In Service to America, Veteran Profile 2: Master Chief Petty Officer Ernie Leclerc, U.S. Navy

A Veterans Day Series by Gary Ledoux

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“I spent 24 years in the Navy,” said Navy Corpsman Ernie Leclerc, “and in all that time, just through the grace of God, I never saw combat. The Vietnam War was raging, and I was doing duty either on an aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean, or at a Navy hospital in Morrocco, or some Navy facility stateside. It was just the luck of the draw.”

Crown Hill native Ernie Leclerc graduated from Nashua High School in June of 1959, and entered the Navy only a few weeks later in July. “They told me, ‘Join the Navy and see the world.’ I joined the Navy, went through boot camp, went to Hospital Corp school, and then my first duty station was only about 40 miles from my home,” said Leclerc. He would get to see a good part of the world, but it would take a while to get there.

Leclerc became a hospital corpsman and his original plan was to stay in the Navy just four years. Near the end of his first tour, he was looking for a job in the civilian medical field, or possibly in a VA hospital. Fortunately, he discovered ahead of time that he was due for a promotion to E-5. That, together with an across-the-board pay raise for all service members meant he would go from making $148 a month to making about $400 a month. He decided to stay with the Navy.

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Leclerc served on a number of ships including the aircraft carriers USS Franklin D. Roosevelt and the USS John F. Kennedy. As part of his overseas duty requirement, he ended up in Morrocco, in North Africa, working at what had been a WWII military base until 1964. From there he transferred back to a Naval hospital in Quonset Point, RI where he spent the next 18 months. At that time the Navy was looking for Corpsmen for combat service in Vietnam. As luck would have it, Leclerc ended up back in Morocco at his old job for another stint.

Then it was off to Naples, Italy, where Leclerc worked with six other Corpsmen and a doctor at a Naval infirmary. While there he was also qualified as a Corpsman for rescue or medivac work on Navy helicopters. Leclerc tells the story about one such “rescue.”

At that time, I was living about 18 miles from the base and I had no phone. If I was on-call for rescue work, the base telephoned the local police and they came out to get me. Late one night I got a knock on the door. It was the local police coming to get me for a rescue flight. We sped to the base, jumped on the chopper and away we went – to Rome. Evidently, someone there had severe stomach problems and needed to be medevacked out. About 30 minutes into the flight, we ran into a thunderstorm. The helicopter was being buffeted all over the place and we decided to go back to base and try it again when the weather cleared. About four hours later, it was daylight and the skies had cleared considerably, so we restarted our trip. We landed in Rome and expected to be greeted by an ambulance with some guy on a stretcher moaning and groaning. Instead, we were greeted by an official Navy automobile and some guy in Navy dress blues with a bag of clothing. He was in need of medical attention… but I guess he wasn’t that bad off!

Over his entire tour, Leclerc got to attend a number of different schools, all dealing with health care or health care administration. Unfortunately, like other service members, Leclerc “fell prey to the bottle.” “At the time,” Leclerc says, “the Navy had a new program to help guys like me overcome alcoholism. I guess someone finally figured out that it was better to try to save these guys, and all the time and effort the Navy spent for schooling and training, rather than just kick them out of the service. The program worked with me.” 

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Leclerc has been over 50 years sober and in fact, used this time to further enhance his life. He would start an alcoholism program for sailors on board the USS John F. Kennedy while on a Mediterranean tour.

Later, back in Norfolk, Leclerc was assigned to the USS Independence, another aircraft carrier that happened to be in dry dock for extensive repairs at the time. This was done to give Leclerc some home-time to sort out some personal issues. A while later, the Independence was again ready for sea duty and Leclerc had to ship out again. He hadn’t finished his personal business yet but… duty called. The ship had barely made it to Naples, Italy, it’s first port of call when he received word that he could return to shore-duty in Norfolk. A plane-ride later, he was back in the states.

Leclerc finished his sea duty on a destroyer tender, the USS Puget Sound. after which he was promoted to an E-9 and became an instructor for administration practices for Navy hospitals. His last duty was working in Education and Training Command in Bethesda, MD combining the efforts of east coast and west coast schools.

After the Navy, Leclerc worked in the drug and alcohol treatment field for 30 years. His favorite part of that was working outreach to recruit people for treatment. Over these years, Leclerc worked for six different such centers The last five years of his career in this field, he ran his own consulting business.

When asked if he recalled anything that was particularly funny or poignant during his Navy career, Leclerc responded, “When I was on the USS Roosevelt we had to have someone manning sick-bay 24/7. I was on the night shift, trying to get a little shut-eye in one of the quiet-rooms. While I was trying to sleep, I could smell something cooking. It was ham! This seemed odd in a sick-bay. It smelled great and I was hungry. I found out later, one of the guys was in the next room cooking a ham in an autoclave. (An autoclave is a device used to sterilize medical instruments.) By the time I realized what was happening, the ham was cooked… and eaten. I went into a tirade telling those responsible they better not cook another ham in my autoclave… and not give me any! About 45 years later, I was meeting with a bunch of Navy buddies for a reunion in Texas. And wouldn’t you know, the ‘ham-man’ walked up to me and without saying a word, handed me a canned ham!”

Ernie Leclerc is now fully retired, and lives with his second wife in Chesapeake, VA. His memories of life in Crown Hill are still just as sharp as can be.  

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In Service To America Story Archive, Oct. 16-Nov. 1

Stories will publish every weekday until Veterans Day on Nov. 11

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