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

Khalid Elhassan August 18, 2020 35 min

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

26. An Emergency Brings Out the Hero in Serna

A WWI German machinegun nest. Cultura Colectiva

At Saint-Mihiel, Marcelino Serna’s unit stumbled into the kill zone of a concealed and well-positioned German machine gun nest manned by 14 soldiers. Within seconds of the Germans opened fire, 12 Americans were killed. Many more were wounded, and Serna’s unit’s advance came to a halt.

As the shocked survivors were pinned down, desperately scurrying for cover from enemy fire, private Serna demonstrated what he was made of, and sprang into action to rescue his comrades. By the time it was over, Serna had cemented his status as a bonafide hero.

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.