Jacklyn Harold Lucas, Iwo Jima Medal of Honor Recipient

Dec 21 , 2025

Jacklyn Harold Lucas, Iwo Jima Medal of Honor Recipient

Jacklyn Harold Lucas was 14 years old when war called him into the crucible. Barely a boy. Yet the fields of combat spit him out a man draped in valor and scars no child could imagine.

Two grenades, one body. One Marine, fewer than 1,000 days lived. That moment burned into history’s steel.

A Boy from North Carolina, Hardened by Faith and Resolve

Born August 14, 1928, in Plymouth, North Carolina, Jacklyn Harold Lucas was a firecracker wrapped in a teenager’s frame. Raised in a working-class family during the Depression, he learned discipline early. His father was a sheriff, a man who valued courage and a steady moral compass.

Lucas carried faith like armor. A believer that God was watching, even when the world broke loose around him. At 14, he lied about his age to join the Marines—too young, but too determined to sit on the sidelines.

His code wasn’t forged on gentle sermons; it was welded in a furnace of necessity: protect your brothers at all costs. “Greater love hath no man than this,” he would have known, even before boots hit foreign soil.

The Battle That Defined Him: Iwo Jima, February 20, 1945

By the time he landed on Iwo Jima, Lucas had just turned 17. A hardened battlefield defined by volcanic sands and merciless fire from entrenched Japanese forces. The day was young, but the fighting was already a storm of death and chaos.

Under relentless enemy mortar and sniper fire, Lucas’s patrol advanced when two grenades rolled into their foxhole. Split seconds. No hesitation. He threw himself on the explosives, absorbing the blast, his body a living shield.

Wounded beyond measure—legs scorched, chest shattered—he survived while saving the lives of others. Miracles happen in hell, but they demand sacrifice.

Medal of Honor: Words That Could Never Tell It All

Lucas was the youngest Marine ever to receive the Medal of Honor in World War II—just shy of his 17th birthday when he performed this act of valor. Gen. Clifton B. Cates, Commandant of the Marine Corps, presented the medal.

“You are without a doubt the bravest Marine of the Second World War,” Cates told him.

His official citation reads simply, cold like war itself: “By his own intrepid action and indomitable spirit, he saved the lives of others.”

Two grenades, one shielded body. Jacklyn’s scars told a story of bravery few could speak. Three Purple Hearts and a Silver Star followed—the metal a poor substitute for the price paid.

Legacy Written in Blood and Redemption

Lucas’s story is not one of glorified violence. It is a testament to the harrowing cost of courage. To the unbearable bond between men who face death shoulder to shoulder.

He never claimed heroism; only duty. “I did what any Marine would do,” he said quietly in later years. But make no mistake—the weight of his sacrifice echoed through decades, reminding us the youngest among us can bear the heaviest burdens.

“Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints” (Psalm 116:15).

Today, Jacklyn Harold Lucas stands as a living reminder that valor is not the absence of fear—it’s the resolve to act beyond it. A boy who chose to shield brothers with his body carries a legacy as enduring as the Marine Corps Hymn itself.

The cost of freedom is counted in lives like his.

Sources

1. Naval History and Heritage Command, “Jacklyn Harold Lucas – Medal of Honor Recipient” 2. U.S. Marine Corps, “Medal of Honor Citation: Jacklyn Harold Lucas” 3. PBS American Experience, "Iwo Jima Documentary and Veterans’ Accounts"