A Tale of Two Heroes
Jack Lucas joined the Marine Corps at age 14 years. He was the youngest man to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor since the Civil War.
Two weeks after his seventeenth birthday, Jack smothered a Japanese grenade in Iwo Jima and was seriously injured. You can go on internet and type in the name Jack Lucas and read his story.
I knew about Jack because he belongs to the Veterans of Underage Military Service, where I am also a Life Member and we are so glad that he is one of us. Right now Jack is in Forrest General Hospital in Hattiesburg Mississippi and has been told that he has cancer; He is well known and much loved. We e-mail him there with our messages and prayers.
There is another Marine who was killed in combat in Vietnam when he fell on an enemy grenade. He was born in 1948 in Farmington New Mexico and buried in Bellflower,California in 1968. A few years later his family was notified that he was to receive the CMOH. Fast forward to 2008. People in Farmington seem not to know of this brave young man who is one of two Congressional Medal of Honor recipients born in San Juan County. I have spent several years researching and find no place in our county where his name is engraved. With all the veterans’ memorials here, the name of Lance Corporal Kenneth Lee Worley is nowhere to be found.
When the Vietnam Moving Wall came to town I traveled over to Bloomfield to see if I could find his name on the wall. If you ever travel to Washington, DC and visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial please remember to visit 48W L1 and right there on the top line is Kenneth Worley’s name.
I found the names of several other young men including members of my wife’s family and wrote down their location on the wall. For a long while I stood there looking at Worley’s name and remembering that he has been gone a long time. As I drove home it occurred to me that Kenneth Worley’s name is engraved there in Bloomfield, and as suddenly was faced with the reality that his name would move when the wall moved.
On Memorial Day my wife and I will be in Home Lake Colorado to attend an event that honors heroes, but if someone would like to share with me, and if happen to be at Memorial Gardens (Flora Vista) they might leave a little flower for my kid brother.
Bob was in the Air Force in 1950 – 1951 and was never overseas, but like many a veteran would have gone if he was asked. Childless, he loved kids and was a Soccer Coach and volunteer in so many public endeavors. Many a child calls him “Uncle Bob”. If you should journey there and want to Share a flower with Bob Salisbury, here is how to find “Bob’s Rock”.
Walk down the sidewalk to the Veterans Flag Plaza. Don’t step up on the plaza but turn 90 degrees left and then take 21 steps to arrive at his bronze marker. He would love being identified by that simple bronze with an eloquent message which proves he served his country, and that the space next to his is reserved for his little brother.
We are hoping to see Lance Corporal Kenneth Lee Worley recognized in the town where he was born and spent his first sixteen years.
Bruce L Salisbury
© May 2008
