Leonard Winkler’s father taught him a lot growing up–about work, about common sense, and especially about love of country.

Robert Winkler served in the U.S. Navy during World War II, and Leonard determined to follow in his father’s legacy.

He got his chance years later, when he was sent to Okinawa, Japan, with the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve.

Leonard Winkler grew up hearing about the war.

“Oh, the big war. It was always the big war with him,” Winkler said. “He actually lied about his age to get into the Navy, which a lot of guys did back then.”

Winkler grew up in Schaller, the youngest of nine siblings, where his father was a well-driller.

“He taught me how to run equipment, you know,” Winkler said. “I was with him all summer long, on the rig, learning the common-sense things in life that kids don’t get nowadays.”

Robert’s brothers were all in the service, Leonard Winkler said.

And Leonard remembered how his father would say, “All my boys will serve.”

“My two oldest brothers were in Vietnam,” Leonard Winkler said. “My other brother was in the Navy. Half my sisters married guys who’d been in the military.”

Serving in the reserves, Winkler spent the majority of his years in the Marine Corps stateside, in Camp Pendleton, California.

“After I was married with kids, then they transferred me my last year to Okinawa, Japan, without my wife and kids,” he said.

Winkler served a variety of ways. He started out in the U.S. Army Reserve, where he served for three years in the 3rd Battalion, 14th Field Artillery, in Sac City.

When he traded his Army fatigues for those of the Marines, he moved from artillery to a support role.

“I was a refrigeration mechanic in the Marine Corps,” he said. “After being in the field artillery in the army, I realized I don’t want to be in the field, I want to be in the rear with the gear. And the beer.”

Winkler enlisted in 1983, and went into basic training between his high school junior and senior years, over the summer.

He went through boot camp twice, once in each service.

“The Army prepared me for the Marines,” he said. “I had an idea of the games they were going to play.”

Boot camp in the Marine Corps was more rigorous, he said, but joining up was an easy decision.

“The Marine Corps recruiter called me up out of the blue, and my dad has passed away earlier,” Winkler said. “I needed to get out of town. He came and talked to me, and within 20 minutes I was signed on the dotted line.”

Winkler attended boot camp in San Diego, then went to school in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.

One of his more nerve-wracking experiences came in the Army Reserve, training on artillery during a three-day weekend in Minnesota or Wisconsin.

He was loading a field artillery piece that fired a 105 mm shell. It’s about a 30-pound bullet, he said, and the gunners had to load gunpowder into the canister connected to it.

“Command would tell you how many bags, and you count them out and put them in there. Then you cut them off, because they’re all strung together. Like beanbags,” he said.

“They fit in this big canister, and then you shove it up in the breach… You close the block, then pull the lanyard to fire. It was a battery, which is all the guns are going to fire at once. You’re going to hear the boom, and you close your eyes automatically when you pull the lanyard to fire it, and then you’re taught instinctively, as soon as you fire it to pull it open, the assistant gunner grabs it, and throws the canister aside.”

This time, when they pulled the canister out, the primer at the end was dented, but the gunpowder hadn’t started burning to fire the round, he said.

“We just put it back in the gun and fired it, and then we thought, we could have all died there,” Winkler said.

With the Marines, living on base in Japan was an experience.

“You had mama-san,” Winkler said. “She was in the barracks, and she did all your laundry for you and folded it, for I think it was $30 a month.”

“Typhoons were a whole different story. They put you in the barracks and you had to put on your helmet and flak jacket and everything just to go to the chow hall.”

Winkler left the service in 1990, after returning from Japan. He was about to be transfered out when the first Gulf War began.

“Bush said nobody’s getting out of the service,” he said. “I said good, I don’t want to get out.”

But Winkler’s position had been eliminated, and to stay in the Marine Corps he would have to go back to school.

“The only way you could reenlist is if you change jobs. I’d been over in Okinawa for a year without my wife. And I only got to hold my second daughter for three hours,” Winkler said. “So I wanted to stay in, but I wasn’t going back to school. That’s the only reason I got out.”

None of Winkler’s three children went into the military, although he encouraged one to try the Marines.

“I have no boys, I have three girls,” he said. “So kind of broke the chain. But I’ve got a grandson now, so I have hopes for him.”

The military experience was a good one, he said.

“It screwed my head on straight,” Winkler said. “I was kind of a wild child.”