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Army PFC Leslie Bellrichard, Medal of Honor Recipient
Episode 2738 of the Vietnam Veteran News Podcast will feature a story about Army PFC Leslie Bellrichard and his Congressional Medal of Honor award. The featured story comes from The U.S. Department of Defense website and was titled: Medal of Honor Monday: Army PFC Leslie Bellrichard. It was submitted by Katie Lange, then outstanding writer for DOD News.
Lange, in her story, reported that selfless sacrifice is a common theme among Medal of Honor recipients, as many of them give their own lives to save their fellow comrades during war. Army Pfc. Leslie Bellrichard was no exception.
Bellrichard was born in Janesville, Wisconsin, on Dec. 4, 1941 — three days before America was thrust into World War II — and his life was a struggle almost from the start. His father died in a truck-train collision when he was only 11 months old. A year later, a similar collision killed one of his brothers and severely injured another brother. Their mother, who had been driving them that day, fell into a depression afterward, and eventually county officials took the children away from her.Hooper was born Aug. 8, 1938, in Piedmont, South Carolina, but he grew up in Washington State. He enlisted in the Navy at 17, serving until his honorable discharge in 1959. He later decided to join the Army.
Bellrichard and one of his brothers bounced around the foster system for years after that. They eventually landed in a good home, but it didn’t last. Bellrichard had a breakdown when he was about 12, so he was moved to a children’s home, where he remained until he dropped out of high school and moved to California to be closer to his birth mother, who had relocated there.
Newspaper clippings show that Bellrichard got his GED, taught Sunday school and worked for Lockheed Aviation in San Jose for five years before being drafted into the Army in 1966.
Listen to episode 2738 and discover more about Army PFC Leslie Bellrichard and his Congressional Medal of Honor award.
