Acquaintances won’t see him for a while. Then he’s back and they don’t really know where he had been.

Leonard “Lenny” Huff, 48, of Fox River Grove, has a full-time job as a construction manager for AT&T.

He is also a chief warrant officer and member of the Illinois National Guard. His unit is A Company, 2^nd Battalion, 20^th Special Forces Group, which is based in downtown Chicago.

Huff spent four tours of duty in Afghanistan. And that included more than 250 combat missions.

He doesn’t like being called a Green Beret, because, he said, “that is just the name of a hat.”

His job while in Afghanistan was to train members of the indigenous army loyal to the U.S.-supported government to fight Taliban insurgents. His last yearlong tour was in 2009 and it was uncomfortable, hard to breathe because of the elevation. The air was thin high up in the mountains.

“I was at a firebase about 7,500 feet up,” he said. “A Chinook (helicopter) took us on missions at around 10,000 feet. We spent a lot of time walking. I really felt my age.”

In prior tours in Afghanistan — he also was there on yearlong tours in 2003, 2005 and 2006 — he drove more. But booby traps and roadside bombs made driving Army vehicles too dangerous. So the guys in his unit were flown to objectives.

Huff has a breezy way about him. He's easy to talk to. He loves to tell Army stories. He said he’s been is some hairy combat situations. He's been shot at a lot. But four years of combat in Afghanistan has left no discernible mental scars.

“Combat has affected me,” Huff said. “I’m different because of it. … Things don’t bother me as much. It’s all easy. I don’t get upset too often.” 

How He Got His Start in the Military

“I had no interest in joining the Army,” Huff said. “But my brother was also in college at the same time I was and my folks couldn’t afford two tuitions.”

Huff joined ROTC at Eastern Illinois University. He became a commissioned officer in 1985.

In 1986 he graduated from Ranger School, and in 1987 he graduated from Special Forces School at Fort Bragg, N.C. He said Ranger school was tougher but Special Forces school was longer.

He's glad he became a soldier.

“My best friends I’ve met in the military,” Huff said. “That’s why I stayed.”

The toughest part was being away from home, being away from his family — his wife, Melinda, his daughter, Jessica, 18, and his son, Nick, 16.

Nowadays, you often can find Leonard Huff in the stands of Cary-Grove High School. He watches his son play football and wrestle. 

Wednesday evening Lenny was playing the video game Call of Duty with his son, Nick. Asked how it compared to actual combat, he laughed and said, "It's pretty close."

His deployments to warzones are probably over. He said he’s working on recruiting younger soldiers to his unit. 

As far as Veterans Day goes, for him, it’s just another day. He’s got to go to work.