On November 25, 1950, during one of the toughest battles of the Korean War, the US Eighth Army Ranger Company seized and held the strategically important Hill 205 overlooking the Chongchon River. Separated by more than a mile from the nearest friendly unit, fifty-one soldiers fought several hundred Chinese attackers. Their commander, Lieutenant Ralph Puckett, was wounded three times before he was evacuated. For his actions, he received the country's second-highest award for courage on the battlefield -- the Distinguished Service Cross -- and resumed active duty later that year as a living legend. In this inspiring autobiography, Colonel Ralph Puckett recounts his extraordinary experiences on and off the battlefield. After he returned from Korea, Puckett joined the newly established US Army Ranger Department, serving as an instructor and tactical officer, and commanding companies at Fort Benning and in the Ranger Mountain Camp in north Georgia. He went on to lead companies in Vietnam, train cadets at West Point, and organize the Escuela de Lancero leadership course in Colombia. Puckett's story is critical reading for soldiers, leaders, military historians, and others interested in the impact of conflict on individual soldiers as well as the military as a whole.
"When once asked by a friend in uniform to describe Colonel Ralph Puckett in one word, I replied with emphasis, 'Inspirational!' That word best captures what Ranger Puckett was to countless soldiers over his decades in uniform and best captures what he has been during his subsequent decades supporting those in uniform."
From the foreword by General David H. Petraeus, USA (Ret.)
"General readers, history buffs, serious students, and military historians will find abundant sources and references for reflection or writing in this memoir of soldiering from World War II to the present."
Henry G. Gole, author of Exposing the Third Reich: Colonel Truman Smith in Hitler's German
