Veterans...Get the hell in here now!

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"Retired Army Col. and Columbus resident Ralph Puckett Jr. will receive the nation’s highest award for valor in combat more than seven decades after leading his soldiers through a bloody battle on a Korean hill. Puckett, 94, received a phone call around 5 p.m. Friday (4/30/2021) from President Joe Biden, informing and congratulating him on being the nation’s latest Medal of Honor recipient, retired Army Lt. Col. J.D. Lock and Puckett’s wife, Jean, told the Ledger-Enquirer Monday.

Lock has led the push, trying to get the Army to reconsider Puckett’s actions for nearly two decades. The White House did not respond to questions from a Ledger-Enquirer reporter before publication. Puckett’s award was first reported by WRBL News.

“We’re very honored and a little bit overwhelmed with all this coming down the pipe,” Jean told the Ledger-Enquirer. “But, we’re looking forward to it.”

Puckett, the company commander of the then newly-conceived Eighth U.S. Army Ranger Company, was wounded during a critical battle at Hill 205 on Nov. 25 and 26, 1950 where Chinese soldiers surrounded Puckett’s company. The Chinese launched human wave attacks at Puckett’s position for more than four hours.

According to an account of the battle from the U.S. Army Special Operations Command’s History Office and interviews Puckett has given over the years, the 23-year-old commander from Tifton, Georgia, and the company of 51 Rangers prepared for a nighttime counter-assault in near-zero weather. The Americans had captured the hill earlier in the day.

Bugles announced the first Chinese wave, and the Americans beat them back. Puckett was wounded in the left thigh by a hand grenade during this attack but refused to be evacuated.

The next two Chinese attacks were quickly repelled. Puckett was wounded again — this time in the left shoulder — but he reported that his Rangers still controlled the hill. Throughout the attacks, Puckett exposed himself to enemy fire. Ammunition was running low after the fourth and fifth waves were turned away. A call went out for the Rangers to “fix bayonets and prepare for counterattack.”

They waited.

Two mortars landed a fraction of a second apart and exploded almost on top of Puckett’s command foxhole. He now had wounds to both feet, left shoulder and left arm, thighs and buttocks. His right foot was so badly mangled he later had to persuade medical personnel not to amputate it.

After the barrage, the Chinese launched their sixth and final attack. Lead Chinese soldiers threw hand grenades. Short on ammunition and unable to get artillery, Puckett made his last radio call: “It’s too late. Tell Colonel Dolvin we’re being overwhelmed.”

Chinese soldiers were moving in on the Rangers. William L. Judy found Puckett, unable to move, and the commander told Judy to leave him behind.

But Judy and Rangers Billy G. Walls and David L. Pollock got Puckett to medical aid, with Walls and Pollock eventually having to drag Puckett by his wrists down the hill. Puckett received the Distinguished Service Cross for these actions.

“I am pleased that Walls and Pollock disobeyed my orders to leave me behind on the hill,” Puckett said in an oral history interview about the battle.

He’ll receive the award much later than other distinguished service members. Puckett was one of four soldiers to benefit from a provision in the latest defense budget that waives the five-year limit between the acts of valor and approval of the Medal of Honor.

A date for Puckett’s ceremony hasn’t been set. The White House is coordinating with the retired colonel to schedule it. The event is expected to be held at the White House, Jean said."
 
Today in Military History:
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On May 6, 1942, U.S. Lieutenant General Jonathan Wainwright surrenders all U.S. troops in the Philippines to the Japanese.

The island of Corregidor remained the last Allied stronghold in the Philippines after the Japanese victory at Bataan (from which General Wainwright had managed to flee, to Corregidor). Constant artillery shelling and aerial bombardment attacks ate away at the American and Filipino defenders. Although still managing to sink many Japanese barges as they approached the northern shores of the island, the Allied troops could hold the invader off no longer. General Wainwright, only recently promoted to the rank of lieutenant general and commander of the U.S. armed forces in the Philippines, offered to surrender Corregidor to Japanese General Homma, but Homma wanted the complete, unconditional capitulation of all American forces throughout the Philippines. Wainwright had little choice given the odds against him and the poor physical condition of his troops (he had already lost 800 men). He surrendered at midnight. All 11,500 surviving Allied troops were evacuated to a prison stockade in Manila.

General Wainwright remained a POW until 1945. As a sort of consolation for the massive defeat he suffered, he was present on the USS Missouri for the formal Japanese surrender ceremony on September 2, 1945. He would also be awarded the Medal of Honor by President Harry S. Truman. Wainwright died in 1953—exactly eight years to the day of the Japanese surrender ceremony.
 
I posted this earlier this year or late last, but the updated photos and info of the new army squad vehicle are still astounding to me. No armor, no doors, no roof. After 15 years of IEDs.
GM gets 3 billion dollars tho!


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gmauthority.com

GM Defense Infantry Squad Vehicle (ISV)

The GM Defense ISV (Infantry Squad Vehicle) is a military-grade vehicle commissioned for the U.S. military. The model is based on the Chevrolet Colorado ZR2, an
gmauthority.com gmauthority.com
 
smokinrav said:
I posted this earlier this year or late last, but the updated photos and info of the new army squad vehicle are still astounding to me. No armor, no doors, no roof. After 15 years of IEDs.
GM gets 3 billion dollars tho!


View attachment 4897483
gmauthority.com

GM Defense Infantry Squad Vehicle (ISV)

The GM Defense ISV (Infantry Squad Vehicle) is a military-grade vehicle commissioned for the U.S. military. The model is based on the Chevrolet Colorado ZR2, an
gmauthority.com gmauthority.com
Click to expand...

Who would of thought of going back to "Idiot Lights on the Dash" would be so expensive?
The fancy wheels would make a nice score.
 
Flying Tiger Airlines flight 739....
The March 15, 1962, night shift started like any other aboard the Standard Oil super tanker Lenzen.
The ship and its crew were cutting through the waters between Guam and the Philippines. It was calm on the seas and in the skies. Above, scattered clouds floated pale across the inky blackness. About 1:30 a.m., the night watchman spotted what looked like a vapor trail high above him. When he spoke later to investigators, he said it appeared to be moving in an east-west direction. He tracked it until it passed behind a cloud. Then, something exploded.

Night turned to day as a flash lit up the deck. Crew members recalled seeing a “white nucleus surrounded by a reddish-orange periphery” and two large, flaming objects falling to Earth. The captain, now wide awake, hurriedly used the stars to estimate where the burning wreckage may have landed. The vessel, in hot pursuit, steamed into the night.
It wasn’t until the next day the crew learned what they’d witnessed: the last probable sighting of a plane taking 93 Army Rangers to a mission so secret, it’s a mystery to this day.

www.sfgate.com

'He knew something': The Bay Area flight of Rangers that vanished

The mission, still a secret to this day, was so dangerous many men bid emotional goodbyes...
www.sfgate.com www.sfgate.com
 
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