This is Jockel Podcast number 196 with Echo Charles and me, Jockel Willink. Good evening, Echo.

Good evening.

In November, MacArthur ordered a drive all the way up to the Yalu River, which divides North Korea and China.

He made the infamous promise that his victorious troops would be home for Christmas.

All the daisies were happy to hear this news. At this point, I was still at Quantico, and it looked as though the war would end before my classmates and I deployed.

Then, on November 26th, the Chinese launched an immense surprise attack, routing all UN forces from coast to coast, and trapping the US Marines at the chosen reservoir, outnumbering them by upwards of 4 to 1.

The action that followed became known as the Frozen Chosen.

The Marines held their positions with very little support, totally cut off from the unprotected supply lines that MacArthur had stretched thin behind them.

They fought in near-artic conditions. Their canned rations froze. Their limbs froze. Men froze to death.

The enemy used artillery to soften the Marine positions and then come at them with human wave attacks.

The strategy was to charge the Americans, usually at night, when they were without air support.

In some instances, frozen enemy dead were stacked in front of Marine fighting positions and used as sandbags.

Needless to say, any Marine who survived chosen became legend.

It borders on absurd to think that I, a 23-year-old lieutenant with a degree from Yale, would soon be giving orders to men who had fought their way out of that cold hell.

One such man I would go on to command was Gunther Dose, a German immigrant who is one of just 16 men in a rifle company of 200 plus to walk out of chosen.

For his actions, including faking his own death as Chinese soldiers disarmed him and probed the wound in his head, Dose was awarded the Silver Star and Purple Heart.

As summarized in the following excerpt from Silver Star citation, private first-class Dose held his fire to prevent a premature disclosure of his position while the intense small arms grenade automatic weapons and machine gun barrage continued.

The fire continued with deadly accuracy killing several and dispersing the others, with his weapon inoperative as the foe persisted in the onslaught private first-class Dose hurled hand grenades to account for two more hostile soldiers as the bullets from an automatic weapon sprayed his position wounding him and killing a Marine rifleman nearby.

Fighting unconsciousness as the enemy moved closer, he feigned death as they felt the bullet hole in the top of his helmet examined his blood stained face and hands and removed his weapon and cartridge belt.

After seven agonizing hours during which he remained perfectly still, while the enemy still believing him to be dead occupied as foxhole, he surveyed the situation and made contact with an adjacent Marine unit after a friendly counter attack finally forced them to withdraw.

After training, each Marine is assigned an MOS or military occupational specialty. The MOS for infantry officer is 0301.

After chosen, we at the Marine Corps basic school took to calling it 0307.

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