Chesty Puller (1898-1971) quotes:"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
In Korea, when an Army captain asked him for the direction of the line of retreat,
Col Puller called his Tank Commander, gave them the Army position, and ordered:
"If they start to pull back from that line, even one foot, I want you to open fire on them." Turning to the captain, he replied "Does that answer your question? We're here to fight." - Chesty Puller at Koto-ri in Korea
"The mail service has been excellent out here, and in my opinion this is all that the
Air Force has accomplished during the war."
- Chesty Puller in a letter to his wife while in Korea
"Don't forget that you're First Marines! Not all the Communists in hell can overrun you!"
- Chesty Puller motivating his men at Chosin Reservoir
"Our Country won't go on forever, if we stay soft as we are now. There won't
be any AMERICA because some foreign soldiery will invade us and take our
women and breed a hardier race!"
-Lt. Gen. Lewis B. "Chesty" Puller, USMC
"Take me to the Brig. I want to see the "real Marines". "
Major General Chesty Puller, USMC - while on a Battalion inspection.
"We're surrounded. That simplifies the problem."
- Attributed to Lewis B. "Chesty" Puller, USMC
"All right, they're on our left, they're on our right, they're in front of
us, they're behind us...they can't get away this time"
- Lewis B. "Chesty" Puller, USMC
"They are in front of us, behind us, and we are flanked on both sides by an
enemy that outnumbers us 29:1. They can't get away from us now!"
- Lewis B. "Chesty" Puller, USMC
When the Marines were cut off behind enemy lines and the Army had written
the 1st Marine Division off as being lost because they were surrounded by 22
enemy divisions. The Marines made it out inflicting the highest casualty
ratio on an enemy in history and destroying 7 entire enemy divisions in the
process. An enemy division is 16500+ men while a Marine division is 12500 men.
"They are a damn site better than the U.S. Army, at least we know that they
will be there in the morning."
- Lewis B. "Chesty" Puller when a journalist asked him about being surrounded by 22. enemy divisions
An Army officer once chided Lewis B. "Chesty" Puller: "Ever since that flag-raising picture on Iwo Jima got published, I'm convinced you Marines would rather carry a flag into battle than a weapon." Puller replied icily, "Not a bad idea," he growled, "a man with a flag in his pack and the desire to run it up on an enemy position isn't likely to bug out!"
For two weeks Puller had commanded the rear of the First Marine Division, cut off in the Chosin Reservoir region by hundreds of thousands of Chinese communist troops. The Colonel was visiting a hospital tent where a priest administered last rites to a Marine wounded when a messenger came: "Sir, do you know they've cut us off? We're entirely surrounded."
"Those poor bastards," Puller replied. "They've got us right where we want 'em. We can shoot in every direction now."
"There are not enough chinamen in the world to stop a fully armed Marine regiment
from going where ever they want to go."
- Lewis B. "Chesty" Puller
American war casualties:
Revolutionary War(1775-83) 4,435
War of 1812(1812-15) 2,260
Mexican War(1846-48) 13,283
Civil War(Union Forces only - 1861-65) 364,511
Spanish-American War
(1898) 2,446World War I
(1917-18) 116,516World War II
(1941-46) 405,399Korean War
(1950-53) 36,578Vietnam War
(1964-73) 58,209Persian Gulf War
(1990-91) 382Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan)
682*
4,299*
*casualties as of last Thursday-----------
Korea - War Stories With Ollie North, Battle for the Frozen Chosin:
Korean War, Battle of the Chosin Reservoir - Part 1
Korean War, Battle of the Chosin Reservoir - Part 2
Korean War, Battle of the Chosin Reservoir - Part 3
Korean War, Battle of the Chosin Reservoir - Part 4
The Chosin Few:
The Korean War:
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The Fortunate Son (not to be confused by another song called Fortunate Son made famous by Creedence Clearwater Revival) is a song by Bruce Hornsby about Chesty Puller's son, Lewis Burwell Puller, Jr. (1945-1994) who served as a Marine officer and was badly injured by a land mine in Vietnam. He received a Pulitzer Prize for his book "Fortunate Son", was an attorney, ran an unsuccessful campaign for Congress from Virginia and tragically committed suicide:
Lyrics to Fortunate One:
I'm sitting wondering, watching the parade
In my ever-present chair
People laughing and smiles all around me
Balloons and paper in my hair
There's a man in a car with the top down
Waving wildly at me
"The poor son of a gun", I know he's thinking
Better him, him than me
I've stared down the devil, and had to look away
Called out to the angels, but no-one ever came
Laid down odd and even, but double zero played
That's alright, I'm a lucky one
Such a fortunate son
I was always taught well, taught well
To be the strong one and keep it inside
But sometimes I sit beside the freeway
And howl out at the dark, dark sky
I might just have to go out and burn one
Have a drink or a few
Fade away in a cloudy haze of smoke
And give the old man's best salute
I've stared down the devil, and had to look away
Called out to the angels, but no-one ever came
Laid down odd and even, but double zero played
That's alright, I'm a lucky one
Such a fortunate son
Lewis Burwell Puller, Jr. killed himself on May 11, 1994, three years after this interview:
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Goodnight Chesty Puller, wherever you are. Lt. General Lewis Burwell "Chesty" Puller, USMC Pictures:
