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America’s Youngest Warriors – Children Who Fought for the US

Khalid Elhassan April 4, 2025 17 min

Children - US Army Sergeant John Lincoln Clem — US Army Sergeant John Lincoln Clem. Metropolitan Museum of Art

2. A Fourteen-Year-Old US Marine in Vietnam

An Hoa Combat Base in 1969. US Department of Defense

Although just fourteen, Dan Bullock was big and strong for his age – 5 foot 9, and 160 pounds. He made it through boot camp in Parris Island, and became a legit Marine. Unfortunately, his tale soon took a turn from the cute to the tragic. After boot camp, US Marine Corps Private First Class Dan Bullock was sent to Vietnam, a war whose insatiable maw was ever hungry for more and more bodies. He arrived in South Vietnam on May 18^th, 1969, and was assigned as a rifleman to Fox Company, Second Battalion, Fifth Marine Regiment, 1^st Marine Division. He ended up in Quang Nam Province, and was stationed in An Hoa Combat Base, about 25 miles southwest of Danang. By then, he was all of fifteen.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.