Not every teacher has a Bronze Star, but Ted Leblow, JROTC (Junior Reserve Officer Training Course) teacher and Head Coach of track and field at Central High School in Grand Junction has earned three Bronze Stars. The Bronze Star is awarded for heroic achievement, heroic service, meritorious achievement, meritorious service in a combat zone. In his 21 years of active duty, he served three tours in Iraq, one in Kuwait, and one in Korea, retiring in 2013 with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.
Ted’s military career began in 1989 after graduating from the University of Oregon by enlisting in the National Guard. He served one year in the Guard then went back to school on an ROTC scholarship, earning an MBA from the University of Oregon. Upon graduation, he was commissioned as an officer in the aviation branch of the Army and assigned to Apache helicopters.
Deploying in the initial invasion of Iraq after 9/11, Ted worked with the 101st Airborne as an aviation advisor. They were the first to arrive ahead of ground forces to secure locations for refueling helicopters and set up sites for headquarters and communications.
The main mission of the Apache helicopters was to protect the ground troops when they came under fire. The enemy soldiers soon learned to stop shooting when the Apaches arrived or else they would not survive. They would also fly over major roads looking for areas that appeared to have been dug out for buried Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) then call in the Ordinance Explosive Division (OED) to come and clear the area.
The last mission Ted had in Iraq was to serve as an advisor to three Iraqi generals. He worked with a translator and traveled everywhere with the generals. A successful mission, Ted recalls, was when another general, a friend of a general Ted was serving, was shot and not likely to survive. The general asked Ted to get his friend to a U.S. facility where he would have a better chance at survival. There were a lot of protocols to follow, but Ted was able to get the man airlifted to an American base and the lifesaving care he needed.
Although Ted has been diagnosed with PTSD, he downplays his own suffering saying others suffer more. He chooses to focus on the positive outcomes of his service and avoids talking about any negative effects from his military career. This positive outlook carries over into his current role as JROTC teacher and Head Coach of Track and Field at Central High School.
The leap from Lt. Colonel in the military to a teacher was an easy decision, as Ted’s favorite military assignment was teaching senior ROTC at Brigham Young University in Utah. He was the head of the program and coached the Ranger Challenge Team competitions there. He knew then that when he retired he wanted to teach and coach. Having lived in the mountains of Utah he and his wife wanted to get back to the mountain west part of the country.
In 2013, when Ted realized that he had been away for 10 of the 18 years of his daughter’s life, he decided that it was time for him to retire from the military in order to have time with his kids still living at home. He found the position at Central High School, and they moved to Grand Junction in 2013.
Last year, along with teaching JROTC, Ted became Head Coach of Track and Field. He had to break the news to his students that the season had been canceled on the day before their first meet. He told them, “This is a challenge. Don’t accept defeat. Don’t focus on what you can’t do.” The students accepted that challenge and grew together as a team, becoming much stronger together. The team came in 8th place in the state this year.
The JROTC students also stood up to the challenge. At this year’s award ceremony Ted told the parents the thing he was most proud of about his leadership group was that “…not once did they complain about what they couldn’t do. They focused on what they could do. They didn’t give up and they didn’t complain about it.”
In the off-season, Ted offers a free running club for youth in the area. He believes, “When you’re a youth, people around you influence you in the direction your life is going to go. If you have a good group of kids and they have a good activity that bonds them together then they’re gonna move in the right direction.”
Ted hopes that the community can see that these kids he teaches, coaches, and mentors are a good group of kids that are doing the right things in life and are moving in a good direction. “My only goal is to continue to be a positive influence.”
“What I enjoy most about teaching, coaching, mentoring is seeing those kids and what direction they are going in their lives and hopefully I played some small role in steering them in the direction they end up going.”
