Jack Lucas, who forged his mother's signature on an enlistment document so he could join the military at 14 during World War II and who became the youngest Marine to receive the Medal of Honor, has died. He was 80.
Lucas, who was diagnosed with leukemia in April, died Thursday at Forrest General Hospital in Hattiesburg, Miss., after asking to be removed from a dialysis machine, said Mary Draughn, a close friend.
Three years after joining the Marines, Lucas was stationed at a supply depot in Hawaii when he stowed away on a ship headed to Iwo Jima because he was afraid he would never see combat, he later recalled.
On Feb. 20, 1945 -- six days after he turned 17 -- Lucas was fighting Japanese soldiers in a trench during the Battle of Iwo Jima when he dived on top of two grenades and pushed them deep into the beach's volcanic ash to shield three other Marines from harm.
"I didn't think. I just immediately reacted and did what I had to do," Lucas told USA Today last year.
One of the grenades exploded. Lucas suffered near-fatal injuries and underwent more than 20 operations over the following months. More than 200 bits of metal remained embedded in his body.
For his actions, Lucas was presented the Medal of Honor -- the nation's highest and most exclusive military decoration -- by President Truman in October 1945 in a ceremony on the White House lawn.
Truman "told me he'd rather have that Medal of Honor than be president of the United States," Lucas said in 2006 in the Herald-Sun of Durham, N.C. "I said, 'Sir, I'll swap you.' And all he did was laugh."
Only one other 20th century Medal of Honor recipient was younger than Lucas. He was James Aloysius Walsh, a 16-year-old Navy seaman who was honored for his heroism during the 1914 U.S. occupation of Veracruz, Mexico.
There are 29 surviving World War II Medal of Honor recipients and 104 overall. Since the distinction was established in 1862, there have been 3,448 Medal of Honor recipients, according to the Congressional Medal of Honor Society.
"I never really thought of myself as a hero, period, but they chose to decorate me," Lucas told the Washington Post in 1985. "Then I was cocky after all that fanfare. It really blew my mind, women jumping on me and kissing me. . . . I got engaged four times."
People often told Lucas he should recount his war years in a book, he recalled. At the dedication of a war memorial, he met D.K. Drum, a North Carolina writer who later became the coauthor of his 2006 book, "Indestructible: The Unforgettable Story of a Marine Hero at the Battle of Iwo Jima."
