Every brick carefully placed at the Pelion Veterans Memorial has a noteworthy story.

None is more interesting and poignant than that of Swansea native Johnnie Edward Jeffcoat.

Johnnie, a hardworking and mature-looking young man, joined the US Army in 1940 at age 15.

He misrepresented his age.

He received his initial training at what was then Camp Jackson – now Fort Jackson.

He eventually worked his way up to the rank of sergeant before being demoted back to private after a fight.

By age 18, Johnnie was shipped overseas where he fought in the Battle of the Ruhr Valley in 1943.

On the way to Charleston to ship out, Johnnie’s troop train stopped in Columbia.

They weren’t supposed to leave the train, but Johnnie and an army buddy named Joe Pike decided to tell their loved ones goodbye.

Johnnie went with Joe to see his friend’s mother and friends in Irmo.

They went to Johnnie’s grandmother’s house in West Columbia Saturday night.

When his little sister Ruby came home the young soldiers were asleep in her bedroom.

Early Sunday morning before breakfast, they left home, hitchhiking on Highway 321 to try and catch up with their unit in Charleston.

The first man who stopped agreed to take them all the way to Charleston. With his help, they arrived in Charleston in time to ship out.

But their absence didn’t go unnoticed.

A few days later, Johnnie’s father, Ligon Jeffcoat, received an understanding letter from Johnnie’s commanding officer reporting that he was AWOL.

If he arrived for roll call, “this will be an incident that did not happen,” the letter read.

The officer added that he could understand how young men felt coming through their hometowns and not being able to see their families and friends.

Thanks to the man who picked them up, they had already made it back to their unit and boarded the ship.

After arriving in Europe, Johnnie fought in the Battle of the Ruhr, a 5-months-long campaign of strategic bombing against the Germans in a critically important area filled with coke plants, steel works and 10 synthetic oil plants.

This struggle lasted from March 5 until July 31, ending in an Allied victory.

However, Private First Class Johnnie Jeffcoat, a member of A Battery of the 219111 Field Artillery Battalion, did not live to see the final victory.

He was killed in action in 1945.

Johnnie’s father received a letter from Chaplain Gerhard L. Belgium with the following information;

“Your son was safely under shelter when the enemy began to shell the village and nearby gun positions with a strong concentration.

“Men were injured and called for help and Johnnie was one of those who left his shelter to go to their aid.

“He had assisted in carrying one officer out of danger to the aid station and was returning for another wounded man when a shell landed at his side and killed him instantly.

Johnnie was laid to rest with full military honors in the American Military Cemetery in eastern Holland.

“It is of men just like Johnnie of whom Our Lord Jesus Christ said, ‘Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.’

We honor his memory together with you, and we are proud and glad that we have been given the privilege of knowing and serving with him.’’

Johnnie Jeffcoat was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart for military merit and wounds received which resulted in his death in 1945.

His body was eventually returned to the United States and finally laid to rest next to his mother, Curtis Furtick Jeffcoat in Melrose Cemetery in Swansea.