Leon C. Standifer

Leon Midas Calmet Standifer, Jr. (born April 24, 1925) is an American soldier, novelist, and professor. He is the son of Leonidas Calmet and Emma (Moore) Standifer. He served in the U.S. Army in World War II as a scout in the infantry from 1943–46 and he received Combat Infantryman Badge and the Purple Heart. On August 17, 1957, he married Marie Scott, who is an archeobotanist. He received his education at Mississippi State University, (B.S. and M.S.) and the University of Wisconsin (now University of Wisconsin–Madison), where he received a Ph.D. in 1959. He taught at Louisiana State University as a professor of horticulture from 1961-1990 (professor emeritus, 1990).

Works

• Not in Vain: A Rifleman Remembers World War II (1992), memoir
• Binding up the Wounds: An American Soldier in Occupied Germany, 1945-1946 (1997), memoir
• Gardening in the Humid South (2002), with Edmund N. O'Rourke