May 9th: California, Day 4

We attended the event honoring the Chosin Few at San Diego Naval Base today. There was a full crowd and we met veterans who lived as far away as Arizona. Capt Smith and the crew of the USS Chosin put together an outstanding event and we had a great time. Rick Rogers of the San Diego Union-Tribune also wrote up a great article on our project and the veterans involved. The article made the front page of the region section in what is the largest paper in the San Diego area. You can check out the article here:

http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/may/09/1m9docu021134-honoring-chosin-few/

Jack Stites, Frank Torres, and Bob Licker, members of the Colonel William E. Barber chapter of The Chosin Few, presented a replica of the friendship bell to Capt Smith. The replica is one of two in existence, and it was originally presented to Colonel Barber (the CO of Fox Company, 2/7) by the president of South Korea. Jack and the other members of the chapter knew that the sailors of the USS Chosin would ensure the safe keeping of the bell and felt that it only seemed right to have the bell travelling the high seas on the vessel that bared their namesake.


Also, Bob Weishan and the San Diego Chapter presented a large haul of Tootsie Rolls to the crew. Tootsie Rolls have been a part of Chosin lore because most of the Marines and Sailors ate nothing else but Tootsie Rolls as they fought their way from the reservoir to Hungnam. All other food was frozen solid, but the candies would easily thaw out in their mouths. There has never been a real explaination as to why all of the crates of Tootsie Rolls were air dropped to the Marines, but one of the vets I talked to suggested an explaination. He told me that the words"Tootsie Rolls" were sometimes used as a code word for "bullets" over the radio when asking for a resupply, and that possibly a radio operator took the words literally when recieving a resupply request for ammunition.



As the ceremony came to an end, Brian realized that a member of the Marine Corps color guard at the ceremony was a Marine who was a member of Brian's platoon in G/2/5. They had a chance to catch up and talk afterwords. It really is a small Marine Corps.



We took the rest of the afternoon to tighten up logistics for the second half of our trip and we will get our first solid night of sleep since we left New Jersey. We've been getting 3-6 hours a night since we arrived, so it will be nice to recharge our batteries.

S/F

Anton