One of nine children, Leon was born in Shreveport to immigrant Greek parents, part of a community of about sixty Greek families then in the city. He attended both public schools and Greek school. During the war, he wrote letters home in Greek so they wouldn't be censored. Leon graduated from high school in May of 1942, attended Louisiana Trade School, and entered the U.S. Army Signal Corps in January of 1943. He was sent to Hawaii later that year as part of the 972^nd Signal Service Battalion. There he worked 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. shifts in The Hut, his nickname for a communications center located underground in a former hospital morgue. "In order to camouflage it, they built a tennis court above it," he recalls. "I came home with four tennis rackets. My brother said, `What kind of war were you in, boy?'" Discharged in October of 1945, Leon attended Centenary College briefly, then owned a bar and restaurant with his brother from 1946 to 1960. He worked for Investors Diversified Services from 1960 to 1969, and then for National Chemical Search for nineteen years before retiring. " An especially poignant memory from the war remains with him. One New Year's Eve he picked up KWKH on the short-wave radio. "It lasted about five minutes," he recalls.