Medal of Honor Monday: Ralph Puckett, Jr.

He has been called “[o]ne of the most revered figures in Army Ranger lore.”

On this day in 1950, a hero engages in an action that would earn him the Medal of Honor.  Ralph Puckett, Jr. has been called “[o]ne of the most revered figures in Army Ranger lore.”

Perhaps his can-do attitude was a natural result of his upbringing?

“At age 14, I had done a lot of hard, physical work,” Puckett later explained, “as a truck driver and a warehouseman. . . . I learned that I could withstand some tough work.” His dad, he remembered, had been “very insistent on me being a man, being what a man should be . . . .”

Puckett went on to attend West Point, graduating in 1949. He was soon headed overseas, but he’d been given an unexpected task: The Army planned to reactivate the Rangers, an elite fighting force that had been deactivated after World War II. Puckett was made the Ranger company’s commander.

One challenge? He would be given service troops to train because there weren’t enough infantry.

“Ralph took command of truck drivers, clerks, food service personnel, and turned them into Rangers,” Col. (Ret.) Robert Choppa marveled. “He did it in a relatively short time, a couple of months, and then they deploy over into theater.”

Then-First Lt. Puckett’s bravery came on November 25, 1950. He and his men had been ordered to take and defend Hill 205, near Unsan, Korea. Our boys were badly outnumbered, and one platoon became pinned down almost immediately. Something had to be done.

“First Lieutenant Puckett intentionally ran across an open area three times,” his Medal citation describes, “to draw enemy fire, thereby allowing the Rangers to locate and destroy the enemy positions and to seize Hill 205.”

It was just the beginning of what would prove to be a long night.

The Chinese launched five separate attacks at the small group of Rangers. Over and over again, Puckett left positions of relative safety, running through fire to direct his men and moving from foxhole to foxhole to bring them more ammunition.

A sixth assault would prove too much.

“At about 2:30, we heard the Chinese blowing their whistles and bugles, always the same thing,” Puckett said. “I ran back to my foxhole, got on the radio again to call for artillery.”

Unfortunately, the artillery was not available. “We are under great pressure, we’re crumbling, we’re being overrun, I just gave my unit the word to withdraw,” Puckett hurriedly told the artillery crews.

Just then, two enemy rounds landed in Puckett’s foxhole, grievously injuring him. “I had been wounded three times by then,” he later remembered, “and I was lying there in the foxhole unable to do anything.”

He ordered his men to leave him behind. Naturally, they didn’t listen. Two of them fought their way to his side and dragged him down the hill. Once there, Puckett called for artillery fire, which finally came and devastated the enemy on the hill.

Puckett’s injuries left him hospitalized for a year, but there was a silver lining to that hospital stay: He met his future wife while there. He would recover and go on to serve in Vietnam, too.

In the meantime, his November 1950 action had been awarded a Distinguished Service Cross, but that Cross was upgraded to a Medal just a few years ago.

“I was surprised,” Puckett admitted. “I felt that that sort of excitement should come early in a person’s career. Here I am 94 years old. . . . my Rangers deserved recognition and that kind of award for what they had done. They did the work. They did the fighting. Two of them carried me off the battlefield. They’re the ones who should get the credit.”

Col. Puckett passed away earlier this year. RIP, sir.

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