- Army Col. Ralph Puckett Jr., a 2021 Medal of Honor recipient, died at home on Monday. He was 97.
- Puckett, a Korean War veteran, was awarded the U.S. military’s highest honor for leading a company of Rangers outnumbered ten-to-one by Chinese troops during a 1950 security operation.
- Despite sustaining multiple gunshot wounds during the skirmish and initially insisting his men leave him behind, Puckett refused a medical discharge from the Army and continued serving until 1971.
Ralph Puckett Jr., a retired Army colonel awarded the Medal of Honor seven decades after he was wounded leading a company of outnumbered Army Rangers in battle during the Korean War, has died at age 97.
Puckett died peacefully Monday at his home in Columbus, Georgia, according to the Striffler-Hamby Mortuary, which is handling funeral arrangements.
President Joe Biden lauded Puckett for his “extraordinary heroism and selflessness above and beyond the call of duty” while presenting the retired colonel with the nation’s highest military honor at the White House in 2021. Biden noted the award was “more than 70 years overdue.”
LOU CONTER, LAST LIVING PEARL HARBOR SURVIVOR ABOARD USS ARIZONA, DEAD AT 102
“He’s always believed that all that mattered to be a Ranger was if you had the guts and the brains,” Biden said.
Puckett was a newly commissioned Army officer when he volunteered for the 8th Army Ranger Company that was formed soon after the Korean War began in 1950. Despite his inexperience, Puckett ended up being chosen as the unit’s commander. He had less than six weeks to train his soldiers before they joined the fight.
“I said to myself: ‘Dear God, please don’t let me get a bunch of good guys killed,'” Puckett told the Ledger-Enquirer of Columbus in a 2014 interview.
Over two days in November 1950, Puckett led his roughly 50 Rangers in securing a strategically important hill near Unsan. Puckett sprinted across the open area to draw fire so that Rangers could find and destroy enemy…
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