Whipped Cream Difficulties

Geneviève de Galard has passed away at the age of 99.

After studying English at the Sorbonne during and after the war, Ms. de Galard received her nursing diploma in 1950. And, after a retreat at a Benedictine convent, she was admitted to the French armed forces’ corps of flight nurses, charged with tending to the wounded who had been evacuated from battlegrounds by plane.
With the war in French Indochina raging since late 1946, she went there for the first time in 1953, attached to Hanoi’s Lanessan hospital.

She was flown into a French base as a nurse, but the plane that brought her and the airstrip were knocked out. She was trapped.

The base was Dien Bien Phu.

Ms. de Galard, who was 29, was put “in charge of emergency care of the most seriously wounded,” she wrote.
“I worked under the light of an electric lamp in the corridor, one knee on the ground, the other on the edge of the stretcher,” she continued. “In this underground of suffering, every day I attended to the wounded, giving shots, changing bandages and distributing medicine.”
The doctor in charge, Major Paul-Henri Grauwin, wrote in a memoir: “While the shells were falling, I watched her and was astonished by her calm. She went from wounded man to wounded man, thinking nothing of it. She had the gestures that were needed, the sweetness, the precision.”

…

On April 29, with the Viet Minh closing in, she was summoned to the underground bunker of the commanding officer, Gen. Christian de la Croix de Castries, who pinned on Ms. de Galard the Légion d’Honneur, France’s highest civilian decoration, as shells exploded outside.
“She will always be, for the combatants at Dien Bien Phu,” the citation read, “the purest incarnation of the heroic virtues of the French nurse.”

…

When the fight was over, on May 7, 1954, after more than 10,000 soldiers had been taken prisoner by the communist Viet Minh insurgents in one of the greatest military disasters in French history, Ms. de Galard continued to change the bandages of the wounded, refusing to leave their side. By then the legend of the “Angel of Dien Bien Phu,” as the American press later baptized her, had been born.

…

The Viet Minh freed her on May 21, 1954, and she left Dien Bien Phu on the 24th, unlike thousands of other French prisoners, many of whom died on death marches to prisoner of war camps. Later that year, France gave up North Vietnam to Ho Chi Minh’s communists, enabling the fateful partition of the country that led the U.S. into a war that it had vowed to stay out of.

Specialist Fifth Class Clarence Sasser (United States Army – ret.) passed away on May 13th at the age of 76.

Sp5c. Sasser received the Medal of Honor for actions as a medic on January 10, 1968. From his citation:

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. Sp5c. Sasser distinguished himself while assigned to Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 3d Battalion. He was serving as a medical aidman with Company A, 3d Battalion, on a reconnaissance-in-force operation. His company was making an air assault when suddenly it was taken under heavy small-arms, recoilless-rifle, machine-gun, and rocket fire from well-fortified enemy positions on three sides of the landing zone. During the first few minutes, over 30 casualties were sustained. Without hesitation, Sp5c. Sasser ran across an open rice paddy through a hail of fire to assist the wounded. After helping one man to safety, he was painfully wounded in the left shoulder by fragments of an exploding rocket. Refusing medical attention, he ran through a barrage of rocket and automatic-weapons fire to aid casualties of the initial attack and, after giving them urgently needed treatment, continued to search for other wounded. Despite two additional wounds immobilizing his legs, he dragged himself through the mud toward another soldier 100 meters away. Although in agonizing pain and faint from loss of blood, Sp5c. Sasser reached the man, treated him, and proceeded on to encourage another group of soldiers to crawl 200 meters to relative safety. There he attended their wounds for five hours until they were evacuated. Sp5c. Sasser’s extraordinary heroism is in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit upon himself, his unit, and the U.S. Army.

From the NYT:

As they arrived at a rice paddy, one helicopter was shot down. Mr. Sasser was “dumped,” he said, into the mud. Instantly he felt a bullet rip through his leg. Dozens of American soldiers were killed in minutes. As the injuries piled up, the company was left with only one of its four medics — Mr. Sasser.
A cry went out among his brothers in arms: “Doc! Doc!”
He heeded their calls.
He dashed through gunfire to one group of soldiers, and as he moved one to safety, a rocket explosion tore through his shoulder and back. But he kept running, through a barrage of rocket and automatic weapon fire, to help two more men. Injuries multiplied across his body: excruciating hot shell fragments embedding in his flesh, a ricocheting bullet slamming against his skull.
Mr. Sasser saw a safer way to move around the rice paddy. Rather than standing up and leaving himself open to attack, he lay down in the mud — which was two-and-a-half-feet deep, he estimated — and moved by grabbing one rice sprout after the next to pull himself along, almost like swimming.
He encouraged another group of soldiers to crawl to relative safety and spent hours continuing to attend to his comrades’ wounds until he ran out of medical supplies.
“The only thing I could offer was, shall we say, mental support, emotional support,” he recalled in the oral history. “Which I thought was part of medic’s job, too.”
About 4 or 5 a.m. the next day — nearly 20 hours after Mr. Sasser landed in the rice paddy — he and other survivors of the ambush were rescued.

He was also a Texas native. He studied chemistry at the University of Houston before he was drafted. After leaving the service, he attended Texas A&M: that university awarded him a honorary doctorate in 2014.

He often spoke about the privilege of being a medic. He got first choice of rations. Everyone called him Doc. He was an object of reverence. All of that, he said, explained, his battlefield bravery.
“There’s no way that I could have, in my mind, not went to see about someone when they hollered medic,” Mr. Sasser said in the 1987 oral history. “Repayment of the adulation these guys heaped on you demanded that you go.”

Congressional Medal of Honor Society webpage.

Fort Hood renamed one of their buildings (a medical training facility) after him in 2022.

According to the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, there are 61 living recipients.

Col. Ralph Puckett Jr. (US Army – ret.). He was 97.

Col. Puckett received the Medal of Honor in 2021 for actions on the night of November 25, 1950, during the Korean War. From his Medal of Honor citation:

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty:

First Lieutenant Ralph Puckett, Jr., distinguished himself by acts of gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty while serving as the commander 8th U.S. Army Ranger Company during the period of 25 November, 1950, through 26 November, 1950, in Korea. As his unit commenced a daylight attack on Hill 205, the enemy directed mortar, machine gun, and small-arms fire against the advancing force. To obtain fire, First Lieutenant Puckett mounted the closest tank, exposing himself to the deadly enemy fire. Leaping from the tank, he shouted words of encouragement to his men and began to lead the Rangers in the attack. Almost immediately, enemy fire threatened the success of the attack by pinning down one platoon. Leaving the safety of his position, with full knowledge of the danger, First Lieutenant Puckett intentionally ran across an open area three times to draw enemy fire, thereby allowing the Rangers to locate and destroy the enemy positions and to seize Hill 205. During the night, the enemy launched a counterattack that lasted four hours. Over the course of the counterattack, the Rangers were inspired and motivated by the extraordinary leadership and courageous example exhibited by First Lieutenant Puckett. As a result, five human-wave attacks by a battalion-strength enemy — enemy element were repulsed. During the first attack, First Lieutenant Puckett was wounded by grenade fragments, but refused evacuation and continually directed artillery support that decimated attacking enemy formations. He repeatedly abandoned positions of relative safety to make his way from foxhole to foxhole, to check the company’s perimeter and to distribute ammunition amongst the Rangers. When the enemy launched a sixth attack, it became clear to First Lieutenant Puckett that the position was untenable due to the unavailability of supporting artillery fire. During this attack, two enemy mortar rounds landed in his foxhole, inflicting grievous wounds, which limited his mobility. Knowing his men were in a precarious situation, First Lieutenant Puckett commanded the Rangers to leave him behind and evacuate the area. Feeling a sense of duty to aid him, the Rangers refused the order and staged an effort to retrieve him from the foxhole while still under fire from the enemy. Ultimately, the Rangers succeeded in retrieving First Lieutenant Puckett and they moved to the bottom of the hill, where First Lieutenant Puckett called for devastating artillery fire on the top of the enemy-controlled hill. First Lieutenant Puckett’s extraordinary heroism and selflessness above and beyond the call of duty were in keeping with the highest traditions of military service and reflect great credit upon himself, his unit, and the United States Army.

…

When night came, some 500 Chinese counterattacked in six waves. Lieutenant Puckett moved among his men from foxhole to foxhole, organizing their resistance. But at 2:30 a.m., he was crouched with a radio in his foxhole when it “churned with an explosion,” as he told it in his memoir. He had already incurred a thigh wound. This time mortar or grenade fragments slammed into his feet, buttocks and an arm, leaving him immobile.
“Thinking it meant sure death if I remained in my hole, I struggled my way out,” he wrote in his memoir. “Now on my hands and knees, I saw carnage all around.”
Two Rangers, Billy Walls and David Pollock, shot three Chinese soldiers who were yards from Lieutenant Puckett’s foxhole. As he related it to the Witness to War website long afterward, he told the Rangers, “I can’t move, leave me behind.” But they evacuated him to the Rangers’ rear command post on a trek in which he was carried and sometimes dragged. Despite his desperate condition, Lieutenant Puckett directed massive artillery fire at the Chinese from that post.

The two Rangers received Silver Stars. Col. Puckett spent 11 months in hospitals recovering, but returned to active duty. He went on to serve in Vietnam before retiring in 1971.

In addition to the Medal of Honor, the military’s highest decoration for valor, Colonel Puckett held a Distinguished Service Cross for his actions during the Vietnam War, along with two Silver Stars, two Bronze Stars and five Purple Hearts in his 22 years of military service.

…

In August 1967, serving as a battalion commander in the 101st Airborne Division, he earned the Distinguished Service Cross for having “exposed himself to withering fire” in rallying his undermanned unit to vanquish Viet Cong forces in a firefight near Duc Pho, South Vietnam.

…

In April 2023, President Yoon Suk Yeol of South Korea awarded his country’s highest decoration for bravery, the Taegeuk Order of Military Merit, to Colonel Puckett and two other veterans of the Korean War (one honored posthumously) on a state visit to Washington marking the 70th anniversary of the U.S.-South Korea bilateral alliance.
“If it had not been for the sacrifice of Korean War veterans, the Republic of Korea of today would not exist,” he said.

…

John D. Lock, a retired Army officer and military historian, undertook a campaign dating back to 2003 to have Colonel Puckett’s Distinguished Service Cross, earned in November 1950, upgraded to the Medal of Honor. His efforts succeeded when President Biden presented the medal to Colonel Puckett at a White House ceremony attended by the South Korean president at the time, Moon Jae-in.

Col. Puckett’s book, Ranger: A Soldier’s Life on Amazon (affiliate link).

He was the last surviving Medal of Honor recipient from the Korean War.

His page at the Congressional Medal of Honor website.

There are now 62 living Medal of Honor Recipients today.