More than 200 members of Fox Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines, were surrounded by Chinese forces defending the Toktong Pass during the Battle of Chosin Reservoir.

With his arm in a sling and using only a compass, 1st Lt. Kurt Chew-een Lee guided his crew of Marines in the dark, over North Korea’s icy and rocky terrain, to reach and relieve Fox Company.

When Lieutenant Colonel Lewis B. "Chesty" Puller and his Ist Battalion, Seventh Marine Regiment landed on Guadalcanal in September 1942, the campaign on that island already had been raging for several weeks. The hungry, haggard, hard-pressed men of the First Marine Division welcomed the new arrivals because the 7th Marines was a fresh, well-supplied, well-trained force that constituted a huge shot in the arm for the beleaguered defenders. The only thing the regiment lacked was combat experience. Puller was one of the few Marines in the 7th Marines who understood just how vital a commodity that was.