During this week in 1945, a 17-year-old hits the beaches of Iwo Jima. The next day, Jack Lucas would engage in an action that would make him the youngest recipient of the Medal of Honor since the Civil War.
Lucas wasn’t supposed to be there at all. He was too young to be a Marine, but the attack on Pearl Harbor had shaken him to his core. “That very day a cold chill ran down my spine,” he later described. “I just, I just became obsessed. I had to do something.”
He forged his mother’s signature on a consent form, lied about his age, and joined the Marines when he was only 14 years old. He was a big kid, and the recruiter believed him.
Lucas was incorrigible, right from the beginning. He was supposed to stay in South Carolina after basic training, but he hopped on a train with troops who were headed to Hawaii. Once there, Lucas convinced officers that it was all about a clerical error. Not too long afterwards, the Marines discovered his real age. Lucas talked his way out of trouble and was allowed to stay, driving troop transport trucks.
But Lucas still wasn’t happy. He wanted to fight, and he stowed away on a ship headed to the Pacific. “I didn’t even know where the ships were headed,” he later said. “I’d never heard of Iwo Jima in my lifetime. I knew I was on the way to war, and that’s where I wanted. That was my obsession.”
How did he get to fight at Iwo Jima? The story continues here: https://www.taraross.com/post/tdih-jack-lucas-moh
#TDIH #OTD #History #USHistory #liberty #freedom #ShareTheHistory
Hi, everyone! First, This week's Medal of Honor Monday story can be found here: https://www.taraross.com/post/tdih-charles-murray-moh
Second, I am very sorry, but I am going to be shutting down this account. Honestly, I never really figured out how to get going on this platform. (It's probably user error on my part! LOL.) I am thinking of shutting down one or two other social media accounts also.... I spend a ton of time posting and cross-posting. Just trying to limit it to the most productive sites at this point. I am sorry, though!!!
My stories can always be found here:
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Thank you for understanding. I hope everyone has a great week!
Tara
On this day in 1774, Paul Revere makes a furious ride to warn colonists that the “British are coming!” Okay, so it wasn’t that ride. Revere’s famous midnight ride was still four months in the future. Instead, this little-known ride was made from Boston to New Hampshire—and it was made in the middle of the day.
The clashes in New Hampshire, historian David Hackett Fischer notes, “were truly the first blows of the American Revolution, four months before the battles of Lexington and Concord.”
Relations between Great Britain and her American colonies had been strained for quite a while. But in October 1774, King George III and his ministers made things even worse: They imposed a ban on the exportation of arms and ammunition to North America. They also ordered royal officials to secure the arms that were already in the colonies.
The story continues here: https://www.taraross.com/post/tdih-paul-revere-other-ride
On this day in 1996, a Labrador Retriever is born. That little dog, Salty, would become a guide dog, leading his blind owner from the burning World Trade Center on 9-11.
“Salty will always have a special place in my heart,” said Omar Rivera on the 11th anniversary of those attacks. “To see my family grow, to see my daughters grow, to continue to be together with my family—it’s such a gift. Life is a gift.”
Rivera had been at work early that day. He was on the 71st floor preparing for a meeting when he heard a huge, crashing noise. It was the sound of American Airlines Flight 11 hitting the building 22 floors above him, but he had no way to know that.
The story continues here: https://www.taraross.com/post/tdih-salty-roselle
