Air Force Times
By Gina Harkins
Staff writer
Jan. 27, 2014
Cliff Leonard, a sculptor and Vietnam veteran, makes life-sized busts of fallen Marines and Navy corpsmen from his home state of Florida. He also sculpts fallen Marines from his old unit, like Cpl. Nicholas Uzenski. Leonard said it takes about two months to create a life-sized bust of a Marine or Navy corpsman.
(Holly Clarke Gardner)
A former lance corporal who served in Vietnam is using his artistic skills to honor Marines and Navy corpsmen who’ve been killed in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Cliff Leonard, who served with 3rd Reconnaissance Battalion, teamed up with the Semper Fidelis Society in Jacksonville, Fla., to provide a memorial for a local cemetery a few years ago. He offered to sculpt a life-sized bust of Pfc. Nathan Clemons, a local Marine who was killed in Iraq in 2005. He contacted the Clemons family and got started.
When plans to place the bust in the cemetery fell through, Leonard said he didn’t have the heart to tell the family he wasn’t going to carry out the project. So he persevered and donated the finished sculpture to the Clemons family.
“Once I saw how much they appreciated it, I thought I would sculpt all the fallen Marines from Jacksonville, Florida,” Leonard said.
Then he kept going. He sculpted some of his buddies who were killed in Vietnam, and a Marine from his old unit who was killed in Afghanistan in 2010.
His new mission: To create a bust of every Marine and Navy corpsman from Florida who was killed in Iraq or Afghanistan, some 81 men. He has completed 17 so far.
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