This takes place during the Second Infantry Division's retreat from Kuni-ri, November 30, 1950
What Emerson remembered best about that day ... was that the commander of the Twenty-third came in on the last vehicle, a jeep with a mounted machine gun. Emerson immediately understood the meaning of that - a commander who had made himself one of the most vulnerable members of his outfit should the Chinese catch up with them. The last man out, Emerson thought, that's good; that's what a real commander does. The commander, whose name was Paul Freeman, stopped briefly to talk to him, and was very cool, and very much in command - as if something like this, taking a regiment down a back road to escape three or four Chinese divisions, was something he did every day.
From 'The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War by David Halberstam
What Emerson remembered best about that day ... was that the commander of the Twenty-third came in on the last vehicle, a jeep with a mounted machine gun. Emerson immediately understood the meaning of that - a commander who had made himself one of the most vulnerable members of his outfit should the Chinese catch up with them. The last man out, Emerson thought, that's good; that's what a real commander does. The commander, whose name was Paul Freeman, stopped briefly to talk to him, and was very cool, and very much in command - as if something like this, taking a regiment down a back road to escape three or four Chinese divisions, was something he did every day.
From 'The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War by David Halberstam
