This Marine earned two medals of honor by age 19

Vietnam-era Marine and Hue City veteran John Ligato once remarked that the most ferocious fighting machine the world has ever seen is the 19-year-old pissed off Marine. In the case of John J. Kelly, he couldn't be more right.

Kelly joined the Marines in May 1917, just one month after the U.S. Congress declared war on Germany. The Chicago native was soon in France with 78th Company, 6th Regiment, 2d Division. That's where he would earn the Army and Navy versions of the Medal of Honor — at the same time.

In October 1918, Kelly was in Blanc Mont Ridge in France, which the Germans occupied since 1915. The French were joined by two divisions of the U.S. Army and Major General John Lejeune's 2d Division of Marines — including Pvt. John Kelly.

At the start of the near-monthlong battle, Kelly ran through no-man's land, 100 yards ahead of an allied artillery barrage — straight toward a machine gun nest.

He chucked a grenade into the nest, killing one of the Germans. Then he took out the other using his sidearm.

Private Kelly returned to his line — again through the artillery barrage — but this time he brought back eight German soldiers at gunpoint.

The American advance at St. Etienne turned the tide of the Battle of Blanc Mont against the Germans. By Oct. 28, the area they occupied since the very start of the World War was now firmly in Allied hands.

Kelly was awarded both the Army and Navy Medals of Honor by General John J. Pershing, the commander of the American Expeditionary Force, in 1919. With the war over, Kelly left the military and returned to civilian life.

He returned to his native Illinois, where he died in 1957.