Grand Marais Postmaster Frank Lehto was also known as Senior Master Sergeant Lehto until his retirement from the Air National Guard this November. He enjoyed working with the 148th Fighter Wing in Duluth. Left: One of the highlights of his career was attendance at Arctic Survival School, where he and his team had to forage or hunt for their own food in the wilds of Alaska.
Although most people know Frank Lehto as the Grand Marais postmaster, he has also worn a variety of hats over the years—when he retired from the military this November, he had worn the uniform of four branches of the military.
Lehto, an Esko, MN native, began his military career when he joined the Navy right out of high school. He spent 12 years on active duty at duty stations in Norfolk, Virginia; San Diego, California; at the Great Lakes, Illinois Recruiting Training Command; and as a naval recruiter in Duluth.
While he was stationed in San Diego, he was assigned to the USS
Ranger
aircraft carrier and sailed the Western Pacific. Lehto was aboard the USS Ranger
when the aircraft made news in April 1979 by colliding with the tanker Liberian Fortune
in the Straits of Malacca. Lehto recalls that the accident occurred late at night and he woke to the call “General Quarters!” before communications failed. He said the collision made a hole “the size of a bus” in the tanker, but resulted in much less damage in the aircraft carrier. However, the collision did result in the ship captain being relieved of duty and meant two months in dry dock. However, it was not a bad experience for Lehto who then had the opportunity to explore the Philippines and Japan, as the ship spent time in Subic Bay, Philippines for temporary repairs and then Yokusaka, Japan for full repair.
Photos courtesy of the family
When Lehto returned to the Midwest, he worked as a naval recruiter and his territory included the Duluth area and the Iron Range. He enjoyed being a recruiter and has since heard from some of the young people he recruited. “It is really odd though,” said Lehto, “They are in their 40s now—I remember them as 18-year-olds!”
When he decided to leave active duty in 1986, he wanted to stay in Duluth. He got a job as a full-time letter carrier, but he also wanted to continue his military service in the Naval Reserve. However, despite being next to one of the nation’s largest bodies of water, the Naval Reserve facility was on dry land. “That just didn’t seem right,” he said.
So, Lehto talked to the Coast Guard and learned that the Coast Guard Reserve had an actual mission—augmenting the Coast Guard on guard in the Duluth area. He was able to join the Coast Guard Reserve and was a member of the Duluth station for two years, until the Coast Guard downsized.
Still interested in serving, Lehto first talked to the Air National Guard. Unfortunately if he joined the Air Guard, he would lose a stripe. He was an E-6 and he didn’t want to lose his hard-earned rank, so he instead joined the Army National Guard, serving in the 151st Headquarters Battalion in Duluth. With his Navy recruiting experience, he was promised a job as an Army recruiter. However, the position, which would have allowed travel around the state and that Lehto thought would be interesting, never came to pass. Lehto decided the Army was not for him. “I said, okay, take the stripe, I’ll go with the Air Guard.”
It was a decision he never regretted, especially when the Army Guard Unit was eventually phased out. He enjoyed his years with the 148th Fighter Wing in Duluth, serving from 1991 to 2010.
” Lehto simultaneously pursued a career in the Postal Service—moving from letter carrier to a supervisor first in Duluth and then as Post Master in Nashwauk from 1993 to 1999. He came to the Grand Marais post office in January 1999.
During his Reserve career, Lehto obtained a paralegal associate degree from the Community College of the Air Force and served as Paralegal Manager at the Duluth base. As part of that training, he spent two weeks on active duty each year serving as a paralegal—once in Hawaii and the last time at Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska, an assignment he especially enjoyed.
The Eielson deployment offered the opportunity to go to Arctic Survival School—two days of classroom instruction followed by several days of subsistence in the Arctic wilderness. With a smile of satisfaction, Lehto describes the challenging training— building a snow shelter, starting a fire with wet wood, scrounging for edible plants beneath the snow, and snaring a rabbit. “It didn’t go very far—there were five in my group. But nothing has ever tasted as good!”
At the end of the survival education, Lehto got to practice calling in a rescue helicopter, an exciting culmination to the tough training.
Lehto is also proud of his service after September 11, 2001, when he was deployed for several stints in Minneapolis assigned to a detachment of aircraft guarding Minnesota’s skies.
Lehto said he didn’t want to retire, but after earning the rank of Senior Master Sergeant (E-8) in 2008, he was required to find a new job as an E-8. He aimed high—for the position of Senior Paralegal for the Pacific Air Force—but unfortunately National Guard Bureau funding was reduced and the job disappeared. So instead, Lehto reluctantly submitted his retirement papers, with the interesting distinction of having served in four branches of the U.S. military.
Would he recommend military service to others? “Absolutely, you have amazing opportunities, like living practically on the beach in San Diego or going to Hawaii,” said Lehto. “And Alaska—there I was, 50-something, working with these 20-something airmen in Arctic Survival School— what an opportunity!”
Asked what he will miss about being in the Air Guard, Lehto said, “The camaraderie, I guess. I enjoyed the work and believed in the mission.”
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