Youngest Medal of Honor Marine Dies

A great American’s story has come to an end – a story that stretches back to World War 2 and the battle in the Pacific. Jack Lucas was just 14 when he forged his mother’s signature allowing him to join the Marines in hopes of fighting the Japanese. He even stowed away on a Navy ship heading into combat to try and fulfill his mission – and fulfill it he did!

Not long after entering the fray, the youngster, still barely able to shave, threw himself on two live grenades to protect his squad. Miraculously his shrapnel-infested body would survive and be subjected to over 2 dozen grueling surgeries.

His inspirational actions saved his comrades from serious injury or death and earned him the Medal of Honor - the youngest Marine ever to receive the award. But just days ago this American hero finally succumbed to another battle – this time with a silent, but lethal, enemy called cancer.

Twenty-four years ago President Ronald Reagan spoke as he stood upon the infamous cliffs of Normandy, France, the former site of the greatest military operation of the 20th Century. His moving words that day included these. "You were young the day you took these cliffs; some of you were hardly more than boys, with the deepest joys of life before you. Yet, you risked everything here. Why? ...What impelled you to put aside the instinct for self- preservation and risk your lives to take these cliffs? What inspired all the men of the armies that met here? We look at you, and somehow we know the answer. It was faith and belief; it was loyalty and love... You all knew that some things are worth dying for.”

Marine Jack Lucasdi did not die when it seemed most likely he should. But his recent death reminds those who know the Scriptures of two sobering truths. First, Hebrews 9:27 contends, “And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment.” Then just one chapter later the same writer warns in verse 3, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”

Facing God is, and for good reason, a frightening thought unless one is accurately armed to do so. But this can be done with full confidence since the battle of all battles was previously fought, and convincingly won, by God’s Son. He knew more than others ever could that some things are worth dying for. In Christ’s case, those things boiled down to just one main thing – the rescue of spiritually oppressed and lost souls. Like Private Jack, but on a far grander scale, Jesus willingly threw Himself over the destructive blight of human sin by giving His body over to a cruel Roman cross. But His actions were not simply inspirational or even heroic. They infinitely exceeded the physical realm and extended to the eternal redemption of humanity itself.

Heroic stories involving unusual human sacrifice can outwardly challenge and inspire the heart. But to have man’s heart and soul changed on the inside requires something more. Receiving an all-new heart demands a firm belief that Jesus took the blows that were meant for us by placing Himself in the path between sinful man and a holy God. His sacrifice ensured believers that the escape from the explosive effects of divine judgement was not just some vague possibility, but could be a guaranteed reality!

Marine Jack Lucasdi may have temporarily cheated death when the timing had seemed so right. But the perfect life, substitutionary death, and miraculous resurrection of God’s Son all occurred the precise and predicted time and place. It was carefully planned out by a loving Creator in eternity past as outlined in His word in Galatians 4:4 and Romans 5:6.

Bill Breckenridge