From the Frozen Chosin to Churchill

The Biography of Csm Ray Hooker Cottrell as Told to Bob Brooks

This is the story of one such NCO. He is equally versed in training and planning in leading and fighting. Raised from the poverty of the Great Depression, he enters into the service at sixteen. Like what a large number of young men did in WWII, he lies about his age in order to have the opportunity to do more than just survive. It has been argued that there was no such thing as a teenager until the 70s. When you left the house, you were considered an adult. You made decisions as an adult, you were treated as an adult, and you were respected as an adult. This soldier becomes that adult when his first experience in war comes at age seventeen in North Korea of 1950. From Incheon to Suwon, to the Chinese border of the Yalu and the Chosin Reservoir, he travels and fights for his country six thousand miles away from home. He is not old enough to drink or vote, but old enough to die. He grows up in the military under the tutelage of his commanders and leaders. He couldn’t read a compass before he was put in charge of a platoon of fighting men. All of whom are older than him, some by a decade or more. In a few short months, he goes from PFC to master sergeant.