At 14, I lied my way into the Marines. At 17, I threw myself on two grenades—ready to die before my brothers did.

I shouldn’t have been there.

Too young. Too reckless. Too stubborn to listen when they said “come back when you’re older.”

But I’d already tasted hunger back home, already seen too many headlines about boys my age storming beaches and never coming back. I wanted in. Needed in. So I told the recruiter I was seventeen. He didn’t look too hard at the papers. By the time anyone noticed, I was already a Marine.

Boot camp was hell, but at least it made sense. Sweat. Dirt. Screaming. For once, I belonged. Nobody cared how old I was if I could carry a rifle and march until my feet bled.

Then came Iwo Jima. February 20, 1945. The island reeked of sulfur, smoke, and blood. Waves crashed against the black sand while machine guns sang death from the hills. I dug in with my squad, my heart pounding like it wanted out of my chest. Seventeen years old, still baby-faced, and carrying a man’s burden.

We scrambled into a shell hole—me and three others. The air was thick, deafening with explosions. Then came the sound that changed everything: the clink of metal hitting sand. Not one grenade. Two.

Time slowed.

I didn’t think. I didn’t pray. I just moved. I lunged, shoving my body over both grenades. My chest hit the sand hard. In that instant, I made peace: This is it. I’m done. At least they’ll live.

The blast ripped through me. My world turned white, then black, then pain. So much pain I thought I was already dead and just hadn’t gotten the memo yet.

But I wasn’t dead. Somehow, the shrapnel tore me apart but didn’t finish me. I woke up in a field hospital, tubes in my arms, bandages everywhere, and the shocked faces of doctors hovering like they’d seen a ghost.

“Kid,” one whispered, “you weren’t supposed to make it.”

They told me I’d saved my squad. They told me I’d done the impossible. And months later, standing in front of the President’s men, they placed the Medal of Honor in my hand. The youngest Marine ever to wear it.

But here’s the truth they don’t put in the speeches: I was just a scared kid who didn’t want to watch his brothers die. I didn’t leap on those grenades for glory. I leapt because loyalty had burrowed into my bones deeper than fear ever could.

The medal hangs heavy, even now. It doesn’t make me feel invincible. It reminds me how fragile life is, how one heartbeat can decide who goes home and who doesn’t.

If you take anything from my story, let it be this:

Courage isn’t about age, or rank, or medals. It’s about choosing others before yourself, in the one moment that counts.