MIKE MCLEOD • VIETNAM WAR
Mike McLeod - 77
Gloucester, MA
Born: 4/7/1948
Born/Raised: Gloucester
Service: US Navy
Rank: E-5, 2nd Class Petty Officer
USS Saratoga – Mediterranean
Dates of Service: 1967-1971
Born at home on Taylor Street, the youngest of five children, Mike McLeod was a small-town boy who saw a good chunk of the world serving his country and came back to that same small town to serve his community.
The son of Malcolm and Mary Evelyn McLeod, Mike grew up and graduated from GHS in 1967. He wandered out to Hawai’i where his brother Malcolm was teaching at the University of Hawai’i. He thought he might enroll at the school and found himself enlisting in the Navy instead.
His first duty station after basic training was Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake, in the middle of the Mojave Desert. He wanted to be an “airdale” – in naval aviation - and worked his way up to being an E-5. Eventually he was assigned to VF-103 (Strike Fighter Squadron) Sluggers aboard the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga stationed in the Mediterranean as part of a stabilizing force in that region. Egypt’s Nasser had just been assassinated and the Cold War was in full swing. He once shook President Richard Nixon’s hand.
Mike is quick to point out that his time during the Vietnam era was much different than that of his friends serving in Southeast Asia. “We were in a tumultuous time.” Nuclear weapons were on deck with orange cones to indicate their presence. At one point the Saratoga was deployed to the Pacific responding to a potential crisis.
But not all was looming crisis. On September 27, 1969 while on leave, Mike married his high school sweetheart Terry and the couple have been together now for 55 years. They would have two children, Michael and Shilo, and four grandchildren: Michael, Austin, Madelyn and Hannah. Mike left the Navy in 1971, though he remained in the reserves, and returned to Gloucester.
In 1974 he joined the Gloucester Police Department full time and worked just about every job there was to work: beat cop, dispatcher, EMT/Ambulance, Street Sergeant, Lieutenant, Drug Task Force and finished his 34-year career with three years as Chief. In 2005 he stepped up once again to run for and serve as a Gloucester City Councilor for two terms. He’s photographed with a book about his service authored by his grandson Austin.