thedrifter
04-10-08, 08:32 AM
In Iraq, coping after a hero dies saving you <br />
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By Gregg Zoroya, USA TODAY <br />
Army Staff Sgt. Ian Newland spotted the enemy grenade inside the Humvee. Almost simultaneously, he saw Spc. Ross McGinnis,...
thedrifter
04-10-08, 08:33 AM
A HERO WHO LIVED TO TELL
Before throwing himself on two grenades lying in the volcanic sands of Iwo Jima, Jack Lucas gave no thought to consequences.
"I didn't think. I just immediately reacted and did what I had to do," says Lucas, 79, of Hattiesburg, Miss., who today still has shrapnel in his body after somehow surviving the blast on Feb. 20, 1945.
On the second day of the island invasion, Lucas and three other Marines were fighting near an airfield when two grenades landed in their trench.
Lucas saw them first, yelled a warning and dived over another Marine to reach them. He jammed the butt of his M-1 rifle onto the explosive he recognized as a grenade that can explode into fragments, and pushed it several inches into the ash. The other device, a concussion grenade designed to stun enemy soldiers, failed to detonate.
In his autobiography, Indestructible, Lucas describes what happened next.
"After the initial blast, silence filled my universe. I never lost consciousness. The force propelled me into the air, rotating my body 180 degrees. I dropped to the earth. Except for an intense tingling sensation, I had no feeling. I had suffered over 250 entrance wounds."
He underwent 22 operations and seven months of convalescence. On Oct. 5, 1945, at the White House, President Truman presented Lucas with the Medal of Honor. Lucas was the youngest Marine ever to receive the award.
He remained strong, even serving in the 1960s as a U.S. Army paratrooper, but time and the grenade wounds have taken a toll. Lucas still carries more than 100 pieces of shrapnel in his body. A fragment in his spine requires regular pain-medicine injections. In recent years, deterioration of a right lung damaged by the blast has left him needing oxygen from a portable tank.
He has five children, seven grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. His youngest great-grandchild is a boy born in February: Lucas Gonsorcik.
By Gregg Zoroya, USA TODAY
Ellie