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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

35. Greater Love Hath No Man Than This, That He Lay Down His Life For His Friends

An American position during the Korean War. Pintrest

The last that PFC Kravitz’s buddies saw of him, the young hero was covering their retreat. He held back enemy infiltrators from pouring through a gap to the left of his position. When he spotted a column of communist troops advancing upon a friendly position, he swept them with deadly and accurate fire, killing the entire group.

His fearless defense and accurate fire forced the enemy to concentrate their fire on Kravitz’s position, long enough for his buddies to make it back to safety. The following day, the Americans launched a counterattack and retook their positions. They found Kravitz dead by his machinegun, with heaps of enemy corpses in front of him, and two dead communists in the machinegun position with him. He was nineteen years old.

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.