John Basilone
John Basilone, a war hero from New Jersey, was the only enlisted Marine in World War II to have received Medal of Honor, Navy Cross, and the Purple Heart.
Ever since boyhood, Basilone was a bold adventure-seeker. Eventually, his adventurous spirit drove him to drop out of high school and join the Army.
He served in the Philippines at the U.S. base in Manila for three years and returned home to Raritan, New Jersey. People assumed that he had had enough adventures,
and thus expected him to settle down and live a “normal” life. But they were wrong. Seeking more adventure, Basilone joined the Marines; nobody, even Basilone himself,
knew that his joining the Marines would create the legend that made his name immortal.
Soon, Basilone and his group were sent to the island of Guadalcanal, where one of the fiercest and most critical battles between the Allies and the
Japanese was taking place. They were fighting over Henderson Field, an airport located on Solomon Islands. The fight came to a climax on October 22th, 1942,
about two months after Basilone arrived at Guadalcanal. He single-handedly held off 3,000 Japanese troops, successfully defending Henderson Field from the Japanese Attack.
His efforts kept American air support as a factor in this battle. The Americans would go on to conquer the island of Guadalcanal.
He received the Medal of Honor for his courageous acts in Guadalcanal. With his medal, he could have gone back to the United States and lived safely
and peacefully. In fact, the Government did offer him numerous jobs in the home front, including selling war bonds and teaching troops how to handle machine guns.
But the peaceful life did not satisfy Basilone at all. Adventure was vital for him to “enjoy” his life. He left the easy life of a hero to become a marine once again.
Not long after his rejoining the Navy, he was sent to Iwo Jima, the gateway to Japan. Even the Hero could not evade death. On February 19th, 1945,
after a destroying a number of Japanese bunkers with only twenty troops, he was hit by a Japanese mortar shell. He died from his wound about thirty minutes later.
His life demonstrated the patriotism and dedication needed to overcome a vicious enemy. Many believes that John Basilone belongs in the New Jersey Hall of Fame.
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