This Day in History: Robert Jenkins & His Medal of Honor

On this day in 1948, a young boy is born in the small town of Interlachen, Florida. Robert H. Jenkins would go on to become a Marine and a recipient of the Medal of Honor.

His self-sacrifice did not surprise his family. Not even one little bit.

“That sweet, sweet child,” as his mother called him, was a devout Christian who’d carried his Bible to Vietnam. “He would do anything for anybody,” she concluded.

“When we were in school,” his sister Ruby told The Tampa Tribune, “there were white schools and black schools. But Robert didn’t care if you were green. To him a person was a person. No one who knew him was surprised by what he did. He liked everyone.”

On March 4, 1969, Pfc. Jenkins was a machine gunner assigned to Company C, 3rd Reconnaissance Battalion. He was with a 12-man reconnaissance team just south of the DMZ. As night fell, the Marine team could hear the enemy in the area. They dug in, listening throughout the night. “We didn’t sleep. You don’t sleep,” Jenkins’s assistant, Fred Ostrom, concluded. “You rest. You have to be ready.”

The enemy attack came just before dawn the next morning. A large group of North Vietnamese soldiers descended on the outnumbered Marines, showering them with automatic weapons and mortar fire.

“[T]he NVA worked their way close enough to start throwing grenades,” Ostrom remembered. “I went over to my hole with Robert. The first couple of grenades got our lieutenant and he was killed. Then a grenade came in and I caught shrapnel in my left arm and it broke in four places. I also got shot through the knee. Then another grenade came in.”

Ostrom’s shattered arm and leg prevented his escape, and Jenkins did what he had to do. He grabbed Ostrom and threw him on the ground, simultaneously leaping atop his friend and taking the brunt of the grenade’s blast.

Ostrom doesn’t remember much of what followed, but he was later told that helicopter gunships arrived, fighting off the enemy while the Marines escaped.

Three men had been killed, including Jenkins. Another six were injured.

Ostrom was in the hospital for more than a year before resuming regular life, getting married and having kids. He kept Jenkins’s picture on his desk, but he was afraid to reach out to the Jenkins family.

“I must have made plans four or five times to go down and visit them,” he later said. “But I just chickened out. I was afraid they’d be upset that I came back and Robert didn’t.” But when he learned that a Florida middle school had been named for his friend, he contacted the school and began corresponding with the kids. Finally, he worked up his nerve, contacted Jenkins’s mom, and flew down to meet everyone.

“They treated me like family,” he smiled. “They asked me all about Robert and made me feel right at home.” He also visited Jenkins’s grave—a trip that left him horrified. It was “like a barren desert,” he told a reporter. “Ant hills, termite hills, dead trees, no grass, soot-covered grave marker, rundown fence.”

Ostrom became determined to fix it. He called the local VFW, media, and others but was told nothing could be done because the cemetery was private. Yet he would not be stopped. He kept making calls and raising a ruckus—and he achieved his objective within about a year.

The community pitched in to clean up and replace the headstone. A cover was added so that weeds would never grow over the grave again. Naturally, it has the words of John 15:13 inscribed on it:

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

On Veterans Day 1996, a rededication ceremony was held. “It’s the least we can do,” Ostrom concluded.

RIP, Sir.

Constitution4Kids.com

 Primary Sources:

• Army Hero’s ‘Rundown’ Grave Reclaimed (Miami Herald; Nov. 9, 1996) (p. 5B)

• Charles Elmore, Restoring Lost Honor (Palm Beach Post; Nov. 11, 1996) (p. 1A)

• Dana Treen, Interlachen to Honor War Hero (Florida Times-Union; July 4, 1987) (p. A-3)

• ‘Greater Love Hath No Man Than This . . . ‘ (Tampa Bay Times; Nov. 11, 1996) (p. 1A)

• Jim Tunstall, Grave to Befit Medal of Honor (Tampa Bay Tribune; Nov. 5, 1996) (Florida/Metro section)

• Katie Lange, Medal of Honor Monday: Marine Corps Pfc. Robert Jenkins Jr. (Dept. of Defense; Jan. 18, 2021)

• Medal of Honor citation (Robert H. Jenkins; Vietnam)

• Private First Class Robert H. Jenkins, USMC (Deceased) (Marine Corps website)

• Susan McNamara, The Last Full Measure (Democrat & Chronicle; Nov. 10, 1996) (p. 1C)