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Jim Lea ©Stars and StripesOsan Air Base, South Korea, February, 2002: Medal of Honor recipient Col. Lewis L. Millett, left, and Gen. Paik Sun-yup, South Korea’s most decorated Korean War soldier, chat during the 51st anniversary commemoration of Millett’s bayonet charge up Hill 180 at what is now Osan Air Base. On Feb. 7, 1951, Millett — then a captain in command of E Co., 27th Infantry Regiment — led a bayonet charge through machine-gun and antitank gun fire from entrenched Chinese and North Korean troops that resulted in the capture of the hill. "The Chinese had put out the word that we were afraid of bayonets," the Mechanic Falls, Maine, native recalled. "'Americans afraid of bayonets' is just ridiculous, I thought, so I intended to prove a point." He then rallied "The Wolfhounds" with the order to "fix bayonets and follow me."

RELATED MATERIAL: A 1998 Stars and Stripes story about an earlier visit by Col. Millett to Osan.