Leon Alderman was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, in 1951. He was in the Navy ROTC program in college, and took a commission in 1973. He specialized in logistics, and over the course of his career served on the carrier USS Saratoga, the landing ship dock USS Spiegel Grove, the command service for the Pacific Fleet, the Naval Air Facility in Misawa, Japan, and stations in the US. He retired in 1993 as a lieutenant commander.
