Wayne Lebsack was born in July 1925 in Great Bend, Kansas. He and his two sisters grew up in Galatia, Kansas where his father operated a grain elevator and his mother was a teacher. During the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl days, Lebsack and his father supplemented their family table by hunting and fishing. He remembers his mother feeding hobos during those years. While Lebsack was in his mid-teens, his father followed the reports of the worsening political situation in Europe on the radio, and when the Japanese forces attacked Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941], the family discussed the impending war. Also, a distant uncle told Lebsack about his Army experiences during World War 1, and Lebsack was ready to do his part when the Second World War broke out. His older friends were already joining the military, and when he turned 18, Lebsack volunteered for the Army’s ASTP [Annotator's Note: Army Specialized Training Program]. But with the war situation worsening, the program was cancelled, and instead Lebsack ended up with the 86th Infantry Division at Camp Livingston in Louisiana, where he found the weather and the mosquitoes oppressive, for basic training. After D-Day [Annotator's Note: Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944], an officer asked for volunteers to join the airborne infantry at double the money they were making and better living conditions. He and a buddy raised their hands, and they were packed off to Fort Benning, Georgia. Before their training there was complete, they were deployed overseas, and finished jump training at Camp Quorn near Leicester, England with veterans of the 82nd Airborne Division.

Once Wayne Lebsack earned his jump wings, he was sent across the English Channel to an already secure Normandy [Annotator's Note: Normandy, France], then walked and rode in trucks to an 82nd Airborne Infantry Division camp at Reims, France. There, the men lived in old school buildings, had fun in the town, and continued to train. Lebsack learned to operate a BAR [Annotator's Note: Browning Automatic Rifle]. One evening the soldiers were told to be ready to leave, without their parachutes, in two hours. The plan had been to jump into the Ardennes, but the weather and woods made it impossible. Lebsack remembers the truck ride to the front, and with every hour the progressively louder boom of the artillery let them know that they were getting closer to the action that became known as the Battle of the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945]. They dug in near a little town called Trois-Ponts, Belgium, to protect the three bridges there, and encountered the Germans panzer [Annotator's Note: panzer is the German term for tank or armor] scouts coming through the town. The soldiers were not quipped for the wet cold of that December, and most suffered frostbite; splinters from tree bursts and shrapnel from buzz bombs [Annotator's Note: V-1 pulse jet flying bomb, German name: Vengeance Weapon 1; Allied names: buzz bomb, doodlebug] injured many. Their only hot meal was served in the field on Christmas Day; otherwise, they ate K-Rations [Annotator's Note: individual daily combat food ration consisting of three boxed meals]. At one of their occasional briefings the officers told the infantry about the nearby Malmedy Massacre. It "shook everybody up." Lebsack goes on to describe a fellow soldier, nicknamed "Creeper," who went out alone at night and brought back valuable information on enemy positions.

The infantry was expecting General Patton's [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.] army to bring tanks up to help, and when one appeared around 5 January 1945, Wayne Lebsack fell in behind it with the rest of his unit [Annotator's Note: Company K, 3rd Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division]. They could hear shots, "big stuff," coming down on the tank, and Lebsack felt a shock that spun him around took him down. He tried to get up, but his leg collapsed under him, and he passed out. Next thing he knew he was going down a bumpy road, and passed out again with the help of morphine. He was evacuated to a field hospital, he believes in Belgium, and waited on a stretcher on the floor to be taken into surgery. A hospital train brought him to Paris [Annotator's Note: Paris, France], where he was treated in a military hospital for a couple of weeks. He was then taken to England for further procedures that involved experimental penicillin. In July 1945, he was flown to Bushnell General Military Hospital near Brigham City, Utah for further surgery and rehabilitation. He recalls he got good care throughout his recovery, and regained full use of his leg. Lebsack said he was in the hospital in the United States when the war ended in Europe, "And we celebrated."

Wayne Lebsack was discharged in September 1945, and he returned home on crutches. He took advantage of the G.I. Bill and Public Law 16 [Annotator's Note: a program for disabled veterans] to pay for his studies at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado, where he earned degrees in geology. Asked if he thought Americans today understand what the World War 2 veterans went through, he responded that he is sure they do not understand all of it, but they appreciate it. He said as soon as people learn that he served in the war, they shake his hand and thank him for his service.