Lewis Burwell "Chesty" Puller was a United States Marine Corps lieutenant general who fought guerrillas in Haiti and Nicaragua and, as a senior officer, served with distinction in World War II and the Korean War.
Puller is the most decorated Marine in American history. He is one of two United States servicemen to be awarded five Navy Crosses and one Army Distinguished Service Cross. Puller's six crosses are next in number to the eight times Eddie Rickenbacker received the nation's second-highest military award for valor.Puller retired from the Marine Corps in 1955, after 37 years of service. He lived in Virginia and died in 1971, at age 73.
“Those days in the woods saved my life many a time in combat.”
Recalling his early days trapping muskrats before school to supplement his mother's income
The Savage Wars of Peace, Max Boot, 2002.
[Davis, Burke, Marine!: The Life Of Chesty Puller, 1988, Bantam Books, New York, N.Y., 9780553271829, 273].
“I want to go where the guns are!”
Statement on his reasons for leaving Virginia Military Institute after his freshman year to enlist in the US Marine Corps (1918), as quoted in Fox Valley Veterans : A Salute to Hometown Heroism (2008) by George Rawlinson, p. 230
Source: Chesty Puller http://www.polaris.net/~jrube/chestpul.htm
“You don't hurt 'em if you don't hit 'em.”
1962, U.S. Marine Corps History Division website http://www.tecom.usmc.mil/HD/Frequently_Requested/Quotes.htm.
Breakout: The Chosin Reservoir Campaign Korea 1950, Martin Russ, 1998
