Marine Cpl. Jacob C. Leicht

Died May 27, 2010 Serving During Operation Enduring Freedom

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24, of College Station, Texas; assigned to the 1st Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, 1st Marine Division, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, Calif.; died May 27 while supporting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan.

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Marine was 1,000th Afghan war casualty

By Paul J. Weber

The Associated Press

KERRVILLE, Texas — The 1,000th American service member killed in Afghanistan was born on the Fourth of July. He died several days before Americans honor fallen troops on Memorial Day.

Marine Cpl. Jacob C. Leicht was killed May 27 when he stepped on a land mine in Helmand province that ripped off his right arm. It was the 24-year-old Texan’s second deployment overseas.

Leicht had begged to return to the battlefield after a bomb took out his Humvee in Iraq. He spent two painful years recovering from face and leg injuries, all the while pining for combat in letters from his hospital bed.

He finally got back to the front lines but was killed less than a month into the tour of duty he desperately wanted.

“He said he always wanted to die for his country and be remembered,” said Jesse Leicht, his younger brother. “He didn’t want to die having a heart attack or just being an old man. He wanted to die for something.”

An Associated Press tally shows Leicht is the 1,000th U.S. service member killed in the Afghan conflict. The first death — nearly nine years ago — also was a service member from the San Antonio area.

When military officers went to tell Leicht’s parents their adopted son had died in combat, sheriff’s deputies had to help navigate them to the 130-acre family ranch tucked deep in the Texas Hill Country.

It was here that Jacob Leicht chopped thick cedar trees and hiked the rugged limestone peaks, growing up into an imposing 6-5, 200-pound Marine with a soft heart. He watched “Dora the Explorer” with his brother’s children and confided to family that he was troubled by the thought of young civilians being killed in battle.

But for Leicht, born in a Lemoore, Calif., Navy hospital, the battlefield was the destination. He threw away a college ROTC scholarship after just one semester because he feared it would lead away from the front lines.

“His greatest fear was that they would tell him he would have to sit at a desk for the rest of his life,” said Jonathan Leicht, his older brother.

When Jacob Leicht’s wish finally came true, it didn’t last long.

His first deployment was to Iraq in 2007, but he was there just three weeks when Jesse Leicht said his brother drove over two 500-pound bombs beneath the road.

One detonated, the other didn’t. The blast tore through the Humvee, shooting the radio into Leicht’s face and knocking him unconscious. He felt something pinch his thumb, and the gunner’s face was filleted so badly by shrapnel that medics couldn’t keep water in his mouth.

None of the five people inside the vehicle died. Jesse Leicht said an Iraqi interpreter, the only one on board who wasn’t seriously injured, dragged his brother from the mangled vehicle. The blast snapped Jacob Leicht’s fibula and tibula, and the recovery was an agonizing ordeal of pins and rods and bolts drilled into his bones.

But all Jacob Leicht could think about was going back. He launched a campaign for himself at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, writing letters and making phone calls about returning to combat. More than two years later, he was finally healthy enough to serve again.

Nine days before his brother stepped on a bomb in Afghanistan, Jesse Leicht enlisted in the Marines. Using Facebook to reach a friend stationed not far from his brother, Jesse asked the soldier a favor: If you see Jacob, let him know I signed up like him.

“Hopefully,” Jesse Leicht said, “he got the word.”

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Had pleaded with brass to return to war zone

The Associated Press

Jacob Leicht’s life began and ended with patriotism. He was born on July 4, and he died May 27 as the 1,000th American serviceman killed in Afghanistan.

“He said he always wanted to die for his country and be remembered,” said Jesse Leicht, his younger brother. “He didn’t want to die having a heart attack or just being an old man.”

Jacob Leicht was born in a California Navy hospital, and he was adopted by parents who raised him on a family ranch deep in the Texas Hill Country, where the homeschooled student hiked and chopped wood and grew to 6-foot-5, 200 pounds.

He was softhearted, sometimes watching “Dora the Explorer” with his brother’s children, but he longed for the front lines and even threw away an ROTC college scholarship for fear of ending up in a desk job.

The 24-year-old from College Station, Texas, died after stepping on a land mine in Helmand province, Afghanistan. He was assigned to Camp Pendleton, Calif., and was on his second deployment.

During the first, a bomb hit his Humvee in Iraq, and he’d spent two years recovering from face and leg injuries while begging to return overseas.

He’s also survived by his brother Jonathan.