Today is the anniversary of the day my friend Bud Seeburger won the Navy Cross for Valor. In the cruel North Korean winter of 1950, 1st lieutenant Edward Seeburger, USMC, the sole surviving officer of his Company, led the remains of his company south from the Chosin Reservoir, his few Marines the point for a convoy of 400 or so wounded Marines. On the road they came under fire from the surrounding hills. Chinese had come down the backside of the hills and taken up positions overlooking the road, a deadly trap for the convoy of wounded. Bud took his men into the hills and threw the Chinese back, becoming wounded in the process. The Chinese cleared, the convoy of wounded proceeded to the evacuation ships. Bud Seeburger, to his surprise, got the Navy Cross for his heroic action that day in saving the lives of 400 wounded Marines.
The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Navy Cross to First Lieutenant Edward H. Seeburger (MCSN: 0-43049), United States Marine Corps (Reserve), for extraordinary heroism in connection with military operations against an armed enemy of the United Nations while serving as Unit Commander of the Dog Company Unit, Provisional Dog-Easy Company, Composite Battalion, Seventh Marines, FIRST Marine Division (Reinforced), in action against enemy aggressor forces in the Republic of Korea on 2 December 1950. First Lieutenant Seeburger was ordered to lead the attack of the combined Regimental Combat Teams FIVE and SEVEN in the breakout from Yudam-ni south to Hagaru. Soon after jumping off along the Main Supply Route with a single tank in the lead together with the remnants of about 20 men, he came under intense enemy fire from small arms, automatic weapons, rockets, and mortars from enemy forces deeply entrenched over commanding ground to the front and both flanks. First Lieutenant Seeburger began deploying his men in defilade on either side of the road. When he spotted many of the enemy on the high ground on the right flank, he contacted the tank commander through the integral phone on the back of the tank and directed their fire to silence the enemy there. As he was doing this, enemy fire severed the telephone connection and wounded him in the knee. At the same time, with well-entrenched machine guns defending a roadblock to the front, and with his ranks depleted by eight further casualties and he himself painfully wounded and unable to walk, he staunchly refused evacuation, and directed his men in an enfilade movement which wiped out the obstruction and enabled the entire column to move forward. By his great personal valor and dauntless perseverance in the face of almost certain death, First Lieutenant Seeburger saved the lives of many Marines; thereby reflecting great credit upon himself and upholding the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and the United States Naval Service.
Today US forces in Afghanistan are increasingly isolated by a hostile Pakistan, who have shut down the supply routes into Afghanistan, and by the Russians playing hardball with the route through Russia for non-lethal material. How long will it be before the Pakistani military, who are on the side of the Taliban, and who fire on our guys and planes whenever they can, decide to attack our forces in strength. Will we level Pakistan or will we pull a Dunkirk and retreat to the sea somehow? Obama put our guys in a place no military man would have put them, deep in enemy territory, with no way out. How many Navy Crosses will be awarded when we have to pull out of Afghanistan under fire?
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