'Vengeance Is Mine': This Medal of Honor Recipient Reenlisted to Avenge his Brother's Death in Korea

People join the military for many reasons. Some want to earn college money. Others want a chance to learn a new trade. Some sign up to serve their country during wartime. During the Korean War, some 6.8 million Americans either joined or answered their draft notice, because their country called them to serve.

Ronald Rosser, who had already served three years in the Army, signed back up for one simple reason: revenge. Specifically, he wanted to avenge his brother's death at the hands of the communists. He would not only get his vengeance, but he would do it in such a spectacular way that it would result in his receiving the Medal of Honor, the United States' highest military decoration.

Born in 1929 in Columbus, Ohio, Rosser was one of 17 children. As the oldest of the bunch, he was naturally very protective of all of them, recalling later in life that his boyhood hobby was "fighting."

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''If you bothered one of my brothers, I cleaned your clock. And if you bothered one of my sisters, you better leave town,'' he joked during a 2002 interview with the Library of Congress' Veterans History Project. "I really didn't have any hobbies. Just taking care of my brothers and sisters -- keeping them out of trouble was enough to keep me busy."

Rosser initially joined the Army in 1946 because his mother's latest bundle of joy turned out to be twins and he figured he'd "lost his seat at the table." He enlisted at just 17 years old, became a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division and served with the American forces occupying postwar Japan. When his enlistment was over three years later, he became a coal miner and continued watching over his younger brothers and sisters.

The peace wouldn't last. In June 1950, North Korea invaded South Korea and quickly overran the U.S. forces stationed there. The United States was suddenly back on a war footing, and Richard Rosser, who had joined the Army after his older brother, was sent to the Korean peninsula with thousands of other American troops. On Feb. 10, 1951, the younger Rosser was killed in action -- and his big brother decided that he had to do something about it.

''I had made up my mind before I went there that you can't kill my brother and get away with it,'' he said. "So I went over there with a 'vengeance is mine' kind of attitude."

Rosser signed up for combat duty in Korea, but when he finally arrived in the country in early 1951, he was sent to a heavy mortar company because of his past experience with M2 4.2-inch mortars. His company commander wanted him to be a first gunner, but Rosser wanted to go to the front line. He and his captain had a brief disagreement about where he should be sent, but Rosser eventually found himself on the line as a radioman for a forward artillery observer. Even as units rotated in and out of the front, he never left the line. Eventually, he became the actual forward observer and he stayed there for the rest of 1951.

''Not many men get into the kind of combat I was in,'' Rosser recalled. ''Most men, their company goes up and their company comes back. I never came back. I always stayed up there, and I watched a lot of men come and go.''

In that time, Rosser lost seven of his eight radio operators and was wounded four times. Then, on Jan 12, 1952, he was attached to the 38th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division in an area known as the "Iron Triangle" (or, as Rosser called it, the "Death Trap"). He and the rest of Company L were ordered to capture a Chinese-held outpost at the top of a heavily fortified hill near Ponggilli.

"Our mission was to hit them at daylight," Rosser said. "Kill as many Chinese as we could. Capture as many as we could. And blow up their winter installations. Sort of put them out in the cold, so to speak. It was 20 below zero at the time, and about a foot of crusty snow. Instead of sneaking up on a Chinese, we sent one platoon up the front of the mountain. It's a diversion that kind of sucked the Chinese forward. The rest of the men there -- as fast as they could move, went around to the back and attacked it up the back of the mountain."

But Rosser's company was stopped in their tracks amid a hail of small arms, machine gun, artillery and mortar fire from two directions.

"I was always assigned to whoever was attacking, assaulting the enemy," he recalled. "If A Company was attacking, I went with them. If they got wiped out, I went with B Company. I was having a ball, blowing the heck out of things."

Instead of allowing himself to be pinned down by the fire or retreat in the face of it, Rosser tossed the radio phone at his assistant and charged the enemy position. He was armed with only his M2 carbine and a single grenade. When he reached the first bunker, he killed all of its defenders with a burst from the carbine and continued up the hill. Once at the top, he killed two more and then hopped into a trench, killing five more. Upon reaching another bunker, he chucked his only grenade into it. When the survivors stumbled out, he killed them, too.

Upon realizing he was out of ammunition, he ran through the same hail of bullets and bombs to his original position, loaded up on ammo and grenades, and charged more enemy bunkers. Men were inspired to join him, but were shot down trying to follow. Rosser expended all his ammunition and once again returned to get more. On his third assault, he began throwing grenades at the enemy. When he returned this final time, he was wounded, but he not only led the Americans in an orderly withdrawal, but crossed the open terrain to help extract the other wounded men.

"Close combat never bothered me like it did a lot of people," he told the Library of Congress. "It always seemed like the enemy was a lot slower than me. It looked like they were in slow motion."

Of the 170 men who assaulted the hill with Rosser that day, 90 were killed and 12 were missing. Only 68 returned. Rosser was still on the front line exacting his revenge when he learned he would receive the Medal of Honor. It was presented to him by President Harry S. Truman at the White House Rose Garden on June 27, 1952.

Catching the plane back home to get his Medal of Honor was the first time Rosser came away from the line since he got there.

"The first time I'd seen [the Medal of Honor citation] was when I got to Washington and it said that I killed at least 13," Rosser would recall. "Well, I got that many in the first trench."

Though his time in combat in Korea was over, Rosser stayed in the Army, serving for a total of 22 years. He served in Germany and became a paratrooper instructor at Fort Benning, Georgia. In 1966, his brother Gary was killed in action in Vietnam, so Rosser once again volunteered for combat duty. This time, he was denied.

Rosser died in 2020 at 90 years old.

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