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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

25. The Opening Act of a Hero

German prisoners captured during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. YouTube

With his unit pinned down, Marcelino Serna volunteered to scout an alternate path. However, once he got ahead of his unit, he saw that the enemy position was vulnerable to a flank attack from the left. Without orders, and acting on his own initiative, he used minor and barely perceptible folds and dips in the terrain to alternately crawl and rush to the German position’s left flank.

Braving a torrent of angry bullets buzzing around him, two of which actually struck his helmet, Serna got close enough to the enemy machine gun nest to lob grenades into its midst. He tossed four grenades into the German position, and of its 14 occupants, the commander and five others were killed. Eight stunned German survivors were forced to throw in the towel and come out with their hands up. That was not even Serna’s greatest wartime exploit, but just an opening act.

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.