Leo’s career at West Point was a quiet one, and he was not widely known until he stepped into the boxing ring. There he won numerals and his “A” in the 120-pound class. Graduating at about the one-third mark academically, he chose Field Artillery. His initial troop assignment was to the 991st Field Artillery Battalion, with which he remained throughout the war in Europe.

In January 1944, the battalion moved to England for six months, awaiting Normandy. But, more importantly, it was there that he met Augusta Albertus of California, a nursing graduate of San Francisco State College and St. Joseph’s College of Nursing, whose wartime assignment was to the 76th General Hospital. Just as Leo left for Normandy in July and toured France, Belgium, and Germany, so Gus’s hospital also toured France and Belgium, ending at Antwerp.

In the meantime, in 1945, Leo moved to VII Corps, where he won the Air Medal. Returning to the States, he re-met and married Gus. They were to have 45 happy years together.

Their first shared tour was a civil schooling assignment for a master’s degree in aeronautical engineering at the University of Southern California, followed by an assignment to White Sands Proving Ground. Ten of their next 15 years were to be spent in the Southwest, which decided their retirement spot. In 1960, Leo commanded the first Lacrosse missile battalion to be activated, foreshadowing a shift to the space environment and the Army’s early efforts there.

In 1966, Leo retired from the Army and went to work as a civilian at the NASA Propulsion Site. The company operated a high-altitude simulation system that enabled the Lunar Module engine to be test-fired in its operational environment. In Leo’s words,

“It was there I discovered a fundamental difference between theoretical and hands-on engineering. On the drawing board components never fail, sensors never malfunction, seals never leak and humans never err.”

He retired again from his civil service position in 1981.

In 1990, death came to Leo in El Paso, the area where he enjoyed his two great loves of family and golf. He left behind a solid record of achievement in an area of increasing importance to our nation, as the Gulf War has shown. But he and Gus also have left this country another legacy in their five children. Three sons are medical doctors (one retired from the Army Medical Corps), the fourth is a mathematician, and their daughter has a Ph.D. in engineering. No wonder Leo was so proud! He used to say that one of his happiest memories was a trip to Germany in 1980 to see their son, a staff doctor, in the town where he had completed the eighth grade 20 years earlier. Leo Blanchett well merited the soldier’s accolade, “Well Done.” We shall miss his cool aggressiveness in facing problems, his sincerity, and his inherently good nature.

— His classmates