Author Topic: Jack Lucas dies  (Read 1161 times)

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ZOldDude

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Jack Lucas dies
« on: June 06, 2008, 12:48:44 am »
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WWII vet who earned Medal of Honor at 17 dies.
Too young to join, Jack Lucas lied his way into military service at age 14.
This -is- the guy that all those Hollywood movies show throwing himself on a grenade to save others.

R.I.P. Jack Lucas...the world sees few people like you.

I will have to talk with Gus Decker when I move the last of my house up north this coming week. Gus also survived Iwo Jima and I last visited him this past summer.
Gus lives about 20 minutes from my new home.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24988705

« Last Edit: June 06, 2008, 01:19:06 am by ZOldDude »

*While we crash and burn, small, low tech, agrarian societies such as the Hmong in the mountains of Laos will continue on without so much as blinking an eye.*

[TKC]Lasher

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Re: Jack Lucas dies
« Reply #1 on: June 12, 2008, 02:55:38 am »
Semper Fi =/
Whenever work feels overwhelming, just remember that you are going to die.

[TKC]Symantic

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Re: Jack Lucas dies
« Reply #2 on: June 12, 2008, 10:31:28 am »
semper fidelis...
always faithful...
Enjoy your creative game-play, whatever that may include.

ZOldDude

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Re: Jack Lucas dies
« Reply #3 on: August 10, 2008, 05:34:08 am »
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updated 10:38 a.m. PT, Thurs., June. 5, 2008
JACKSON, Miss. - Jack Lucas, who at 14 lied his way into military service during World War II and became the youngest Marine to receive the Medal of Honor, died Thursday in a Hattiesburg, Miss., hospital. He was 80.

Lucas had been battling cancer. Ponda Lee at Moore Funeral Service said the funeral home was told he died before dawn.

Jacklyn "Jack" Lucas was just six days past his 17th birthday in February 1945 when his heroism at Iwo Jima earned him the nation's highest military honor. He used his body to shield three fellow squad members from two grenades, and was nearly killed when one exploded.

"A couple of grenades rolled into the trench," Lucas said in an Associated Press interview shortly before he received the medal from President Truman in October 1945. "I hollered to my pals to get out and did a Superman dive at the grenades. I wasn't a Superman after I got hit. I let out one helluva scream when that thing went off."

He was left with more than 250 pieces of shrapnel in his body and in every major organ and endured 26 surgeries in the months after Iwo Jima.

Win Medal of Honor
He was the youngest serviceman to win the Medal of Honor in any conflict other than the Civil War.


  Click for related content
Daily Nightly blog: Honoring Jack Lucas


"By his inspiring action and valiant spirit of self-sacrifice, he not only protected his comrades from certain injury or possible death but also enabled them to rout the Japanese patrol and continue the advance," the Medal of Honor citation said.

In the AP interview, written as a first-person account under his name, he recalled the months he spent in a hospital.

"Soon as I rest up, I imagine I'll run for president," the story concluded. "Ain't I the hero, though?"

Big for his age and eager to serve, Lucas forged his mother's signature on an enlistment waiver and joined the Marines at 14. Military censors discovered his age through a letter to his 15-year-old girlfriend.

"They had him driving a truck in Hawaii because his age was discovered and they threatened to send him home," said D.K. Drum, who wrote Lucas' story in the 2006 book "Indestructible."

"He said if they sent him home, he would just join the Army."

Lucas eventually stowed away aboard a Navy ship headed for combat in the Pacific Ocean. He turned himself in to avoid being listed as a deserter and volunteered to fight, and the officers on board allowed him to reach his goal of fighting the Japanese.

"They did not know his age. He didn't give it up and they didn't ask," Drum said.

Born in 1928
Born in Plymouth, N.C., on Feb. 14, 1928, Lucas was a 13-year-old cadet captain in a military academy when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.

"I would not settle for watching from the sidelines when the United States was in such desperate need of support from its citizens," Lucas said in "Indestructible." "Everyone was needed to do his part and I could not do mine by remaining in North Carolina."

After the war, Lucas earned a business degree from High Point University in North Carolina and raised, processed and sold beef in the Washington, D.C., area. In the 1960s, he joined the Army and became a paratrooper, Drum said, to conquer his fear of heights. On a training jump, both of his parachutes failed.

"He was the last one out of the airplane and the first one on the ground," Drum said.

He was diagnosed with a form of leukemia in April and spent his last days in the hospital with family and friends, including his wife, Ruby, standing vigil.

*While we crash and burn, small, low tech, agrarian societies such as the Hmong in the mountains of Laos will continue on without so much as blinking an eye.*

Jimmy

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Re: Jack Lucas dies
« Reply #4 on: February 23, 2009, 08:59:54 pm »
cya

Jake

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Re: Jack Lucas dies
« Reply #5 on: August 22, 2011, 06:49:00 am »
R.I.P

ZOldDude

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Re: Jack Lucas dies
« Reply #6 on: August 22, 2011, 10:06:49 am »
R.I.P

Well at least Gus Decker is still alive.
I deliver hot meals to shut in/disabled basically across the street from his home in town.
Most all guys back then lied about age and/or even showed forged "consent forms" to enter the navy.
« Last Edit: August 22, 2011, 10:37:39 am by ZOldDude »

*While we crash and burn, small, low tech, agrarian societies such as the Hmong in the mountains of Laos will continue on without so much as blinking an eye.*