Chesty Puller

Meanwhile, the Marines and GIs kept the soldiers of the 7th Japanese Army at bay, as they had not given up, in the west, across the Matanical, nor to the south, just beyond Edson's Ridge.

While commanders like Chesty Puller kept their men vigilant, Geiger counted up what he had left of his air arm, 12 of 35 fighters, 11 SPDs, and six Army Bell P-39s.

That was it.

Of course, Geiger would have given his left arm to know that the 11th Air Fleet at Rabaul was all but shattered.

Last time, the supposed final Japanese attack kicked off against the American perimeter.

Problem was, its opening moves haltingly launched were checked, either through a massive artillery barrage like at the Matanikau River, or by firm resolve and machine guns, like near Edson's Ridge, led by Chesty Puller.

It was October 24, 1942, the sunlight long gone.

But there would still be much fighting this night.

After Chesty deposited the Army Regiment, he took Keogh and Lieutenant Colonel Hall back to his command post.

It was now close to 4 a.m., but a bit later, right before sunrise, the Japanese had amassed enough troops to drive a wedge in the Marine Army line.

Caught by surprise, soon the Japanese wedge was 75 yards deep and 50 yards wide, right in the middle of Chesty Puller's line.

But try as they might, the Americans could not push this wedge out or compress it.

Yeah.

No, there's a there's this guy named Chesty Puller, who was one of the most decorated Marines in American history.

went through some of the worst battles of the second world war.

There's this story, you know, so you think he's like the hardest guy in the world.

Some guy is screaming his head off.

They open up the back of the truck and they said, make way for Chesty Puller's son.

And they took him off.

He had a ton of chips on his stumps.

overstated.

I feel about these midterms kind of the way Marine General Chesty Puller felt about the Korean War.

He famously said, we're surrounded.

That simplifies the problem.

They're firing in all directions.

But the fight isn't over.

And Chesty Puller won the Korean War.

There you go.

And in the 1890s and the beginning of the 20th century, you had to have a navy to do that.

When do they reach into Central America and the life of Chesty Puller and the Banana Wars? And why does this country believe that it belongs in Nicaragua and it belongs in Central America?

Right.

You know, that question goes all the way back to the Monroe Doctrine in 1823. when Secretary of State John Quincy Adams basically schooled President Monroe and said, we need to make sure that the imperial European powers stay out of our backyard.

Starting on the east bank of the Matanikau, the American forces there had made a horseshoe-shaped defensive position, with the horseshoe lying on its side with the open end pointing to the east.

But changes were made for improved command and control, and one result of this was having Chesty Puller's First Battalion, Seventh Marines, alone guarding the southern perimeter east of the Lunga River.

But again, this was not seen as a mistake, as Maruyama and his force had gone accidentally so far south before turning north that they had been missed by the Americans.

They had been missed by Clement's scouts and Vandegrift's scout snipers.

Now facing south, Hanneken extended his right or westward flank until it connected with the horseshoe proper.

But to his left, there was still a gap between where his line ended and the official American perimeter.

To help fill this gap, Lieutenant Colonel Chesty Puller spread out his seven hundred man battalion to cover a length of territory that should have been lined with a regiment.

Chesty's line, two thousand five hundred yards long, started on the eastern end on a grassy plain just southeast of Henderson Field.

America enters another world war, and Cukela comes back onto active duty because apparently fighting through one world war just wasn't enough for the guy, and he finally retires again after World War II and then dies in 1956.

And now, I love this story because Marines all know of Chesty Puller.

We know of Dan Daly.

We know of Carlos Hathcock, John Basilone.

And in the case of Louis Cucchiella, the United States apparently looked at what he did and said, "You know what? Give that motherfucker two." The Marine Corps has 250 years of stories like this.

Some of them everybody knows.

Chesty Puller, John Basilone, Carlos Hathcock.

But there are hundreds of Marines whose names have basically disappeared outside the Corps.