Eager to fight the Japanese, Lucas went AWOL and boarded a train headed for California rather than be assigned to a training camp in North Carolina. After spending some time in California, he was sent to Hawaii and attached to the Sixth Base Depot as a trash truck driver. Still eager for combat, Lucas went AWOL a second time in January 1945 and snuck onto the USS Deuel which carried the 1st Battalion, 26th Marines and was on its way to Iwo Jima. On February 8, 1945, he turned himself in to the officers and they attached him to the unit. | Eager to fight the Japanese, Lucas went AWOL and boarded a train headed for California rather than be assigned to a training camp in North Carolina. After spending some time in California, he was sent to Hawaii and attached to the Sixth Base Depot as a trash truck driver. Still eager for combat, Lucas went AWOL a second time in January 1945 and snuck onto the USS Deuel which carried the 1st Battalion, 26th Marines and was on its way to Iwo Jima. On February 8, 1945, he turned himself in to the officers and they attached him to the unit. |