27. The Fourteen-Year-Old Marine
At age fourteen, Jacklyn Harrell “Jack” Lucas (1928 – 2008) lied about his age to join the US Marine Corps during WWII. At age seventeen, he displayed such extraordinary heroism during the Battle of Iwo Jima to save the lives of fellow Marines, that he earned the Medal of Honor. It made Lucas the youngest Marine to ever receive the country’s highest award for valor.
When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, Lucas, of Plymouth, North Carolina, was a thirteen-year-old cadet captain in a military academy, and captain of the school’s football team. Eager to join the action, when Lucas was fourteen, he forged his mother’s signature on a form that granted permission for her “seventeen-year-old” son to enlist and used that to join the Marine Corps Reserves.