The decision to leave a division rear echelon capable of getting supplies forward to us, including air drops, was another good move and a vital part of our success -- even if the supplies were Tootsie Rolls. As you recall, frozen Tootsie Rolls are pretty hard to digest, but they're better than no Tootsie Rolls at all.

If a fighting man loses his sense of humor, he reduces his chances of surviving with all of his buttons intact. A perfect example of a fighting man's humor is contained a little book titled, "Leatherhead in Korea" by SSgt Norval E. Packwood. Its introduction was written by our Chosin Few, Homer Litzenberg, commanding officer of the 7th Marines. I quote an extract:

"Humor among servicemen may be raucous, gentle, sarcastic, or profane, but it is always present on the battlefield. Here life is stripped of the niceties of custom and the walls of conventionality that man erects around himself in a more civilized way. Here the realities are life and death. And the fact of life are reduced to their simplest terms -- sorrow and joy, heat and cold, bravery and fear, hunger and a full stomach, love and hate. Battlefield humor may be slapstick but it is not contrived, it may be satiric but not sadistic, It may be bawdy but not dirty.

That night I said to Buzz Wincoff (LCol Joseph L), the assistant G-3, "You had better start up drawing up a division order to withdraw." "You mean a retreat, don't you?" "No, I mean a withdrawal because we have to attack to seize our own route of movement. So it's really an attack in a different direction."

U.S. Air Force supplies Yudam-ni Marines