AMARILLO, Texas (KAMR/KCIT) – The Amarillo VA Health Care System announced it will host its annual Thomas E. Creek Remembrance Ceremony on Friday, marking 57 years since the medical center’s namesake died while saving the lives of his comrades during combat in Vietnam.
As noted in previous reports, Lance Corporal Thomas E. Creek was an Amarillo native who enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in 1968, at 17 years old.
Hometown Heroes | ‘I’ve got it, Mac!’: The bravery of Thomas E. Creek
On Feb. 13, 1969, Creek was wounded in a combat zone in Vietnam when a grenade landed near him and his comrades. The AVAHCS detailed Creek yelled “I’ve got it, Mac!” and rolled onto the grenade, absorbing the full impact of the explosion with his own body and saving the lives of the five fellow Marines with him at the time.
Creek was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor, and is noted as the youngest service member in Texas history to have received the award. In 2004, the Amarillo VA Medical Center was renamed in his honor…