20. WWII’s Youngest Serviceman
After his father’s death and mother’s remarriage, Calvin Leon Graham (1930 – 1992) found himself one of seven children living with an abusive stepfather in Houston. At age eleven, the child moved out with an older brother, and supported himself by delivering newspapers and telegrams on the weekends and outside school hours.
A year later, in 1942, he told his mother he was going to visit relatives. Instead, the twelve-year-old child headed to a recruitment office. There, lying about his age, Calvin joined the US Navy. That made him WWII’s youngest American serviceman, as well as the youngest one decorated for heroism during that conflict.