Fallen Marine Lukac chosen as Nevada’s hero in heart-tugging book

One endearing picture shows John Lukac at 2, blowing out the candles on his elaborate birthday cake, a photo of hopes and dreams. The last photo his family has of him shows him at age 19.

Even though his face is shadowed in the picture, you see a lean, young Marine facing the camera, not smiling but looking straightforward. “It’s the last picture of him alive,” his mother, Helena Lukac, said. “It’s very special to us.”

The Marine private first class died Oct. 30, 2004, in a car bomb attack in Fallujah, Iraq, with seven others. At the time, he was the 11th Nevadan to die in the war against terrorism. As of June 19, the number of Nevadans who died in Afghanistan and Iraq is now at 53.

Lukac is one of 52 people profiled in a new book, “Faces of Freedom: Profiles of America’s Fallen Heroes — Iraq and Afghanistan.” It’s the faces in the photos that grip your heart and squeeze it tight when you look through the coffee-table size book with big, glossy photos of men and women from every branch of the military service, one from each state, one from D.C. and one from Puerto Rico. There are pictures of them at war as well as pictures of them as children and with their loved ones at home.

It’s difficult to read more than one or two at a time but easy to keep looking at the faces.

Rebecca Pepin, 33, a television news anchor who came up with the idea for the book and edited it, said her two-year project wasn’t easy. One evening, after delivering the 10 p.m. newscast for the Fox affiliate in Bristol, Va., she went home to work on the book about 11:30 p.m. One room in her home had been turned over to the project. She saw the pictures and articles about the 52 men and women who died in Iraq and Afghanistan, and she lost it.

“I thought: Oh my God, every single one of these people is gone. I broke down and cried and cried.”

Picking just one hero from each state became her most difficult challenge because so many had such compelling stories. “The selection process was heartbreaking. I wanted to include everyone.”

She chose Lukac to represent Nevada after reading Review-Journal military writer Keith Rogers’ stories online. She asked him to write about Lukac for the book.

She said she was drawn to Lukac’s story partly because he was the son of Hungarians who came to the United States in 1983, and she left her native Canada to become a U.S. citizen.

“I fell in love with John. His was an endearing story, he was so young, and it was so touching. He had such a bright outlook on life.”

She has two goals with the book: “I want these families and these heroes thought about on a regular basis,” she said. And she wants to raise money for two charities, Fisher House and Wounded Warrior Project, which aid wounded veterans and their families. Pepin’s Web site, www.rebeccapepin.com, handles orders for the $27.95 book. The first 1,000 copies have sold out.

The book was published May 19, and Helena Lukac received her copy shortly after Memorial Day. “Yes, I cried. I’m still in a state of shock,” she said.

Helena had to work on the Fourth of July, so she planned to visit John’s grave at the Southern Nevada Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Boulder City on Tuesday.

“Freedom is not free, that definitely we can say,” Helena said. It’s a popular slogan, just the right size for a bumper sticker. Yet when this mother says it, it sounds original. Because she says it from her heart, with a slight Hungarian accent, a reminder that this woman and her husband, Jan, lived in a Communist country, where freedom didn’t exist. But this immigrant couple raised two sons, John and Peter, now 18, in a free America.

While many of us were at barbecues and fireworks shows and patriotic concerts or however else we celebrated the Fourth of July, Helena Lukac was working her job at the MGM Grand.

Just as John Lukac, the oldest son of first-generation immigrants, was doing his job in Iraq, when a car bomb exploded.

Jane Ann Morrison’s column appears Monday, Thursday and Saturday. E-mail her at Jane@reviewjournal.com or call 383-0275.