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American History

Lenny Kravitz’s Hero Uncle and Other Lesser Known American Heroes

American Revolutionary War - United States
The British surrender at Yorktown. Library of Congress

A hero is not somebody who experience no fear in the face of mortal danger. People – at least normal people with all their marbles – cannot help but feel afraid when faced with a serious threat to life and limb. A hero is somebody who manages to act despite the fear, for the benefit of others. Following are forty fascinating things about some lesser-known American heroes, who deserve to be way more famous than they are.

40. A Hero Receives His Belated Dues

Lenny Kravitz at the 2014 White House ceremony during which his uncle was awarded a Medal of Honor. NY Daily News

On March 18th, 2014, a ceremony was held in the White House, during which President Obama awarded twenty-four long-overdue Medals of Honor to Jewish and Hispanic veterans. Each of them was a hero, but a hero who had been denied his due recognition by a military establishment that was dead set against bestowing the country’s highest honor on minorities.

Private First Class Leonard M. Kravitz. Wikimedia

Conspicuous by his presence in the ceremony was rocker Lenny Kravitz. The music star, full name Leonard Albert Kravitz, was there as a family member of one of the honorees: his uncle and namesake, US Army Private First Class Leonard M. Kravitz. The hero’s uncle was posthumously awarded a Medal of Honor for his service – and sacrifice – in the Korean War.

Written by

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.

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