CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. — A half-eaten sandwich believed to be Chesty Puller’s has Marine officials hailing it as an “important piece of Corps history,” sources confirmed Friday.

The leftover sandwich from one of the most iconic Marines ever was discovered in a disused refrigerator on Thursday when an abandoned headquarters building was being cleaned prior to its renovation. The discovery — in what was once a break room for senior officers — was made in a building that was constructed in the 1940s on Camp Lejeune that had been abandoned since the early 1980s.

The salami-and-smoked-mozzarella on a wheat baguette with tomato and a bit of garlic mustard spread, wrapped in wax paper with “PULLER” scrawled on the outside in marker, was confirmed to be Chesty Puller’s by a forensics team attached to the Marines’ 2nd Intelligence Battalion.

“This is, I mean, it’s just unfathomable how significant and historic this is,” said Marine Commandant Gen. James Amos. “Chesty is literally the best and bravest Marine ever to draw breath. He is like the Genghis Khan of America. So to find any relic of him at all is a huge deal, but an actual food item he was eating…it just boggles the mind.”

Sources confirmed Amos then took a two-hour break during which he wept tears of unimaginable joy into a baseball mitt.

The sandwich was immediately secured by Marine Special Operations Command personnel and escorted under heavy guard to the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Triangle, Virginia. After just one hour under hermetically-sealed glass in the high-security section of the museum, it became the most popular attraction.

A website set up by the Marine Corps to allow purchase of tickets to observe the sandwich had registered more than 40 million reservations in less than a day. Guides at the museum estimate that if visitors were allowed 24-hour access to the sandwich, it would mean new visits wouldn’t be available until the year 2023.

“This is amazing,” confirmed Gunnery Sgt. Ivan Chebkov, a platoon sergeant currently on a western Pacific cruise on the USS Essex. “I can’t wait to get home and see Chesty’s lunch. I called my ex-wife to make sure she got us tickets for early next year.”

“They say the fridge was plugged in and that kept the sandwich from rotting or something,” Chebkov added, before speculating on his own theory: “I think the real reason is that Chesty’s ghost still occasionally haunts that break room, looking for the rest of his lunch. Chesty’s magic kept his sandwich fresh.”