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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

24. A Hero Returns for an Encore

Contemporary newspaper article about Marcelino Serna’s exploits. Pic Click

Two weeks after his debut as a hero, Marcelino Serna did an encore. On September 12^th, 1918, on the first day of the Battle of Saint-Mihiel, Serna and his comrades were engaged in combat in the Meuse-Argonne region, when he spotted a German sniper. With his Lee Enfield rifle, Serna drew a bead on the sniper and fired a bullet that wounded the enemy soldier, who then tried to make it back to the safety of his comrades.

Acting again on his own initiative, Serna followed the wounded sniper, who led him to an enemy trench packed with about 50 German soldiers. Once again, private Serna demonstrated just how well he knew how to read and make use of the terrain to get close to the enemy. Once he did, he subjected the unfortunate Germans to sheer mayhem.

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.