is an emblem of the hard-won peace that has since endured—a peace that was achieved with the help of men like Lt. Gen. Lewis "Chesty" Puller, the most highly decorated Marine in U.S. history.
Puller, who died in 1971, may be little known outside of the Marine Corps. But his name lives on among the men and women who serve. At any Marine base around the world, the close of day is often greeted with the cry, "Goodnight, Chesty Puller, wherever you are."
Puller was in his early 50s when the Korean War began and already a legend in the Corps. He was old-style, the kind of soldier who insisted on leading his men from the front. In November 1950, Chesty, then a colonel with the 1st Marine Division, was dispatched to a remote area in North Korea known as the Chosin Reservoir.
As related in Jon T. Hoffman's "Chesty," the Marines barely had time to set up base camp when the Chinese People's Liberation Army attacked their position. The embedded journalists immediately confronted Chesty, demanding to know his plan. Calmly he replied: "We've been looking for the enemy for several days now. We've finally found them. We're surrounded. That simplifies our problem of finding these people and killing them."
His bravado wasn't simply for show. Chesty always stationed himself wherever the fighting was at its fiercest. At Chosin, the heat of action was around the base perimeter. When a frightened major dared to ask about the line of retreat, Chesty radioed the base's artillery commander and ordered him to fire on any soldier who abandoned his position; then he turned back to the unfortunate officer and said, "That answer your question? There will be no withdrawal."
The "Chesty effect" on the division was palpable. A battalion commander recalled: "Puller gave us pride in some way I can't describe. All of us had heard hundreds of stories about him. He kept building up our morale higher and higher, just by being there."
On Dec. 6, 1950, Chesty was ordered to break out of Chosin Reservoir and open an escape route to Hungnam port. The 80,000-strong PLA was no longer the only enemy confronting the Marines. By now the temperature had dropped to 25 degrees below zero. Fighting every step of the way, Chesty succeeded in not just bringing out the wounded and the dead but also every vehicle and piece of equipment worth saving. Behind him, spread out for miles, lay the broken remnants of seven Chinese divisions.
In his inimitable way, Chesty refused to call the retreat a defeat, let alone a retreat. As the future general waited to board his ship, he ordered reporters to "Remember, whatever you write, this was no retreat. All that happened was we found more Chinese behind us than in front of us. So we about-faced and attacked." The Navy rewarded Chesty for Chosin Reservoir with his fifth Navy Cross.
With a resurgent North Korea under Kim Jong Un once again threatening to destabilize the region, it is worth remembering that weapons are important but leaders like Lewis "Chesty" Puller are priceless.

Source: online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323829104578621960164422882.html

Many thanks to Bill Goss for all the photos that he has sent me of LtGen Puller.

"Paper-work will ruin any military force" - Lieutenant-General Lewis B. "Chesty" Puller

"You don't hurt 'em if you don't hit 'em." - Lieutenant-General Lewis B. "Chesty" Puller

He withdrew from the Virginia Military Institute after his freshman year to enlist as a private in the Marine Corps in August, 1918. American involvement in World War I was intensifying at that time, his reasoning for his enlistment is summed up in the (possibly apocryphal) quote, "I want to go where the guns are." Puller was unable to reach an overseas theater during the First World War, but remained on duty with the Marine Corps for the next thirty-seven years. He was appointed to the rank of Second Lieutenant in the reserves on June 16, 1919, but reduction in force following the war led to his being put on inactive status on the 26th of that month. Puller re-enlisted in the Marine Corps the same year. As an enlisted man, he saw action in Haiti with the Gendarmerie d'Haiti, which was working under a treaty with the United States, and participated in over forty engagements during the ensuing five years against the Caco rebels. In March 1924 he returned stateside and was again commissioned as a second lieutenant,