Robert H. Jenkins Jr., Medal of Honor Marine Who Shielded His Comrades

Dec 11 , 2025

Robert H. Jenkins Jr., Medal of Honor Marine Who Shielded His Comrades

A grenade lands at his feet. Time screws up. No second to think—just pure instinct. Robert H. Jenkins Jr., Marine, moves without hesitation. He drops onto that explosion like a shield for his brothers. A violent burst rips through flesh and bone. He dies there. But he also saves lives.

The Battle That Defined Him

March 5, 1969. Quang Nam Province, Vietnam. Jenkins was with Company E, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines, 1st Marine Division. Heat so thick it sucked the breath from the air. Enemy fire close and relentless. The war grinding men down to raw metal and grit.

Jenkins already wore scars from a brutal firefight days earlier. But this day, his courage would eclipse every wound. A Viet Cong grenade arced into their perimeter. Marines ducked. Confused seconds—the kind that spell death. Jenkins, without a word, threw his body, his life, over the grenade. The blast tore through him, but men next to him lived because of his sacrifice.

This sacrificial act was not random. It was the product of a Marine’s code—a warrior’s resolve born from brotherhood and faith under fire.

Background & Faith: The Making of a Warrior

Robert H. Jenkins Jr. hailed from New York City, a tough start building a steel spine. Before the war, he worked construction—hands familiar with heavy lifting, pain, and perseverance.

Faith was his cornerstone. Marines who knew him spoke of a quiet strength rooted in belief. A line he lived by: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13).

This wasn’t just scripture on a page. It was his creed in the shit and mud of war. Jenkins carried more than weapons. He carried faith and commitment deeper than fear.

Combat: A Man Against Death

Company E had been ambushed earlier that day, facing constant small arms fire and mortar rounds. Jenkins, despite suffering wounds, kept moving forward. The chaos was a grinding trial—limited cover, relentless enemy pressure, confusion thick as the jungle canopy.

When the grenade landed, the unit was in a tight circle. No time to react. Jenkins’s instant choice to shield his comrades with his own body is the purest form of combat honor. It was a final act sealing his legacy in Marine Corps history.

Recognition: Medal of Honor and Brotherhood Remembered

On November 19, 1970, Robert H. Jenkins Jr. was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. The citation reads in part:

“For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty… Corporal Jenkins’ heroic act of self-sacrifice saved the lives of his fellow Marines.”

His company commander once said,

"Jenkins wasn’t a hero in seeking glory—he was a hero because he lived and fought like each man mattered more than himself."

The Medal of Honor bearer became a symbol not of one life lost, but many lives saved. And a legacy indelibly inked into the Corps’ eternal story.

Legacy & Lessons: Courage Beyond the War

Robert Jenkins’s death echoes louder than words. It’s in the steel of every handshake between Marines. It’s in the silence during roll calls when a name is called but no voice answers.

His story teaches harsh truth: Courage isn’t absence of fear. It’s the brutal embrace of duty when the price is the highest. Sacrifice isn’t abstract—it’s flesh and bone, pain and breath, choice and fate interwoven.

“He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake will find it.” (Matthew 10:39)

Jenkins found his life in losing it. Redemption carved in blood and faith.

We owe these truths to the veterans who live in our midst—scarred, often silent, but unyielding. Robert H. Jenkins Jr.’s story is not just history. It is a call to live with that fierce love, even when the battlefield is far away.

To remember him is to remember what it costs to be free.

Sources

1. U.S. Marine Corps History Division, Medal of Honor Citation: Robert H. Jenkins Jr. 2. Department of Defense, “Medal of Honor Recipients: Vietnam War,” official archives. 3. “The Marine Corps Gazette,” Nov. 1970, feature article on Jenkins’s Medal of Honor action. 4. Matt Schudel, “Medal of Honor: A History of Extraordinary Bravery,” Naval Institute Press.