May 27, 2023 • 10 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, William Lenard led Marines in combat - including in Fallujah. Hear stories of loss, of service... and even spots of dark humor among friends.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue here with our American stories and with
our Memorial Day special. Up next, Joey Cortez brings us
a story about the Second Battle for Fallujah in Iraq.
This went back in November through December of two thousand
and four.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Here's Joey.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Following nine to eleven. US Marine Corps Sergeant William Leonard
was deployed to Iraq three times. On his second deployments
before becoming a sergeant, his unit was at the center
of Operation Bansom Fury, the Second Battle for Fallujah. This
battle lasted roughly a month and a half and resulted
(00:54):
in ninety five American deaths and five hundred and sixty wounded.
William was one of the wounded, and several of his
friends were killed. Here's William recounting his experience after entering
the city.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
I heard some fire coming from a couple of houses over,
so I take one of my guys. We go over.
I said, I'm going left, you go right. I kicked
the door open. I went left, he went right. I
heard two gun shots behind me. As soon as he
went right. I didn't feel anything, so I faired it
was fine, and I knew there was a guy in
this little room up to the left, and as I
(01:32):
came around the corner, it was like a little, uh
eight by eight, little sunken room. I'm coming around the corner.
He starts firing and I start firing, and so I'm
just we're both creeping our way around. You know. Said
we're going to finish this one way or another. And
he ends up shooting me in the wrist and he
shoots my gun. I'm craping you. One knocks my gun
(01:56):
out of my hand, knocks me to the ground. He
blows up the hits the brick on the side of
the building. Whenever he shot the brick on the wall,
that completely poppered my face and I was bleeding from
my forehead down the side of my neck and I
still have like purple dots in the side of my
face from it. And choose me through the wrist and
I'm on the ground, laying on the ground. He throws
(02:18):
the grenade out, laying drive beside me. It doesn't go off.
I come back out and I grabbed my corn and
shotgun because my gun was still laying out in front
of the little doorway, and so I grabbed his shotgun.
Go back up there, toss two or three grenades in
there and come around the corner finish him off with
a shotgun. I come to find out, the guy who
(02:39):
went right there was a guy right behind me. As
soon as he went right, he shot him and he
was kind of drawn down on me. So luckily he
went right and got off two shots real quick, so
that it could have been a bad day, but turned
out to be all right. Just got a little shrap
and home. They made it back to me out and
they said it'll we can't remove any of the break
(03:01):
out of your face. It'll all work its way out eventually,
so we'll get me back to my unit. They sent
me back to Fallujah, and uh. We continued on clearing houses.
We kept moving up, kept back clearing and one night
we were kind of at our we're going to settle
(03:23):
in for the night, and I think it was an
old school, old elementary school. I think that's what it was.
And so there was still a patrol out and we
hear gunfire and whenever marit's here a bunch of gun fire,
they'd run towards it. So I grabbed my team, we
took off took off running towards the towards the gun fire.
Finally found it in a kind of a row of houses,
(03:44):
but the south side of it was just a field.
It is like a soccer field, so it was all open,
and so we called in our cat team where they
had all the all the big guns, their mark nineteens
or fifty cows and everything on top of their vehicles.
They lined up in front of them and they were
kind of softening the houses that none of our guys
(04:05):
were in, and we would kind of coordinate with them
go in and clear. And as I was headed into
headed into my first house, me and my squad leader,
I stepped over a guy as I was going in.
His name was Melvin Blazer. So kind of going back
to when this all started, Melvin Blazer was my recruiter
(04:29):
and he came to my unit because he knew we
were about to deploy, and so he ended up getting
killed on that day, December twelfth, two thousand and four,
in Fallujah, and I remember stepping over him going into
this house to go upstairs. It never it didn't really
sink in with me until later on that day just
(04:51):
kind of came, I guess full circle for me, you know,
that's where I started, and that's where it kind of
ended for him. We went through, got to the front door,
I went left, he went right. We cleared down, got
to the stairwell, kind of getting ready to go upstairs.
We were hollering at guys to come help us. We
(05:13):
finally got guys coming in and we started up the stairs.
Sergeant Jason Ariano, he was my square leader. He led
us up the stairs. As we got to the top
of the stairs, a grenade came rolling out in front
of us, and it blew I want to save, about
three foot in front of him, just right between his legs,
(05:33):
blew him up bleue. I was right behind him, caught
my legs with the sharp knol as well, and we
had a stack of people up the stairs and blew
us literally blew us all the way back down the stairs.
We got to the bottom, he's on top of me
and I kind of squirmed out from underneath. You know,
(05:56):
there's blood everywhere. He just tore up tremendously, and uh,
you know, you got all the all the bad things
running through your mind. It's just a terrible place where
he got hit just right there in his thighs, and
you don't know how bad it is and get him,
get him down to the bottom of the stairs, and
you know, he's looking at him and we're you know,
(06:17):
we're real tight, and he was like, you know, we
got his got his pants down, trying to figure out
what we needed to do, and uh, he said is
it is? It? Gone? Said yeah, man, it is, and
uh he started to tear up, and I was like, man,
I'm just joking. Not everything's still there. He should be good.
(06:38):
So he kind of had like a laugh cry going
on there almost for a minute and until I told
him it was all good and carried him out to
the track and got him loaded up. Now that was
the last time I seen him for a long time.
Turned around, went back in, and another pulled another one
(06:59):
of our reins out. Lario Lopez dragged him out. He
was still kind of kind of goupy breathing and he
couldn't talk. He was just barely able to Breathe so
held him until he passed. So then go try and fight.
Another house to go in, and just kind of turned
(07:21):
into pulling more bodies out than it was fighting, and
so it almost kind of turned into more of a
recovery than a firefight. So I just kept kind of
finding guys as I was trying to go in and
get into the fight, kept finding guys to pull back out.
(07:44):
We ended up losing quite a bit of our platoon
and quite a few other guys I knew. And by
the time I was kind of trying to go back in,
they kind of pulled everybody out and back to us
all up and they just started dropping dropping artillery on
it and decided that would be it. We got everybody out,
(08:08):
dropped artillery kind of went through and let the dust clear.
We set up security on it to make sure nobody
else got out, none of the bad guys. Anyways, you know,
I went back for the night, loaded up all the
bodies on the back of a truck and they hauled
them off. We uh, you know, we kind of hunked
(08:31):
her down for the night. Nobody got me to sleep
that night.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
Here's William reflecting on the men he lost.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Step starred in Melvin Blazer. He was my marine recruiter.
He's the one who got me into the Marine Corps.
If you were to talk to him away from the
recruiting office, away from the Marine Corps, you never know
he was a marine. He was the absolute nicest guy
you'd ever meet in your life. Just this wholesome, genuine,
nice guy. Sergeant Kirk, he was our platoon sergeant. Me
(09:09):
being the tall guy that I am, he was about
a foot shorter than me, but he had this voice.
He was a little guy too. He wasn't very big,
but he just had this demanding voice and kind of
this aura about him that he knew what he was doing.
He was confident in everything he did for whatever reason.
He he was just one of those guys. He was
(09:29):
a great leader, and he was a leader of Marines.
Lario Lopez, he came into the Marine Corps with me.
You know, I still keep in touch with his family.
Just such a good dude. He was super young, I
mean compared to me, I went in old. I think
he went in at seventeen or eighteen, had his whole
life ahead of him. He was just, you know, he
(09:52):
was going hard and wrong place at the wrong time.
Jason Clara Day, he was in our platoon also. He
was just a country boy from Arkansas, you know, a
hell of a shot. We would be able to talk
about hunting and fishing because we both kind of grew
up in that type of area of him growing up
in Arkansas. He had this Southern drawl about him and
(10:13):
he was just just nice as could be. I named
one of my last horses after him. You know it's
they leave a lasting impression on you. You know that
the guys who strive to make sure that you live
so that their memory isn't
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Lost and great work is always by Joey and a
special thanks to William Memorial Day special here on our
American Stories
And we continue here with our American stories and with
our Memorial Day special. Up next, Joey Cortez brings us
a story about the Second Battle for Fallujah in Iraq.
This went back in November through December of two thousand
and four.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Here's Joey.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Following nine to eleven. US Marine Corps Sergeant William Leonard
was deployed to Iraq three times. On his second deployments
before becoming a sergeant, his unit was at the center
of Operation Bansom Fury, the Second Battle for Fallujah. This
battle lasted roughly a month and a half and resulted
(00:54):
in ninety five American deaths and five hundred and sixty wounded.
William was one of the wounded, and several of his
friends were killed. Here's William recounting his experience after entering
the city.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
I heard some fire coming from a couple of houses over,
so I take one of my guys. We go over.
I said, I'm going left, you go right. I kicked
the door open. I went left, he went right. I
heard two gun shots behind me. As soon as he
went right. I didn't feel anything, so I faired it
was fine, and I knew there was a guy in
this little room up to the left, and as I
(01:32):
came around the corner, it was like a little, uh
eight by eight, little sunken room. I'm coming around the corner.
He starts firing and I start firing, and so I'm
just we're both creeping our way around. You know. Said
we're going to finish this one way or another. And
he ends up shooting me in the wrist and he
shoots my gun. I'm craping you. One knocks my gun
(01:56):
out of my hand, knocks me to the ground. He
blows up the hits the brick on the side of
the building. Whenever he shot the brick on the wall,
that completely poppered my face and I was bleeding from
my forehead down the side of my neck and I
still have like purple dots in the side of my
face from it. And choose me through the wrist and
I'm on the ground, laying on the ground. He throws
(02:18):
the grenade out, laying drive beside me. It doesn't go off.
I come back out and I grabbed my corn and
shotgun because my gun was still laying out in front
of the little doorway, and so I grabbed his shotgun.
Go back up there, toss two or three grenades in
there and come around the corner finish him off with
a shotgun. I come to find out, the guy who
(02:39):
went right there was a guy right behind me. As
soon as he went right, he shot him and he
was kind of drawn down on me. So luckily he
went right and got off two shots real quick, so
that it could have been a bad day, but turned
out to be all right. Just got a little shrap
and home. They made it back to me out and
they said it'll we can't remove any of the break
(03:01):
out of your face. It'll all work its way out eventually,
so we'll get me back to my unit. They sent
me back to Fallujah, and uh. We continued on clearing houses.
We kept moving up, kept back clearing and one night
we were kind of at our we're going to settle
(03:23):
in for the night, and I think it was an
old school, old elementary school. I think that's what it was.
And so there was still a patrol out and we
hear gunfire and whenever marit's here a bunch of gun fire,
they'd run towards it. So I grabbed my team, we
took off took off running towards the towards the gun fire.
Finally found it in a kind of a row of houses,
(03:44):
but the south side of it was just a field.
It is like a soccer field, so it was all open,
and so we called in our cat team where they
had all the all the big guns, their mark nineteens
or fifty cows and everything on top of their vehicles.
They lined up in front of them and they were
kind of softening the houses that none of our guys
(04:05):
were in, and we would kind of coordinate with them
go in and clear. And as I was headed into
headed into my first house, me and my squad leader,
I stepped over a guy as I was going in.
His name was Melvin Blazer. So kind of going back
to when this all started, Melvin Blazer was my recruiter
(04:29):
and he came to my unit because he knew we
were about to deploy, and so he ended up getting
killed on that day, December twelfth, two thousand and four,
in Fallujah, and I remember stepping over him going into
this house to go upstairs. It never it didn't really
sink in with me until later on that day just
(04:51):
kind of came, I guess full circle for me, you know,
that's where I started, and that's where it kind of
ended for him. We went through, got to the front door,
I went left, he went right. We cleared down, got
to the stairwell, kind of getting ready to go upstairs.
We were hollering at guys to come help us. We
(05:13):
finally got guys coming in and we started up the stairs.
Sergeant Jason Ariano, he was my square leader. He led
us up the stairs. As we got to the top
of the stairs, a grenade came rolling out in front
of us, and it blew I want to save, about
three foot in front of him, just right between his legs,
(05:33):
blew him up bleue. I was right behind him, caught
my legs with the sharp knol as well, and we
had a stack of people up the stairs and blew
us literally blew us all the way back down the stairs.
We got to the bottom, he's on top of me
and I kind of squirmed out from underneath. You know,
(05:56):
there's blood everywhere. He just tore up tremendously, and uh,
you know, you got all the all the bad things
running through your mind. It's just a terrible place where
he got hit just right there in his thighs, and
you don't know how bad it is and get him,
get him down to the bottom of the stairs, and
you know, he's looking at him and we're you know,
(06:17):
we're real tight, and he was like, you know, we
got his got his pants down, trying to figure out
what we needed to do, and uh, he said is
it is? It? Gone? Said yeah, man, it is, and
uh he started to tear up, and I was like, man,
I'm just joking. Not everything's still there. He should be good.
(06:38):
So he kind of had like a laugh cry going
on there almost for a minute and until I told
him it was all good and carried him out to
the track and got him loaded up. Now that was
the last time I seen him for a long time.
Turned around, went back in, and another pulled another one
(06:59):
of our reins out. Lario Lopez dragged him out. He
was still kind of kind of goupy breathing and he
couldn't talk. He was just barely able to Breathe so
held him until he passed. So then go try and fight.
Another house to go in, and just kind of turned
(07:21):
into pulling more bodies out than it was fighting, and
so it almost kind of turned into more of a
recovery than a firefight. So I just kept kind of
finding guys as I was trying to go in and
get into the fight, kept finding guys to pull back out.
(07:44):
We ended up losing quite a bit of our platoon
and quite a few other guys I knew. And by
the time I was kind of trying to go back in,
they kind of pulled everybody out and back to us
all up and they just started dropping dropping artillery on
it and decided that would be it. We got everybody out,
(08:08):
dropped artillery kind of went through and let the dust clear.
We set up security on it to make sure nobody
else got out, none of the bad guys. Anyways, you know,
I went back for the night, loaded up all the
bodies on the back of a truck and they hauled
them off. We uh, you know, we kind of hunked
(08:31):
her down for the night. Nobody got me to sleep
that night.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
Here's William reflecting on the men he lost.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Step starred in Melvin Blazer. He was my marine recruiter.
He's the one who got me into the Marine Corps.
If you were to talk to him away from the
recruiting office, away from the Marine Corps, you never know
he was a marine. He was the absolute nicest guy
you'd ever meet in your life. Just this wholesome, genuine,
nice guy. Sergeant Kirk, he was our platoon sergeant. Me
(09:09):
being the tall guy that I am, he was about
a foot shorter than me, but he had this voice.
He was a little guy too. He wasn't very big,
but he just had this demanding voice and kind of
this aura about him that he knew what he was doing.
He was confident in everything he did for whatever reason.
He he was just one of those guys. He was
(09:29):
a great leader, and he was a leader of Marines.
Lario Lopez, he came into the Marine Corps with me.
You know, I still keep in touch with his family.
Just such a good dude. He was super young, I
mean compared to me, I went in old. I think
he went in at seventeen or eighteen, had his whole
life ahead of him. He was just, you know, he
(09:52):
was going hard and wrong place at the wrong time.
Jason Clara Day, he was in our platoon also. He
was just a country boy from Arkansas, you know, a
hell of a shot. We would be able to talk
about hunting and fishing because we both kind of grew
up in that type of area of him growing up
in Arkansas. He had this Southern drawl about him and
(10:13):
he was just just nice as could be. I named
one of my last horses after him. You know it's
they leave a lasting impression on you. You know that
the guys who strive to make sure that you live
so that their memory isn't
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Lost and great work is always by Joey and a
special thanks to William Memorial Day special here on our
American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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