Scene
in Shaker
With a U.S. Marine Corps flag flying in
front of his Lomond neighborhood house
and a “Semper Fi” sticker visible in the
front window, it’s obvious 96-year-old
Ray LeZak is proud of his military service.
Yet, until recently, if you asked the
World War II veteran for details, LeZak
would shut down the conservation.
“I would say, look, the best place
I was ever stationed was Omaha,
Nebraska,” LeZak says with a laugh. “And
that would turn everyone off. No more
questions after that.”
“He’s been very tight-lipped about a
lot of it and very humble about his early
life,” says Erin Eggert, one of LeZak’s four
grandchildren. “We’d ask him about the
war. He always changed the subject.”
But something has changed. Maybe,
he says, it’s been his role representing
vets during the City’s Memorial Day
ceremonies, or late-in-life pressure to put
his affairs in order. Whatever the reason,
LeZak is ready to tell his story.
“I wasn’t in intense combat. I don’t
pretend I was.” Although he was on the
Japanese island of Okinawa during what
was arguably the bloodiest battle of the
Pacific campaign, the heavy fighting
happened on the opposite side of the
island away from his battalion.
Still, at least one memory haunts
him. He hands me worn dog tags with
Japanese characters on them. He says he
found them in a cave on Okinawa, but
won’t go beyond that. LeZak wonders
whether he could still track down the
dead Japanese soldier’s family.
70 FALL 2021 | WWW.SHAKER.LIFE
“For a long time I’ve worried about
that family,” he says. “If there’s a family
still, and there might be, they should have
these.”
Alongside the dog tags, LeZak has
laid out his life on an antique table
in his dining room – a collection of
photographs, journals, civic awards, and
history books. Each item triggers a flood
of recollections. He shows me pictures
of his Polish-immigrant parents and of
him during his baseball playing days
in high school and college. But it’s his
memorabilia from nearly three years in
the Corps that takes center stage.
“The war changed my whole life,”
he says.
LeZak was a 17-year-old high school
senior when he enlisted in the Marines
in 1943. He was a blue-collar kid who had
never ventured far from his hometown
of Detroit and was probably on track to
“being a laborer at Ford.” The war changed
that, introducing him to the world outside
of Michigan and sparking an interest
in academics that eventually led to a
doctorate in audiology.
His stint in the Marines started with
boot camp in San Diego and then training
in Omaha as a radio repairman. He was
assigned to the 9th Amphibian Tractor
Battalion, a unit of the tank-like vehicles
that delivered troops onto enemy shores.
LeZak’s battalion joined the
invasion of Okinawa in early 1945. They
spent three months on the island, he
says, “eating only Spam and looking out
for each other.” There were moments
both tense – guarding their camp
at night from the Imperial Japanese
Army – and comical – a joy-ride search
for ice cream in an Amphibian that led to
the accidental ramming of the battleship
Massachusetts.
It was only after LeZak was finally
shipped out of harm’s way to Guam that
he found out that the U.S. had dropped
atomic bombs on Japan and the war was
over. It was also in Guam where LeZak
picked up an appreciation for books and a
desire to go to college.
“I had never even considered that
before,” he says. “My parents knew
nothing about academics. Their goal for
me was for me to get a job where I could
wear a white shirt.”
After earning degrees at the
University of Michigan and Penn State
University, LeZak came to Cleveland as an
audiologist at Highland View Hospital. He
later worked as director of audiology at
Case Western Reserve University.
LeZak has made a name for himself
in his adopted home as a noise pollution
consultant in Shaker Heights, and
through volunteering with Cleveland
city schools, Shaker’s Citizens Police
Academy, and the Lomond Association.
He also found time to get his pilot’s
license at age 60.
“I’ve had a lot of fun,” he says. SL
Ready to Tell His Story
By Joe Miller
Photography by Angelo Merendino
/WWW.SHAKER.LIFE