thedrifter
06-21-09, 09:57 AM
June 21, 2009
Honoring a 'brother'
BY JENNIFER WEAVER
jeweaver@thespectrum.com
NEW HARMONY - After watching a telecast of NBC World News with broadcast journalist, Brian Williams on June 6, 2008, Searle Lansing-Jones realized that a part of him had been involved in the battle of Iwo Jima 63 years earlier. While he wasn't there physically, his clothes and weapon were.
Lansing-Jones chronicled his World War II experience for the Marine Corps League that met at his home in New Harmony on Friday. He told the small audience of Marine veterans what led him to sculpt a bronze bust in tribute to a comrade in his unit that he did not know, but with whom he felt a special bond.
That firm connection was forged from Williams' announcement that Jacklyn "Jack" Harold Lucas - the youngest serviceman to receive the Medal of Honor in any conflict other than the Civil War - had died from cancer at the age of 80. Williams went on to say in his broadcast that Lucas had lied about his age to enlist in the Marines and stowed away on a troopship to get into the war.
Lucas was 14 years old, about 5-foot, 8-inches tall and 185 pounds when he enlisted in Norfolk, Va, on Aug. 6, 1942. He left for the Marine Corps Parris Island boot camp in Leatherneck fighting trim, according to the 1996 summer issue of Marine Corps Magazine.
The obvious teenager was given the clothes, gear and weapon of another Marine who was sent to a hospital with appendicitis. PFC Lucas, a member of Company C, 1st battalion, 26th Marines, 5th Marine Division, was just six days past his 17th birthday in February 1945 when, on being sent into battle, flung his body onto two grenades to protect three fellow squad members from lethal harm, the magazine said.
"A couple of grenades rolled into the trench," Lucas said in an Associated Press interview shortly before he received the medal from President Truman in October 1945. "I hollered to my pals to get out and did a Superman dive at the grenades. I wasn't a Superman after I got hit. I let out one helluva scream when that thing went off."
One of the grenades did not detonate, but the other one exploded and left Lucas with more than 250 pieces of shrapnel in his body and every major organ, including six pieces in his brain and two in his heart. He endured 26 surgeries in the following months, Williams said in his broadcast story.
Lansing-Jones said he was stunned. The 5-foot, 8-inch man had felt guilty for more than 50 years for getting an appendectomy while his "band of brothers" battled off the shores of Saipan in one of the bloodiest battles of WW II.
"I felt deeply guilty but then I felt some consolation," he said. "This has a lot to do with the band of brothers. You work together to reach a goal and you want to be part of that goal."
Remorse he felt for not being a part of combat eased somewhat when Lansing-Jones - who had enlisted in the Marines before graduating from Newington High School in May 1943, and today, is an accomplished sculptor and artist - was accepted as an executive officer into the Iwo Jima Survivors Association in 1990. That admission took some of the sting out his guilt, he said.
But it was that June day a year ago while watching television that put to rest any remaining guilt for Lansing. He said it was at that moment he chose to contact the widow of Lucas and offer to pay homage to the Marine, who fought in his clothes, with a bronze bust. Putting his efforts into the edifice would also distract him from his depression that came from grieving his wife's death a year earlier, he added.
In a letter dated, June 11, 2008, Lansing-Jones offered his condolences to Mrs. Ruby Lucas and solicited her permission to fashion the bust and requesting various photos of differing angles of Lucas from the years of 1955 to 1965.
A dictated letter dated July 17, 2008, recounted a phone conversation one week earlier between Lansing-Jones and Ruby Lucas where consent was given to craft the sculpture.
It took Lansing-Jones 11 months to complete the bust he unveiled on Friday. He intends to send it to Ruby Lucas in tribute to the Marine Corps in hopes that it will some day be on display at the Marine Corps Heritage Museum in Quantico, Va.
"There's an audience there, and I would like to have them see this and think of this young man with only one week into his 17th year in World War II, going way beyond the call of duty in throwing himself on these hand grenades, and I hope that they will think how wonderful those men were who were in that war, fighting to save us," Lansing-Jones said.
While the soft-spoken man with kind eyes behind framed glasses, slightly shorter and frail from self-professed old age, hopes the legacy of Lucas will live on in the bronze bust, he would simply like to be remembered for his lifetime as an artist. To Marine Steve Cantonwine, a Vietnam veteran, Lansing-Jones Ð endearingly called "Smokey" is a man to revere and honor.
"We commend Smokey for the work he is doing. He has a very unique talent and an ability to tell a story through his talent. He doesn't have a thing to feel bad or be ashamed of," Cantonwine said. "Without him, the whole story of Lucas would be put to rest. Now the story also includes him, like it should."
Ellie
Honoring a 'brother'
BY JENNIFER WEAVER
jeweaver@thespectrum.com
NEW HARMONY - After watching a telecast of NBC World News with broadcast journalist, Brian Williams on June 6, 2008, Searle Lansing-Jones realized that a part of him had been involved in the battle of Iwo Jima 63 years earlier. While he wasn't there physically, his clothes and weapon were.
Lansing-Jones chronicled his World War II experience for the Marine Corps League that met at his home in New Harmony on Friday. He told the small audience of Marine veterans what led him to sculpt a bronze bust in tribute to a comrade in his unit that he did not know, but with whom he felt a special bond.
That firm connection was forged from Williams' announcement that Jacklyn "Jack" Harold Lucas - the youngest serviceman to receive the Medal of Honor in any conflict other than the Civil War - had died from cancer at the age of 80. Williams went on to say in his broadcast that Lucas had lied about his age to enlist in the Marines and stowed away on a troopship to get into the war.
Lucas was 14 years old, about 5-foot, 8-inches tall and 185 pounds when he enlisted in Norfolk, Va, on Aug. 6, 1942. He left for the Marine Corps Parris Island boot camp in Leatherneck fighting trim, according to the 1996 summer issue of Marine Corps Magazine.
The obvious teenager was given the clothes, gear and weapon of another Marine who was sent to a hospital with appendicitis. PFC Lucas, a member of Company C, 1st battalion, 26th Marines, 5th Marine Division, was just six days past his 17th birthday in February 1945 when, on being sent into battle, flung his body onto two grenades to protect three fellow squad members from lethal harm, the magazine said.
"A couple of grenades rolled into the trench," Lucas said in an Associated Press interview shortly before he received the medal from President Truman in October 1945. "I hollered to my pals to get out and did a Superman dive at the grenades. I wasn't a Superman after I got hit. I let out one helluva scream when that thing went off."
One of the grenades did not detonate, but the other one exploded and left Lucas with more than 250 pieces of shrapnel in his body and every major organ, including six pieces in his brain and two in his heart. He endured 26 surgeries in the following months, Williams said in his broadcast story.
Lansing-Jones said he was stunned. The 5-foot, 8-inch man had felt guilty for more than 50 years for getting an appendectomy while his "band of brothers" battled off the shores of Saipan in one of the bloodiest battles of WW II.
"I felt deeply guilty but then I felt some consolation," he said. "This has a lot to do with the band of brothers. You work together to reach a goal and you want to be part of that goal."
Remorse he felt for not being a part of combat eased somewhat when Lansing-Jones - who had enlisted in the Marines before graduating from Newington High School in May 1943, and today, is an accomplished sculptor and artist - was accepted as an executive officer into the Iwo Jima Survivors Association in 1990. That admission took some of the sting out his guilt, he said.
But it was that June day a year ago while watching television that put to rest any remaining guilt for Lansing. He said it was at that moment he chose to contact the widow of Lucas and offer to pay homage to the Marine, who fought in his clothes, with a bronze bust. Putting his efforts into the edifice would also distract him from his depression that came from grieving his wife's death a year earlier, he added.
In a letter dated, June 11, 2008, Lansing-Jones offered his condolences to Mrs. Ruby Lucas and solicited her permission to fashion the bust and requesting various photos of differing angles of Lucas from the years of 1955 to 1965.
A dictated letter dated July 17, 2008, recounted a phone conversation one week earlier between Lansing-Jones and Ruby Lucas where consent was given to craft the sculpture.
It took Lansing-Jones 11 months to complete the bust he unveiled on Friday. He intends to send it to Ruby Lucas in tribute to the Marine Corps in hopes that it will some day be on display at the Marine Corps Heritage Museum in Quantico, Va.
"There's an audience there, and I would like to have them see this and think of this young man with only one week into his 17th year in World War II, going way beyond the call of duty in throwing himself on these hand grenades, and I hope that they will think how wonderful those men were who were in that war, fighting to save us," Lansing-Jones said.
While the soft-spoken man with kind eyes behind framed glasses, slightly shorter and frail from self-professed old age, hopes the legacy of Lucas will live on in the bronze bust, he would simply like to be remembered for his lifetime as an artist. To Marine Steve Cantonwine, a Vietnam veteran, Lansing-Jones Ð endearingly called "Smokey" is a man to revere and honor.
"We commend Smokey for the work he is doing. He has a very unique talent and an ability to tell a story through his talent. He doesn't have a thing to feel bad or be ashamed of," Cantonwine said. "Without him, the whole story of Lucas would be put to rest. Now the story also includes him, like it should."
Ellie