Bill Leushner

Bill Leushner was a native Canadian, but moved to Buffalo, New York, when he was 16, and at 19, joined the National Guard 74th Regiment. A Sergeant at the 1908 Olympics, he had a 50-year career with the New York National Guard and Army Reserve, and rose to become a Lieutenant Colonel. He served mostly in the Buffalo area and for 16 years was superintendent and armorer of the 174th Armory in Buffalo, New York. He also fought as an enlisted man in the Mexican border dispute of 1914 with the First Regiment. During World War I, he had been promoted to Captain and was a shooting instructor at Camp Parry, and served a year in Koblenz, Germany with the American Army of Occupation. As a shooter, he won the National Rifle Association’s Members Trophy three times (1901, 1903, 1908).