STORY BEHIND THE PLAQUE
Service Reflections of CW2 Martin Leddy, U.S. Army (1976-2010)

I think it was a series of events. I was influenced by having my college scholarship pulled by the school finance office because they felt my father should pay my way through school. They offered me a full ride, then pulled it before the first day of school. Frustrating.

I went home and found two part-time jobs to help out. Dad had just resigned from the Director of Technical and Vocational Ed at Illinois Central College which he helped found.

Dad had an old Army buddy who had been SF in Vietnam and who was medically retired. He had cancer and came to stay with us for a while. He and I talked a lot about opportunities. I think more than anyone, he influenced my decision to serve. He was truly a great guy.

I joined the Army Signal Corps. As an Army Technical Controller (Fixed Station), 32D I remained in that field from 1976 to 1989 when I left active duty.

I transferred to the Army National Guard and served as an 11B from 1989 to 1997. I started out as a weapons Squad Leader and moved up to PSG.

In 1996 I began putting a retirement packet together and also changed civilian jobs. One of the members of my new agency was an Army Reserve CID Agent and he recruited me to CID. Instead of retiring at 20, I came to CID and remained from August 1997 to September 2010.

Even though I retired, I deployed with the 1st BDE, 1st Infantry Division as a Law Enforcement Professional for another tour in Iraq from October 2010 to EOM in Iraq.

I currently serve with the NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan (NTM-A) (CSTC-A) as a civilian adviser/mentor to the Senior ANA CID Officer.

Yes, to the extent that I was in Baghdad in the early part of 2004. I was the Protective Service Detachment 1SG for the CID Detachment charged with protecting Tier 1 and Tier 2 level protectees such as CODELs, foreign heads of state, UN Special Envoys and the like.

While in Baghdad a mortar hit the roof of the CPA Palace just above my head as I was standing on the roof of the Post Office which we used as our break area. Other than my ears ringing and getting peppered with rocks from the roof I was not otherwise injured.

As a civilian serving with the 1/1 ID, I was on a surveillance patrol in Kirkuk searching Point of Origin sites (POO) for our indirect fire rocket men. We were at the 3rd POO in the center of a field inside the city with a circumference of about 1km when we took 4-5 rounds of sniper fire from about 500m. The interpreter with us was hit in the leg, and we casevac’ed him back to FOB Warrior. On the ride back in the MRAP, I held on to Doc’s drag strap while she worked on “Bob” the interpreter. At some point during the somewhat rough ride in, I chipped a tiny bone off my right hip.

I later found out the trauma to the bone was sufficient to cause the bone to die. Eventually, I will have to have it replaced.

Bob the interpreter was up on his feet 8 hours later and had completely recovered from the wound.

I have great memories of all my duty stations. I did 2 tours at Donnersberg and lived in Dannenfels Germany. The people of Dannenfels made me feel very welcome.

2 years in Panama were incredible and I spent all of my off time in the water scuba-diving.

20 months in Korea was a great opportunity to learn the culture. One day a week I met with students from Dongdaegu University so they could practice English. In turn, they took me to many of the cultural and historical sites surrounding Teague.

My time assigned to JCSE Florida was without a doubt exceptional. The TDY bounced me from Honduras and other parts South to Jordan and Egypt with stops in the Azores.

Later when I was with CID and mobilized, I had the opportunity to visit Japan, Macedonia, Turkey, the Republic of Georgia, and of course Kuwait and Iraq.

The Army provided me with many exceptional opportunities to travel and go places I would not have otherwise been able to do. It was not always easy, but at the end of the day, it was all worth it!

One of many that stand out was June 8 or 9 of 2004. All of my Soldiers had been up very late the night before doing PSD missions outside the wire and I was up early doing admin stuff.

It was a beautiful morning and I was standing on the roof of the Post Office at the former Presidential Palace. The roof was situated between the Main Palace Building and the North Palace Building. Our sleeping quarters were on the second floor of the North Building and our office space was just inside a Window/Door of the Main building also on the second floor. We had exclusive access to the roof of the Post Office and used it as a break area.

I was standing near the edge of the roof looking out over the front entrance grounds of the Palace when two mortar rounds hit the roof of the Main Palace Building.

Even though I have received the Bronze Star, I don’t feel I earned it. I accepted it because I did not want to dishonor those that have earned it, and know that many earned it and never received it.

I think perhaps another one that means a lot to me was a Joint Service Achievement Medal received for a classified contingency mission I performed in during the mid-’80s when I was in JCSE.

While I am honored to have received various awards and medals, they are not driving forces behind my service nor my desire to serve. Many Soldiers have done much more and in my mind are more deserving than I for many of these awards. I was just trying to do my job as well as I could.

The greatest sense of pride I have is from taking care of my Soldiers when I was in a position of leadership.

This is difficult. In 33 years there were many Soldiers and Leaders who had a tremendous impact. In the ’80s while I was serving with JCSE, my 1SG Mike Pelaez was a great Mentor for me. His leadership style, care, and concern for the troops and his unwavering dedication were perhaps the foundation for my future service. He held standards high and demanded excellence from all of us. He taught me that recognition should go to the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines who do the job, not just the senior leadership. I will never forget him or the example he set for all of us within the unit. Later when I was assigned as a Detachment 1SG, I did my best to emulate him and never forgot to take care of my troops while still going out on missions. He never said “Lead by Example”, he simply did it.

Perhaps two within the last ten years who were mentors for me were CW5 Les Young and CW5 Mo King. They guided my development as a CID Agent and convinced me to become a Warrant Officer. They along with several others, I would follow through the very gates of hell should they ask. Their consistent leadership and their friendship and the way they took care of their Soldiers were second to none.

While I was on the roof of the palace when the mortar rounds hit, I had been drinking coffee from a paper cup. Then CW3 Brad Thompson had just looked out the window from the North building and was turning away when the first round hit.

He later described the event to me and said that he saw me standing out there enjoying a calm and beautiful morning and looked away unconcerned. He heard the bang and looked back only to see just the coffee cup spinning on the ground and with me nowhere in sight.

At impact, I dove through the doorway into the office area and was no longer in view of Chief Thompson. He thought I had been blown over the edge of the roof, but even though I was peppered with small pieces of the roof that had blown over and bounced off the living quarter’s wall, I was fine other than my ears ringing for the rest of the day.

His description of the event had me in tears I was laughing so hard! I always laugh at this memory.

I retired from a civilian Police job in April 2009 and retired from the Army Reserve on September 1, 2010. I am was deployed with the Devil BDE as a Law Enforcement Professional on the BDE Special Staff as an adviser to the BDE Commander and his Staff regarding the Rule of Law in Iraq and Police Centric operations.

Upon my return to CONUS, I was asked to go to Kabul and stand up the Afghan National Army (ANA) CID. I deployed and mentored the ANA CID Chief Deputy at the Ministry of Defense. I was there from 2011 – 2014 with a mandatory 3-month rotation back to the US in the early part of 2013.

When I returned to the US I was invited to go back to my former police department and am still working there.

I am a lifetime member of various organizations such as JCSEVA, all of which I take great pride in belonging to. The VFW which supports us all, the US Army Warrant Officer Association which does great things for Warrants and Enlisted Soldiers alike. I am also a member of several professional organizations, each of which requires specific qualifications and each of which serves to develop skills and hold high standards for qualification. Some of these are IALEIA, IACA, ATAP.

Fraternal organizations I belong to such as the IACP and other Police organizations are equally important to me.

All of them work hard to develop professionals who are new to their careers, as well as provide a venue for experienced personnel to speak on topics of importance.

Military service shaped my adult life. I both learned to perform my duties with pride and professionalism, as well as receiving mentoring from some incredibly knowledgeable people. I have gained too many skills to mention, and perhaps most importantly, I learned how to lead others while treating them with respect courtesy and dignity. While the military was not my “life”, I stayed so long because it was worthwhile service in a world that needed good people willing to do the hard jobs. I have had the honor of serving with many.

When I left active duty, I became a police officer while maintaining my Guard and Reserve service. The jobs complimented each other and I was allowed to continue doing things I believe are important. Both of my children learned from what I chose as professions. They see the value of both and are in their own right outstanding members of society. “Give back in what you do, and you shall receive much more in return.”

Remember why you came to the Service. If you work briefly for a difficult leader, take away the good and remember what you found lacking so that when you move into a leadership role, you do the right thing and don’t perform as the difficult leader you worked under previously.

Each progressive step forward should be better than before not because of the position, but because you care about your Soldiers and you do right by them. If you don’t take care of them, they won’t grow into our future leaders.

Togetherweserved has brought me back in contact with many people I served with throughout my entire career. This web site has also given me a place to document for my children, some of what I did in this life. Thank you for the web site, thank you for the connections!

DS 4/23/19