Staying Fit
Paul Lessard found his lifelong hero at a summer sports camp for teenagers in Black Mountain, North Carolina. A U.S. Marine Corps veteran named Patrick Cleburn “Clebe” McClary III had been invited to address the students.
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Clebe McClary had one eye, one arm and a badly disfigured face — the result of a nightlong battle on a hillside in Vietnam in 1968 during which he and 10 recon Marines fought off an enemy battalion.
Ramrod straight in his dress blues, the Southerner spoke of duty and responsibility and dedication to God, country, family and community.
Lessard, the son of a Marine, was mesmerized. He waited until the other boys had left and approached the veteran. “My name is Paul Lessard,” he told McClary. “I am 17 years old, and when I grow up I want to be like you.”
That was in 1975. Some 18 years later, at 6 a.m. on April 16, 1993, Lessard was driving near his home in High Point, North Carolina, when he saw a car get washed off the highway into a creek swollen by overnight rain.
Ella Mae Bowman, 62, was inside the vehicle as it sank. Lessard swerved to a halt, swam to the car, broke its rear window with a hammer and, with the help of a Connecticut man driving past, pulled Bowman from the car to the creek bank, where he gave her CPR.
Lessard was awarded the Carnegie Medal for saving Bowman’s life that day. He used the award grant to establish the Lighthouse Project, which is dedicated to helping young people build character. The first person Lessard invited to speak was McClary.
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“Clebe shaped who I became,” Lessard told AARP Veteran Report. “He is not only a Marine Corps hero and patriot but a hero to me — the ultimate mentor. He made me want to be everything I could be.”
The story of Clebe McClary, who was awarded the Silver Star, Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts, is the stuff of legend.
A college football star, he enlisted in the Marines in 1967 after witnessing a student burn the American flag on a football field. He told AARP Veteran Report that he informed his coach: “I’m outta here. I can’t be watching this when my country is at war.”
McClary joined the Marines that day. His potential was spotted almost immediately and after being sent to officer school he was soon in Vietnam. Bullets and shrapnel cost the lieutenant his left arm and left eye in that fateful March 1968 battle, in which two of his Marines were killed.
