Leonard J. Sperrazza, one of the approximately 100 attendees at the March 28, 1945, meeting of World War II blinded veterans at Avon Old Farms Army Convalescent Hospital, passed away on January 18, 2024 in Lampasas, Texas. He was born on November 29, 1924. 

The historic meeting for which Leonard was best known in BVA circles was the founding of the Blinded Veterans Association at the Connecticut facility that housed, rehabilitated, and trained recently returning veterans. Some were visually impaired while the majority had lost all their sight in World War II combat.

An active member of BVA residing in Buffalo, New York, during the organization’s formative years, Leonard was one of thousands of Allied soldiers who landed on Omaha Beach in Normandy, France on June 6, 1944. Only 19 at the time, Leonard was a Sergeant in the U.S. Army’s 29th Infantry Division. Before D-Day, there were 200 men in his division. After D-Day, there were only about ten, as he recounted in a Memorial Day feature in the Miami Herald on May 27, 2012. His injuries that day left him with shrapnel in his left leg and a bayonet wound in his left shoulder but with vision still totally intact.

He was blinded only weeks later in Saint Lo in northwest France. As enemy fire flashed across the sky, Leonard dug a hole and ran for cover. While taking care of a scared buddy, a mortar shell exploded in front of him. The explosion blinded him totally and broke his teeth. For some 79 years he lived with shrapnel lodged in his face.

Leonard recovered in Valley Forge General Hospital in Pennsylvania and was later sent to Avon Old Farms for blind rehabilitation training. His World War II service earned him a Purple Heart and two oak-leaf pins signifying that he had been wounded three times during the War.

Leonard was the founder of another organization—Citizens on Patrol Crime Watch in North Miami Beach in 1978. He was a member of the Lions Club, Elks Club, and Kiwanis Club. He loved the guitar, fishing, and bowling. Survivors include his loving wife Marion of Zephyr, Texas, with whom he raised seven children. One of the seven, Therese Mosier of Zephyr, Texas, has been a caregiver for both him and Marion for the past several years.

Because of the rural nature of the area, Leonard had most recently been an at-large BVA member unaffiliated with a regional group. Thanks to periodic telephone calls from former District Directors Kevin Jackson and Wade Davis, he retained contact with the organization he actively helped create nearly 79 years ago.