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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

39. “The Kind of Guy That Everybody Likes“

Combat in Seoul during the Korean War. Naval Historical Center

The ceremony was the direct result of a dogged quest by PFC Kravitz’s best friend, Mitch Libman, to correct an injustice visited upon his buddy. “Dogged quest” in this case is no figure of speech: Libman spent over fifty years to make sure that his friend got the award he deserved.

Libman and Kravitz grew up together in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights neighborhood, and were best friends since childhood. As Libman put it: “Lenny was the kind of guy that everybody likes. He was a neighborhood guy“. Born in 1931, Lenny was too young to serve in WWII. However, his older brother Seymour, the rocker’s father, had served in the Marines and was lionized as a hero upon his return. Lenny wanted to emulate his big brother, and decided to enlist when the Korean War broke out in 1950.

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.