William ‘Les’ Duty, Korean War veteran and retired lawyer, dies

Army tank commander William Lester "Les" Duty and his men were fending off an enemy assault on T-Bone Hill during the Korean War in 1952 when he was shot in the heart.

"They put him in a body bag and sent his mother word that he was dead," said his wife of 50 years, Marianne Rogers Beck Duty.

"He told me he was going through this tunnel and there was this light, and then he was pulled back and he started to fight to get out of the bag. He started clawing his way out."

When he recuperated, Mr. Duty, a former Army Golden Gloves boxing competitor who wanted to be a career officer, learned he was no longer fit for active duty. However, the Army would retrain him as a lawyer.

Mr. Duty, who retired in 1986 as an Army Reserve lieutenant colonel and in 1994 from the Richmond law firm that had become Duty, Duty & Gay, died Friday in a local hospital.

A funeral for the 82-year-old Richmond resident will be held Monday at 7 p.m. at Morrissett Funeral Home, 6500 Iron Bridge Road. Burial will be Jan. 20 at 11 a.m. in Arlington National Cemetery.

Mr. Duty read law with local lawyers while pursuing a bachelor's degree in economics at Richmond Professional Institute of the College of William and Mary, which he earned in 1960. He passed the Virginia bar examination in 1961 and went into solo practice the next year.

Twenty-six years later, his daughter joined the firm, which eventually became Duty, Duty & Gay.

Born in Rhodell, W.Va., Mr. Duty grew up in the Southwest Virginia town of Cleveland. By about 10, he was self-sufficient from selling pelts he obtained by trapping.

"My dad taught me how to hunt and fish, climb trees and play poker, to ride horses, how to get through a barbed-wire fence, work bird dogs, camp, go down the river on a little johnboat and stay on a rock," said his daughter, Mary-Leslie Duty-Emmons of Chester.

"He [also] taught me how to be an honest, proper lawyer and that lawyering was not about money; it was about the good you can do. He said you want to look in the mirror and be proud of what you do that day."

In addition to his wife and daughter, survivors include three brothers, James Russell Duty and Billy Gene Duty, both of Cleveland, and Cecil Alvin Duty of Pulaski; and two sisters, Ruby June Mitchell of Cleveland and Kate Lorraine Cole of Knoxville, Tenn.

Contact Ellen Robertson at (804) 649-6115 or .