Youngest Marine to get Medal of Honor

Jacklyn Harold Lucas was born Feb. 14, 1928, in Plymouth, N.C. His father died when he was 10.

When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, Lucas was a 13-year-old cadet captain at Edwards Military Institute in the small town of Salemburg, N.C.

"Though I was only an eighth-grader . . . I would not settle for watching from the sidelines when the United States was in such desperate need of support from its citizens," he said in his book.

After he joined the Marines, military censors discovered his actual age when he wrote a letter to his girlfriend, who was 15. When they threatened to send him home, he said he would just join the Army. The Marines had assigned Lucas to the relatively safe job of driving a transport truck in Hawaii when he jumped a troop ship bound for Iwo Jima.

After the war, Lucas married Helen, the first of his four wives, on "The Bride and Groom Show," a CBS program that featured couples and their on-air weddings. Four years later, he earned a business administration degree from High Point University in North Carolina.

In 1961, at 33, Lucas once again wanted to wear a military uniform.

The Marines would have welcomed him back, Lucas later said, but he joined the Army because he wanted to jump from planes. He rose to the rank of captain but quit in 1965, bitterly disappointed that he would not be sent to Vietnam, he said in his book.

Over the next 16 years, he built a chain of successful butcher shops in the Washington, D.C., area.

"He was a character. He didn't fit any mold," said Doug Sterner, a military historian who was his friend. "Jack was very outspoken, a guy who was willing to go against the grain."

During his 1995 State of the Union speech, President Clinton introduced Lucas to the country.

Sitting next to First Lady Hillary Clinton, Lucas heard the president say in part:

"Fifty years ago in the sands of Iwo Jima, Jack Lucas taught and learned the lessons of citizenship. . . . All these years later, yesterday, here is what he said about that day: 'Didn't matter where you were from or who you were, you relied on one another. You did it for your country.' "

Lucas is survived by his wife, Ruby, whom he married in 1998, of Hattiesburg; four sons, William, Jimmy, Lewis and Kelly; a daughter, Peggy; a brother; 15 grandchildren; and 16 great-grandchildren.

Instead of flowers, the family suggests donations to the Marine Corps League, Commiskey-Wheat Detachment 1073, P.O. Box 18290, Hattiesburg, MS, 39404

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valerie.nelson@latimes.com