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Nagazyna recovered from his wound at Tigny and fought again at Blanc Mont in October, and in November he joined the march across the Rhine and into Germany with the Army of Occupation. On 6 Sept. 1919, he was mustered out of the ranks of the Marine Corps.

John Nagazyna wasn't cut out to be a civilian. He tried several undertakings, but his heart wasn't in it. On 22 Aug. 1922, he reenlisted with a decided thirst and compiled a record that could be thought of as bizarre.

How many men could combine courts-martial for “over indulgence in strong drink” with meritorious promotions? How many men could collect both office hours and letters of commendation? John Nagazyna could.

His trail through the 1920s and '30s is a mystifying maze of reductions and promotions, condemnations and commendations. Where one reporting senior would “Prefer not have” Sgt Nagazyna in his command, another reporting senior would check the fitness-report block marked “Particularly desire to have.”

Some proud, dedicated Marines possessed a prodigious appetite for bottled goods. John Nagazyna appears to have raised those qualities to an art form, which resulted in a General Court-Martial for drunkenness at Quantico in 1931. That could have been thought of as pure and simple bad timing. It was Prohibition, and the base was plagued by illegal alcohol from Quantico town, described by John A. Lejeune as “an unsanitary place, an abode of bootleggers and other low types.”

The commanding general of the base at the time was Major General Smedley D. Butler, “Old Gimlet Eye” himself and a hard-line teetotaler. It was thought that the court-martial of a senior noncommissioned officer would deliver a stern message to the entire command. First Sergeant Nagazyna was reduced to private, only to be promoted to sergeant, then to platoon sergeant.

Bottled goods or no bottled goods, PltSgt Nagazyna left a lasting mark as a drill instructor at Parris Island in 1936 and 1937, earning high praise for producing outstanding recruit platoons. At Tientsin, China, the services of 1stSgt Nagazyna were sought after, and when the 6th Marines sailed for Iceland in early 1941, Sergeant Major Nagazyna sailed with them.

Maybe Nagazyna's misadventures with strong spirits grew out of boredom. Maybe he was marking time while he waited for the next war. If that was the case, boredom and marking time ended on Sunday, 7 Dec. 1941, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, lighting a fire that would blaze across the Pacific for the next four years.

John Nagazyna spent the early part of those years shuffling about from unit to unit as new regiments were formed out of existing formations, before settling in as sergeant major of 3d Bn, 22d Marines and setting sail for an island called Eniwetok. It was early 1944, and Admiral Chester A. Nimitz, Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet, was launching his offensive against the outer ring of Japanese-held islands in the Central Pacific.

On 22 Feb. 1944, Maj Clair W. Shisler's 3/22 was in a ferocious battle with Japanese defenders conducting a typically tenacious defense of the southern half of Eniwetok. Unknown to Maj Shisler, a misunderstanding of orders had resulted in a wide gap between the battalion and the Army regiment operating on the battalion's right flank. The Japanese commander, LtCol Masahiro Hashida, threw a strong counterattack into this gap, aiming directly at the command post of 3/22, just at the time when Maj Shisler was inspecting his front-line companies.

Gathering up every clerk, cook, mechanic and field music within reach, SgtMaj Nagazyna led his hastily collected mini-unit directly into the teeth of the Japanese attack. Howling his old war cry, Nagazyna smashed into the Japanese, firing, slashing, battering his way ahead, carrying the attack forward by sheer personal force, a born warrior in his element. He didn't stop until every last Japanese attacker had been killed, and he himself was laid low with a grenade fragment in his left knee. John Nagazyna's second war was over.

On 28 June 1944, Captain J. P. Owen, commanding officer of the U.S. Naval Hospital, Mare Island, Calif., presented SgtMaj John J. Nagazyna a gold star in lieu of a second award of the Navy Cross. The words of the citation were a fitting tribute to a fighting man: “His superb courage and outstanding leadership contributed greatly to the disruption of the enemy's attack and to their eventual annihilation. His relentless fighting spirit and courageous devotion to duty, maintained in spite of great personal risk, were in keeping with the highest traditions of the naval service.”

Nagazyna retired on 30 June 1947 and settled down in his home in San Diego, directly across the street from the Recruit Depot. He died on 26 May 1955 and was buried with full military honors in San Diego's Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery, overlooking the blue waters of the Pacific.

So who was John Nagazyna? Was he a hero? Was he a liberty risk? Or perhaps he was both—a Marine who should be kept in a glass case carrying a sign that bears the inscription: IN CASE OF WAR, BREAK GLASS.

Nagazyna's place among the legends of the Marine Corps is secure. He was truly an unusual and remarkable Marine, a fighting man without peer and one of only two Marines to be awarded the Navy Cross in both world wars.

Author's note: In 1946 John J. Nagazyna's eldest son, John K. Nagazyna, enlisted in the Marine Corps. Upon completion of boot camp at Parris Island, a platoon mate, James R. Nilo, noticed that the Marine Corps emblems the younger Nagazyna wore were of a slightly different design from those he himself had just received. Asked about his emblems, young Nagazyna replied, “My father is a Marine. He gave them to me.”

John K. Nagazyna saw combat in Korea and Vietnam and attained the rank of CWO-4, before his untimely death from cancer in 1981. Together, father and son gave the Marine Corps 67 years of loyal and dedicated service.

Editor's note: Maj Bevilacqua, a Leatherneck contributing editor, is a former enlisted Marine who served in the Korean and Vietnam wars. Leatherneck appreciates the support of the Manpower Management Division (MMSB) in the preparation of this article.