"I've conducted hundreds of interviews for our books but only one in person: Colonel Ralph Puckett, Jr., an icon in the Army and especially the Ranger world. As luck would have it, I was in Highlands, North Carolina, when he and his beloved wife, Jeannie, invited me to visit their lovely home in Columbus, Georgia. I couldn't say no. No Ranger would even dream of saying no. It was a cool October morning and I was nervous. I was actually going to sit in Colonel Ralph Puckett's living room and ask him questions about his brilliant career and, specifically, about the battle in Korea, for which he received the Medal of Honor. Back in the 1990s, when I first met the then-Honorary Colonel of the Ranger Regiment, it was a pretty big deal to listen to him speak- not in a lecture hall, but in the field, on the rifle range, in the middle of the night, after a parachute jump or a long road march. Colonel Puckett was right there, witnessing the training and giving guidance on what he saw. More importantly, he talked with less experienced soldiers. His words weren't saccharine chatter spoken out of kindness. They were instructive and informative and made every one of us- the young Ranger privates and sergeants and lieutenants- feel like his peer. He took a personal interest in everyone- soldiers and Rangers- the warriors of America. Always."