Some Aren’t Meant to Serve, as Ex-Falcon Leitenbauer Knows

It is said that life in the service academies is not for everyone, no matter how well-qualified. Klaus Leitenbauer gained that wisdom through hard experience.

Leitenbauer, the second-team All-CIF quarterback who graduated from Mission Viejo High School in 1983, accepted an appointment to the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.

But after six grueling months, Leitenbauer decided to leave the school. That is the same choice made sooner or later by as many as 33% of the members of each incoming class at the military academies, according to Air Force Athletic Director Col. John Clune.

“The (attrition) rate has been as high as 40% here and at West Point and as low as 25% at Navy,” Clune said.

Leitenbauer fit the image of the typical military academy recruit--bright, intense, athletic and well-rounded.

In high school, he led the Diablos to three straight South Coast League championships, including an undefeated season in 1981 when the team won the Central Conference title.

When no other Division I schools showed an interest in recruiting him, Leitenbauer looked into attending Air Force. He took a recruiting trip to the campus and was impressed with what he saw.

“I made the trip there and they showed me around,” he recalled. “I thought about playing in that stadium in front of 50,000 people and beating Notre Dame, and it gave me goosebumps.”

He later made up his mind to accept the appointment, which includes a full scholarship valued at an estimated $125,000 over four years. The cadets and midshipmen--as well as the plebes and doolies, as the first-year candidates are called--also receive $400 to $600 pay per month.

In return, students at all academies are obligated to virtual round-the-clock and year-round schooling and service, except for a month’s leave every summer. Those who find they cannot handle the rigorous course load of 18 to 22 academic units often choose to skip their leave to make up a class.

Upon graduation, the young officers must serve five years in the military.

Leitenbauer was mainly sold on the athletic aspect of attending Air Force.

“I went there for the football and I didn’t look at the other aspects as well as I should have,” he said. “I just blocked them out.”

When Leitenbauer arrived for basic training, an intense six-week initiation into the military, he found it a difficult adjustment.

Leitenbauer, like many doolies, wound up losing weight--dropping 26 pounds, from 178 pounds to 152. He said he lost the weight “from not being able to get enough food and from everything being so stressful.”

Leitenbauer: “They occupy every second of your time. You’re really using your mind and thinking all the time.

“You have to watch the way you walk, the way you turn a corner, and the way you speak to upperclassmen, that’s critical.

“I became so depressed and frustrated with the situation, that my academics really got hurt. I put no effort into it at all . . . The best part of the day was going to football practice.”

There were pros and cons for Leitenbauer. On the positive side, he made close friends. On the negative side, he flunked a math class, and the administration considered sending him back for extra classes at a prep school.

He was in a dilemma, but struggled over making the decision to leave because quitting felt out of character to a young man with the self-image of a doer and winner.

“I had never quit anything in my life,” Leitenbauer explained. But he finally decided to go home to Mission Viejo, anyway. The man who had personally recruited him, Coach Fisher DeBerry, was angry.

“They told me I would regret it and I said, ‘I know I will, but the way my mental state is right now, I can’t handle it,” Leitenbauer said.

“Some people fit into the program right away. You see some people flow right into it. Then you see people battling, like I was. I don’t think it’s mental toughness, but some people aren’t willing to accept (the system) as easily.”

“It all depends on what part of your life you’re in at the time, whether you’re ready to say, ‘OK, I’m ready to sacrifice everything to make it through this place.’ That’s the kind of attitude you have to go in with.”

After he left the academy, “it was like they took a piano off my back,” Leitenbauer said. “The six months there seemed like six years.”

Last year he enrolled at Saddleback College to make up some classes and play football, shifting to linebacker.

This year, he transferred to UC Santa Barbara, where he is preparing for a business major and playing football on the Gaucho club team. The school expects to organize its first intercollegiate football team in years next season, and Leitenbauer would like to be a part of that new tradition.

Sometimes he is still haunted by his decision to leave Air Force, but he says he cannot really regret accepting the appointment in the first place.

“I’m thankful I had the opportunity to go there, and it was one of the greatest experiences of my life,” he said. “I gave it my best shot. But things didn’t work out.”