My Hero (Not revised)

In the year 1943, my great grandpa Raynel Jennings joined the Marine Corps.  He left behind his family and went to a foreign country just to fight for his country and freedom.  He saw many terrible things but stayed strong and never gave up in the Marines.  Because of his sacrifice and hardships, he is my hero.

My grandpa Jennings had wanted to serve his country ever since the bombing of Pearl Harbor, just like most people his age.  He graduated from Hurricane High School earlier in the year where he played basketball.  When he played basketball, he met Victor Frei.  They both boarded the same bus to military testing, and ever since then they were best friends.  They both passed the tests with very high scores, and then they took the two last spots for being Marines.  In boot camp, they were inseparable.  Training was very challenging for him, but he and Vic (Victor) made it through.

Eventually, Raynel and Vic were separated.  Vic went to an airfield and my grandpa was sent to Camp Elliot for an eight week machine gun training course.  Along with the heavy machine guns, he trained with mortars.  He became very good using the mortars, so he was sent overseas on the USS George F. Elliot, headed to the Solomon Islands.  As soon as he got there, he was glad to be back on land.  He met up with many other marines, most of whom were veterans that were very respected.  They all stayed in camps that were basically tents on islands in a one foot deep lake.

After a while in the camp, my great grandpa was sent off to fight.  He got aboard the USS Wharton to head to Guam.  While on this boat he was attacked by Japanese fighter planes.  This was only the first of the fighting that he saw.  They finally reached Guam on July 20, 1943.  Here he used mortars on all the enemies.  When they got too close, he would use his M1 Carbine rifle.  He also had to dig foxholes just to keep safe from the Japanese at night.  There was much more fighting, but he was finally able to come home on December 20, 1945.

My hero is by far my great grandpa Jennings.  Because of all the trials he went through, he became my hero.  Because he joined the Marine Corps, I learned that even though you might be separated from your friends and family, you can always keep going through your challenges even under hard circumstances