Members Login
Username 
 
Password 
    Remember Me  
Chatbox
Please log in to join the chat!
Post Info TOPIC: Obituary: Jack Lucas, Youngest Marine Ever To Receive The Medal Of Honor, 80


Second Class

Status: Offline
Posts: 682
Date:
Obituary: Jack Lucas, Youngest Marine Ever To Receive The Medal Of Honor, 80


Jack Lucas, 80; youngest Marine to receive the Medal of Honor

By Valerie J. Nelson, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

Jack Lucas, who forged his mother's signature on an enlistment
document so he could join the military at 14 during World War II and
who became the youngest Marine to receive the Medal of Honor, has
died. He was 80.

Lucas, who was diagnosed with leukemia in April [2008], died Thursday
[June 5, 2008] at Forrest General Hospital in Hattiesburg,
Mississippi, after asking to be removed from a dialysis machine, said
Mary Draughn, a close friend.

Three years after joining the Marines, Lucas was stationed at a supply
depot in Hawaii when he stowed away on a ship headed to Iwo Jima
because he was afraid he would never see combat, he later recalled.

On February 20, 1945 -- six days after he turned 17 -- Lucas was
fighting Japanese soldiers in a trench during the Battle of Iwo Jima
when he dived on top of two grenades and pushed them deep into the
beach's volcanic ash to shield three other Marines from harm.

"I didn't think. I just immediately reacted and did what I had to do,"
Lucas told USA Today last year.

One of the grenades exploded. Lucas suffered near-fatal injuries and
underwent more than 20 operations over the following months. More than
200 bits of metal remained embedded in his body.

For his actions, Lucas was presented the Medal of Honor -- the
nation's highest and most exclusive military decoration -- by
President Truman in October 1945 in a ceremony on the White House
lawn.

Truman "told me he'd rather have that Medal of Honor than be president
of the United States," Lucas said in 2006 in the Herald-Sun of Durham,
North Carollina. "I said, 'Sir, I'll swap you.' And all he did was
laugh."

Only one other 20th century Medal of Honor recipient was younger than
Lucas. He was James Aloysius Walsh, a 16-year-old Navy seaman who was
honored for his heroism during the 1914 U.S. occupation of Veracruz,
Mexico.

There are 29 surviving World War II Medal of Honor recipients and 104
overall. Since the distinction was established in 1862, there have
been 3,448 Medal of Honor recipients, according to the Congressional
Medal of Honor Society.

"I never really thought of myself as a hero, period, but they chose to
decorate me," Lucas told the Washington Post in 1985. "Then I was
cocky after all that fanfare. It really blew my mind, women jumping on
me and kissing me. . . . I got engaged four times."

People often told Lucas he should recount his war years in a book, he
recalled. At the dedication of a war memorial, he met D.K. Drum, a
North Carolina writer who later became the coauthor of his 2006 book,
"Indestructible: The Unforgettable Story of a Marine Hero at the
Battle of Iwo Jima."

Jacklyn Harold Lucas was born February 14, 1928, in Plymouth, Norht
Carolina. His father died when he was 10.

When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor [Hawaii], Lucas was a 13-year-
old cadet captain at Edwards Military Institute in the small town of
Salemburg, North Carolina.

"Though I was only an eighth-grader . . . I would not settle for
watching from the sidelines when the United States was in such
desperate need of support from its citizens," he said in his book.

After he joined the Marines, military censors discovered his actual
age when he wrote a letter to his girlfriend, who was 15. When they
threatened to send him home, he said he would just join the Army. The
Marines had assigned Lucas to the relatively safe job of driving a
transport truck in Hawaii when he jumped a troop ship bound for Iwo
Jima.

After the war, Lucas married Helen, the first of his four wives, on
"The Bride and Groom Show," a CBS program that featured couples and
their on-air weddings. Four years later, he earned a business
administration degree from High Point University in North Carolina.

In 1961, at 33, Lucas once again wanted to wear a military uniform.

The Marines would have welcomed him back, Lucas later said, but he
joined the Army because he wanted to jump from planes. He rose to the
rank of captain but quit in 1965, bitterly disappointed that he would
not be sent to Vietnam, he said in his book.

Over the next 16 years, he built a chain of successful butcher shops
in the Washington, D.C., area.

"He was a character. He didn't fit any mold," said Doug Sterner, a
military historian who was his friend. "Jack was very outspoken, a guy
who was willing to go against the grain."

During his 1995 State of the Union speech, President Clinton
introduced Lucas to the country.

Sitting next to First Lady Hillary Clinton, Lucas heard the president
say in part:

"Fifty years ago in the sands of Iwo Jima, Jack Lucas taught and
learned the lessons of citizenship. . . . All these years later,
yesterday, here is what he said about that day: 'Didn't matter where
you were from or who you were, you relied on one another. You did it
for your country.' "

Lucas is survived by his wife, Ruby, whom he married in 1998, of
Hattiesburg; four sons, William, Jimmy, Lewis and Kelly; a daughter,
Peggy; a brother; 15 grandchildren; and 16 great-grandchildren.

http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-lucas6-2008jun06,0,4941734.story




__________________
Page 1 of 1  sorted by
 
Quick Reply

Please log in to post quick replies.

Tweet this page Post to Digg Post to Del.icio.us