Other children run away to join a circus. This boy doesn’t.
Kids these days run away from their families because they are fed up with rules and obligations. Well, the following story revolves around a boy who ran away for a completely different reason.
At the age of 14, Jacklyn H. Lucas (*February 14th, 1928 † July 2th, 2008) was already graced with an athletic stature, many 20-year-olds and 30-year-olds dreamed of. Of course, such an athletic boy didn’t fail to become the captain of his school’s football team. In addition, he also did boxing, riding, basket ball and was also very talented at hunting and shooting. His school was situated near the base of an US marine corps. When the young Jacklyn decided that the life of a mere civilian didn’t suffice him anymore, he simply got himself recruited in the year 1942. What they didn’t know was that Jacklyn was only 14 years old at that time and not 17 like he stated. Of course, his mum didn’t know about his goals to become a soldier either.
After he passed the admission exam, he was trained to become a sniper. In 1944, Jacklyn was appointed Private First Class. This aspiring soldier truly was eager to fight. But to his great displeasure, he was stationed in Pearl Harbor on Hawaii. Raging because he couldn’t fight at the front, he took his belonging and secretly ran away. Since he was now considered a deserter, he was downgraded when the 5th Marine Platoon decided to take him in once more. Spending his new life on sea, he turned 17. Six days after his birthday, his big day then came: the attack on Iwojima, where a bulwark of the Japanese was located. Jacklyn lost his weapon during the landing. But together with his comrades, he still managed to storm the black beach of Iwojima, which looked like a butchery this day.
When a group of marines including himself entered enemy territory and therefore became separated from the others, it became clear that they got into a trap set up by the enemy. Curtain fire and grenades surprised the group. When two hand grenades landed in the pit, the young Jacklyn did something which made him a real hero. He threw himself over the grenades and pulled another grenade under his body, in order to prevent the full impact to kill the others. With this deed, he saved the lives of his comrades who thought that he was dead. But when additional troops arrived, they realized that, in fact, this tough boy survived as by a miracle. After 21 surgeries and 200 splinters, Jacklyn was fit again, the war was over and Jacklyn, who was still a minor at that time, was a real hero. He was one of the youngest who received the medal of honor. Until his death, he couldn’t pass a security check without setting off the alarm because there were still metal splinters inside his body.
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Copyright and Source: http://www.badassoftheweek.com/lucas.html,
http://www.marinemedals.com/lucasjacklyn.htm,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacklyn_H._Lucas
