He mentored decades of Army Rangers. At 94, he'll receive the Medal of Honor

Shivering in freezing temperatures, about 50 U.S. soldiers braced for the worst. Hundreds of Chinese soldiers were about to launch a series of bloody attacks on the hill the Americans had just taken under fire, and no reinforcements were within a mile.

The clash that then-1st Lt. Ralph Puckett and his soldiers experienced that night on “Hill 205” came at the outset of the Battle of the Chongchon River, a pivotal moment in which senior U.S. commanders were surprised by China’s full-scale entry into the Korean War.

Thousands of U.S. soldiers died in following days as they withdrew hundreds of miles back into South Korea in what the Army now describes as the longest retreat in U.S. military history.

Puckett, who commanded the Eighth Army Ranger Company, was wounded by a hand grenade in the first attack on the hill on Nov. 25, 1950, but stayed in command. American and South Korean soldiers absorbed five more chaotic, armed assaults through the night before Puckett ordered his soldiers to withdraw the following morning as the Chinese threatened to overrun them.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2021/04/30/he-mentored-decades-army-rangers-94-hell-receive-medal-honor/