Jacklyn Lucas, 17-Year-Old Marine & Youngest Medal of Honor Recipient

Jan 22 , 2026

Jacklyn Lucas, 17-Year-Old Marine & Youngest Medal of Honor Recipient

The grenade landed like a thunderbolt—seconds to live.

Jacklyn Harold Lucas, barely seventeen, didn’t think twice. He dove, pure muscle and guts, pressing two enemy grenades to his chest beneath the sand and gunfire. His body took the blast. His spirit stayed unbroken.

A Boy Made of Iron

Born in 1928, almost too young to enlist, Jacklyn Lucas carried the hunger of a man twice his age—the hunger to serve, to protect, to fight for something bigger than himself. He lied about his age to join the Marine Corps in 1942, driven by more than youthful bravado—a code stamped deep into his soul: faith, honor, sacrifice.

Raised in a modest home, with faith guiding his steps, Lucas embraced a warrior’s creed not of pride but of purpose. His letters home spoke of God’s grace as much as the coming battles. “The Lord delivers me from the snare of the fowler,” he would later reflect, a verse from Psalm 91 grounding him through hell. Faith wasn’t just comfort—it was armor.

Tarawa: Fire and Flesh

November 20, 1943. The island of Betio, Tarawa Atoll—hell scoured into sand by war’s fury. The Gilbert Islands campaign was a brutal crucible where Marines faced relentless fire, razor-wire, and unforgiving reefs.

Lucas was in K Company, 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines. The beachhead was a graveyard of sound and shrapnel; chaos reigned. Amid the fury, two grenades landed near his fellow Marines. No time to shout, no room to hesitate.

Without a flinch, Lucas grabbed both, slammed them to his chest, and ate the explosion.

The blast tore his thighs and chest open. His hands were shredded, face scorched beyond recognition—a boy broken by fire, yet alive. Fellow Marines later said Lucas didn’t cry out; he lay silent, a steel ghost beneath the smoke.

Valor Etched in Bone

For this act of reckless valor, Lucas became the youngest Marine—and youngest Medal of Honor recipient in World War II history at just 17 years old.

The Medal of Honor citation is stark truth:

“By his great personal valor and heroic deeds under fire, Corporal Lucas saved the lives of two comrades by smothering the explosion of two enemy grenades with his body.”

Even after being wounded a second time later in the war, Lucas’s courage did not waver.

Marine Corps Commandant General Alexander Archer Vandegrift said of the youngest Medal of Honor recipient, “Jacklyn Lucas exemplifies the spirit-will to endure, the fighting heart of all Marines.”¹

While other boys played in the streets, Jacklyn bore scars that told a story written in blood and pain. The government awarded him a Purple Heart with two oak leaf clusters—proof of sacrifice on more than one front.

Enduring Legacy: More Than a Medal

Jacklyn Harold Lucas never sought glory. His Medal of Honor was a heavy burden as much as honor. He carried his scars quietly, refusing to let his injuries make him bitter.

His life after combat was a testament to redemption and purpose—not the glamor of war, but the resolve to live for those left behind.

“It wasn’t about me,” he said later. “It was about the guy beside me.” That’s the heart of a Marine’s oath, the unyielding bond forged in hell.

His story is burned into the pages of history and the souls of every veteran who knows what it means to stand in the face of death and choose sacrifice.

“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” — John 15:13

That’s the gospel Lucas lived. Not by grand speeches or parades, but by raw, unvarnished courage.

Walking away from suicide, the pain, and years of struggle, Lucas became a living testament that even the deepest wounds can birth a legacy of hope and honor.

In a world too quick to forget, remember Jacklyn—the boy who became a Marine, the Marine who became legend, the legend who showed us the cost of freedom.

Sources

1. U.S. Marine Corps History Division, “Medal of Honor Recipient: Jacklyn Harold Lucas” 2. David F. Winkler, The Battle of Tarawa, 1943, Naval History and Heritage Command 3. Gene Groves, Marine Corps Veterans, World War II Medal of Honor Recipients, Marine Corps University Press