"Come on, you sons of b*tches, do you want to live forever?"
Dan Daly is said to have roared that at Belleau Wood in 1918, rising up in front of his pinned-down, outnumbered Marines and leading them forward.
He stood at just five foot six and weighed only 135 pounds, but he was one of the toughest Marines who ever lived. One of only two men to earn the Medal of Honor twice from two separate wars.
Daly earned his first in 1900, during the Boxer Rebellion, holding a stretch of wall outside Peking through the night against wave after wave of attackers. He earned his second in 1915, ambushed in Haiti with a patrol vastly outnumbered, fighting his way out and leading the charge that took the enemy's fort.
His commanding officer, Smedley Butler, called him "the fightingest Marine I ever knew." A general called him "the outstanding Marine of all time."
The little man from Long Island survived Belleau Wood too, and retired a sergeant major.
Sep 21, 2026 · 2:00 PM UTC
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