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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

38. Determined to Serve

Chinese forces crossing the frozen Yalu River into Korea during the war. Wikimedia

Leonard M. Kravitz was determined to serve his country in a time of war. As his friend Mitch Libman recalled: “His mother and dad fought with him and fought with him and fought with him“. However, Kravitz was over eighteen, so in the end, his parents had no choice but to let him go.

The last time Libman saw his friend, they were standing in a Brooklyn corner, while their mothers played mahjong. Kravitz was throwing a going-away party that night, but Libman was unable to attend. Regret and guilt gnawed at him forever after, when he learned a few months later that his best friend had been killed in Korea. That contributed to Libman’s lifelong quest to see that his hero friend got his just dues.

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.