Hometown: Warwick, NY
Branch: U.S. Army 
Unit: 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division
Military Honors: Bronze Star Metal (3), Meritorious Service Medal (2), Joint Service Commendation Medal, Army Commendation Medal (3), Purple Heart
Date of Sacrifice: June 8, 2013 - KIA in Sharana, Paktika Province, Afghanistan
Age: 39
Conflict: War in Afghanistan, 2001-2021

Jaimie Leonard grew up in Warwick, New York, a small historic town in the countryside, an hour’s drive from New York City. She was born on January 29, 1974, the first child of Robert Leonard Jr. and Patricia (Oberst) Leonard.

At a young age, Jaimie dreamed of joining the military. When she and her younger sister Liz attended a middle school basketball camp at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Jaimie knew it was the ultimate place for her to realize her dream.

Getting into the prestigious West Point would not be easy. The Army’s preeminent leadership development institution—and oldest military academy—accepts only the very best of the best in the nation. Knowing the rigorous academic, physical, and character standards, Jaimie put her focus on meeting those standards while attending Warwick Valley High School in her hometown, graduating in 1992.

Leonard’s academic performance, leadership, and test scores made her one of three finalists from New York State competing for a coveted appointment to West Point. She was passed over for another candidate who played football for Army.

Disappointed but undeterred, Leonard enrolled at Marion Military Institute in Alabama on a merit-based scholarship. Applying again to West Point the following year, she was accepted to join the Academy’s “thin gray line” of cadets, realizing her childhood dream.

Leonard graduated with West Point’s class of 1997 and was commissioned as a military intelligence officer in the United States Army. Because of her performance at the Academy, Leonard was selected to receive a coveted slot in the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Office of the Secretary of Defense Intern Program, serving under Rear Admiral John F. Kirby at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia.

Earning the rank of Major, Jaimie Leonard’s military career would see her deploy to Bosnia in 1999, to Iraq in 2005, and to Afghanistan in 2011. Between deployments, she earned her master’s degree in public policy from Georgetown University in 2007.

In January 2013, Maj. Leonard deployed a second time to Afghanistan with the 10th Mountain Division as part of Operation Enduring Freedom. The 10th is a light infantry division based out of Fort Drum, New York. According to the U.S. Army Center of Military History, the 10th Mountain Division was the most deployed division the during the Global War on Terror in the 1990s.

Maj. Leonard was stationed in Sharana, the capital of Paktika Province, Afghanistan, in her capacity as a military intelligence officer. Part of the 10th Mountain Division’s mission was to train and support the allied Afghan National Army to defend itself against the enemy Taliban.

On June 8, 2013, a man in an Afghan National Army uniform picked up a weapon and shot and killed Maj. Leonard, Lt. Col. Todd Clark, and Joseph Morabito, a civilian who worked alongside Leonard and Clark as a law enforcement trainer.

Rear Adm. Kirby, who had worked with Maj. Leonard during her internship at the Pentagon, wrote to the Warwick Advertiser:

She laughed a lot, smiled a lot, hugged a lot. That big, toothy, girl-next-door face of hers fairly beamed when she was happy. And she always seemed to be happy. The last time I saw her was in Afghanistan at some base, somewhere. “Hey, sir!” she yelled. “Embrace the suck yet?”

Embrace the suck. That’s the little saying we used to share. She taught it to me when we worked together on the Joint Staff. “Embrace the suck” is the trooper’s way of not merely accepting these hardships, but relishing them, turning them into a point of pride. It’s Army parlance for “yea, it’s tough, but we’re tougher.”

Maj. Jaimie Elizabeth Leonard was posthumously promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. She was laid to rest with her fellow soldiers on June 20, 2013, with full military honors, at the West Point Post Cemetery (Section XXXIV, Row AA, Site 006).

Jaimie Leonard had once submitted a piece to her hometown newspaper, the Warwick Advertiser, encouraging her community to consider their sense of citizenship and to find the true meaning of Memorial Day. “Remember those who paid the ultimate sacrifice for their country in war,” she wrote, “but also honor others who sacrifice in other ways to make this country great—law enforcement, firefighters, teachers, volunteers, etc.

“Please honor them in deed and not just giving thanks, parades, or planting flowers or flags on graves. Take measure of what you have done for your country and ask yourself if you could do more.”

Sources
Photo and details provided by Liz Harman, Lt. Col. Leonard’s sister.
VA News, Veteran of the Day: Army Veteran Jaimie Leonard
Centre Daily Times, May 2, 2014: Memorial Day is personal for soldier’s family
Warwick Advertiser, June 20, 2013: My Turn by Rear Adm. John F. Kirby Trying to ‘embrace the suck’
Times Herald-Record, June 21, 2013: War hero Jaimie Leonard laid to rest
West-Point.org: MAJ Jaimie E. Leonard USA (KIA)
Stars and Stripes: Cultural sensitivity, respect fail to keep one brigade safe from insider attack
William F. Hogan Funeral Home: LTC. Jaimie Elizabeth Leonard
Burial Site: Find a Grave