Many college and former college football players have fought for our country and many have made the ultimate sacrifice. Before we focus on barbecues, parades, and traffic today, I wanted us to remember one such player.
Jack Lummus was a two-sport (baseball and football) star at Baylor in the late 1930s, earning honorable mention All America for his fine play at end, before signing on with the New York Giants football team in time for their fine 1941 season. After the Giants lost in the title game, Lummus enlisted in the Marine Corps Reserve on January 30, 1942. Although most of his service time centered on work here in the States, Lummus more than made up for any missing action once he was given command of Company E's third rifle platoon two weeks after he landed on Iwo Jima. Given an objective on the northern part of that island hell-hole, Lummus soon realized that some defense bunkers were keeping his men pinned down. And so despite wounds incurred from grenade shrapnel, Lummus single-handily knocked out not one but three enemy strongholds and killed countless other members of the enemy who were in single-man defense positions. This action earned Lummus a medal of honor, which sadly was given to his family posthumously as Lummus, while leading his men past up the ridge moments later stepped on a land mine. Although he lost both his legs--legs that allowed him to become a star center fielder and end--Lummus continued to urge his men forward before he was taken away. He then was famously quoted as saying, "Well, doc, the New York Giants lost a mighty good end today." He died that day, aged 29.
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