As you sit down to have Thanksgiving dinner take some time to remember how Marines during the Korean War had to celebrate their Thanksgiving:

With the arrival of the waning days of November, the entire 1stMarDiv was shifting ever northward, 7th Marines in the lead, followed by the 5th Marines, while the 1st Marines, freed from security duties around Wonsan, were establishing intermediate bases at Chinhung-ni and Koto-ri. By Thanksgiving Day, 24 Nov., Col Litzenberg’s 7th Marines had occupied the town of Hagaru-ri at the southern tip of the Chosin Reservoir and were sending patrols to the flyspeck village of Yudam-ni, farther north on the reservoir’s western shore. LtCol Murray’s 5th Marines were operating to the east along the opposite bank. Engineers of LtCol John Partridge’s Ist Engineer Bn were already at work around the clock scraping out a 5,000-foot runway at Hagaru-ri. Mountains of supplies, enough for two weeks of fighting, were being built up. By some minor miracle there was a turkey dinner with all the trimmings on Thanksgiving Day itself. As one veteran of the campaign recalled years later: "The gravy froze first, then the mashed potatoes. The turkey was still a little warm in the middle, if you ate real fast."

None of the men who lined up for chow call that day knew it, but Thanksgiving dinner would be the last full meal most of them would eat for more than two weeks. Sgt Irvin R. "Dick" Stone, an assault section leader with Weapons Co, 115, didn’t get even that. On a hillside outpost Stone’s Thanksgiving dinner consisted of a can of C-ration meat and noodles, frozen solid. He threw away the can and contented himself with gnawing at the bar of chocolate that came in the ration box.