Legion celebrates Couch for six decades of membership

ANDOVER – Leo Crouch struggled to find a job as a young man and decided enlisting in the Air Force was a good course of action.
After five years of service, Crouch returned home and joined Andover American Legion Post 226. Recently, he was honored by the Legion for 60 years of membership.
“I’m very proud of that,” Crouch said. “I just feel bad I don’t go to meetings anymore because I can’t walk up any steps at all. My getting out is going out in the car. My wife takes me. I don’t even drive anymore.”
Crouch, 83, served in the Air Force from 1961-66.
“I went to (civilian job) training, and when I got out of that, I couldn’t find a job, so I went in the Air Force,” Crouch said. “I’m not sorry I was ever in (the Air Force). It was just myself and my mother. My father died very young, and then I kept after her, and said, ‘You find a guy or something.’ She never did.”
Despite enlisting with the Air Force, Crouch had no intention of flying.
“I like being on the ground,” Crouch said. “I’ve only been on an airplane maybe four or five times my whole life.”
Choosing the Air Force was a simple decision for Crouch even with his affinity for standing on solid ground.
“I heard it was easiest,” Crouch said. “I am proud of being an Air Force recruit. I considered the Marines for a while about this much (as he held his thumb and finger close together), and I heard all about that, and I didn’t care about going underwater for so long and all that. I found the Air Force was probably about the easiest all of them.”
Crouch was stationed at Royal Air Force Station Bentwaters near Ipswich, England, where he served as a sentry dog handler.
“I just love dogs,” Crouch said. “The dog I had, you would not want as a normal policeman. What I was guarding, that dog would kill for me.”
Not long after arriving at Bentwaters, Crouch met his wife, Theresa, and brought her, along with a daughter, Cathy, home to the United States. The couple eventually had two more children, Christina and Neal.
“I started going with her (Theresa) almost as soon as I went over to England,” Crouch said.
Crouch and his dog had an important job at Bentwaters.
“Most of the time we were guarding nuclear weapons that were already on airplanes ready to go,” Crouch said. “That’s where I meant that those dogs didn’t fool around.”
Crouch served during the Vietnam War, but remained in England.
“The only rough spot I had was getting into my dog because he was trained before I got him,” Crouch said. “Kennel maids, that’s all they had over there, because women can get along better with a German shepherd than any of us could, really.”
“It was about two weeks I was trying to get in and I’d get near that dog and he’d (growl),” Crouch continued. “Candy, that was (the kennel maid’s) name, came to me one day and says, ‘Well, you’re going to go back to Bentwaters.’ I say, ‘What do you mean, I’m going back to Bentwaters?’ She says, ‘You aren’t going to get that dog unless I show you how.’”
A simple maneuver by Candy, and Crouch could rest easy.
“I went over where the cage was, didn’t bother the dog at all, the girl, but it didn’t like me,” Crouch said. “She grabbed the dog, went in the cage, I’d never do that, and grabbed the dog, pulled him out, and says, ‘Here, now he’ll be yours.’ And the dog was almost immediately. It would do anything I told it to do.”
Crouch likes to tell of how he put a general on the ground while on duty.
“I was never in combat, but I put Gen. Curtis E. LeMay on the ground because he came in without the proper certificates,” Crouch said. “He came in on my post, and I did everything I was supposed to do.”
“Well, see, he didn’t belong to our unit,” Crouch continued. “None of us really knew him and that’s why he was there. He didn’t even have his stars on or nothing. The only thing he had on is a paper thing that didn’t have the right numbers on it.”
Instead of a reprimand, Crouch was rewarded for the action.
“That’s why I got my first stripe,” Crouch said. “I never would have expected I would put a general on the ground, but I did. He says, ‘You’re a good airman. I’ll take care of you.’ And he did. I was just an airman third (class).”
Crouch was told he’d never earn another stripe after that one.
“I had a tech sergeant that hated the British women,” Crouch said. “I don’t know why. I don’t think he was funny, but he didn’t like me at all because I married (Theresa). He said he’d make sure I never got another stripe. Well, I made two more of them.”
Crouch left the Air Force as an airman first class.
As a civilian, Crouch carried some of what the Air Force taught him.
“It learned me a little bit of a good attitude towards life,” Crouch said.
“I didn’t used to be critical about anything, but I learned in the military, you better be critical about a few things,” Crouch continued. “I think that brought that out in me. I’m proud I was in the service. A lot of people didn’t enjoy the military. I did, and, of course, I met my wife.”
Crouch joined the American Legion almost immediately after leaving the Air Force.
“Well, I just thought it was a thing to do,” Crouch said. “I wanted to belong a little bit to the military, since I was there almost five years. I’ve never been sorry I went in the Air Force.”
Joining the Legion can be an important step for a veteran.
“The Legion is about camaraderie, and that’s what it is,” Andover American Legion Post 226 Commander Joe Paul said. “Even when we can’t see him often because he’s house bound, we’re able to reach out to him. When you engage with another veteran, we all sort of live on the same plane. There’s a lot of commonality there before the conversation even starts.”
The Legion is a brotherhood.
“Even if it’s Army or Air Force or whatever, you’ve got that camaraderie and understanding of the sacrifice during the years that you’re in the service and develop and build the discipline that you need in civilian life, whether you serve five years, four years or 20 years,” Post 226 Adjutant Tom Hitchcock said.
There’s more to the American Legion than looking after one another, however.
“(The Legion) is not just about us and us taking care of each other, it’s about us taking care of the community in ways like service ceremonies, things like that, to keep this community reminded of who we are as Americans,” Paul said. “That’s a big thing that the Legion does, is work on Americanism and make sure that we don’t forget things like Memorial Day and Veterans Day and folks who served for us.”
Along those lines Post 226 does what it can in the community.
“One of the items that we’re very proud of is we serve 11 cemeteries on Memorial Day,” Post 226 Vice Commander Bob Hitchcock said. “We do a ceremony for each one each year. Leo was a part of that back when, and I’m sure that we could reminisce and bring up a lot of old names at our own hall down there.”
Crouch’s service to the community, like many others before him, didn’t end when he left the Air Force.
“I decided one day, I better do something for the community, so I ran for council against four other people,” Crouch said. “I didn’t think I’d make it. I got the most votes of any of them. It probably helped me being in the service. I think most people knew I was in there. I enjoyed (serving on village council).”