Leonard Jindra was doubly honored on June 6—for the 80th anniversary of the D-Day invasion of Omaha Beach at Normandy he undertook with the U.S. Army, and for his upcoming 103rd birthday.

Jindra was surrounded by other members of VIP, a Catholic Charities of Long Island program assisting those who are visually impaired, along with their volunteer drivers, and others including his daughter, Diana F. Jindra, who said he had been “looking forward” to the occasion for two months.

The cake was sliced for Jindra at the Floral Park celebration, which took place nine days before his actual June 15 birthday. Adelphi music professor Jonathan Goodman led a spirited rendition of “God Bless America.” The 45 guests were asked to remember service members who made the ultimate sacrifice on D-Day. 

“Let’s take a moment to think of those who didn’t make it,” the veteran said.

His visits to socialize and play Bingo at VIP in Lynbrook and at CCLI’s senior community center in Franklin Square helped Jindra combat the isolation he felt when his beloved wife of 66 years died in 2014. (She was a brilliant mathematician who worked on the Manhattan Project.)

“He spoke highly of the care the (VIP) group gave him,” his daughter said.

Jindra, then a young immigrant from then-Czechoslovakia, was initially declared medically unfit due to two hernias discovered when he volunteered to serve on Dec. 8, 1941, the day after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.

“Those words were like a scarlet letter for him,” said his son, Dr. Lawrence Jindra, who edited “American Hero,” a memoir about his father’s life. After enduring two serious operations and painful recoveries, Leonard Jindra finally qualified to serve.    

Jindra, a recipient of three Purple Hearts, was wounded multiple times in World War II battles and still carries shrapnel in his body. His hearing was also compromised by artillery bombardment.

Dr. Jindra said his father likely would have perished on the battlefield from peritonitis after he was sliced open by a tank round shot through a hedgerow if penicillin had not been applied in the field. Leonard not only survived but thrived, in military settings full of danger and daring.

He retired as a staff sergeant and worked stateside as a watchmaker and with Kollsman Instrument Corp., a defense contractor. He later assembled cameras for the Gemini space flights. “His life was sort of like Walter Mitty meets Forrest Gump,” his son explained. “He was at the right place at the right time.”

Beginning in 1999, Jindra attended several D-Day commemorations in Normandy with family members, the most recent taking place in 2019 when he was 98.

The day before this year’s anniversary, Dr. Jindra asked his father what he would have been doing in the late afternoon before the invasion. Leonard spoke about receiving the orders, for perhaps the fifth or sixth time. The scuttlebutt was that another dry run was planned, only this time the operation turned out to be the real thing.

“If Eisenhower didn’t do it that day,” Dr. Jindra explained, “between the tides and the moon and the weather, it might have been two or three more weeks There was a tiny window on the 6th.”

Catholic Charities of Long Island reaches out to seniors in many ways, including at senior community service centers in Wantagh, Oceanside, and Franklin Square, which offer meals, recreation, health services, and socialization.