By John Montesano –
Mike Wellington is the Veteran of the Month for December, named by the Fox Valley Veterans Breakfast Club.
He was born July 13, 1948 in Akron, Ohio. In 1959, the family moved to the Boulder Hill section of Montgomery. In 1967, he dropped out of school in his senior year to go to work. He later earned his G.E.D. in the U.S. Army. For much of Mike’s life, he worked as an auto mechanic. He built and raced cars. When he was a boy, he built and raced go carts, an endeavor that was financed by a paper route.
After high school, Mike did factory work, however, he disliked it so much that he enlisted in the Army in November 1967. After basic training and AIT, Mike went to Ft. Irwin, Calif. with the 18th Engineer Brigade as a heavy construction equipment operator. For a brief period, he was an ambulance driver for the base hospital, Weed Army Community Hospital. The unit worked three days on and four off; and was treated separately from other units and was inspection-exempt! Mike, nonetheless, got so bored with it that he volunteered for Vietnam.
In Vietnam, he was with the 102nd Engineer Construction Support. He remained a heavy construction equipment operator, however, that changed when Mike was needed to drive a truck with a 60-ton lowboy trailer from Pleiku, in the Central Highlands, where he was stationed, to Qui Nhon, a coastal town on the China Sea. It was a slow and dangerous 100-mile trip. The journey took them through mountainous terrain, and because Mike’s load was the heaviest his maximum speed was, at best, only 45 miles per hour.
The convoys were constantly under attack from snipers, mortars, various other explosive devices, and ambushes. Most of the time Mike had no one driving shotgun because his vehicle was slower than the rest and he would receive no protection from the convoy. The condition of the roads was its own obstacle. Mike’s truck would take a constant pounding which could result in a wheel sheering off. With some good old GI ingenuity, he improvised a support for the broken wheel with a dozer and continued his journey.
Mike came back from Vietnam in May 1970 on leave. After this leave time, Mike’s orders took him to Hunter Army Airfield, Savannah, Ga., and Ft. Stewart, Ga., where he served the rest of his tour of duty and was honorably discharged in May 1971.
Mike returned to Boulder Hill and worked for a few companies, but found them to be unsatisfactory. It wasn’t until he fell back on his auto mechanic experience that he found job satisfaction and stability. At first, he worked for different shops and gas stations until he went to work for a gentleman in Warrenville for whom he worked for 35 years until he retired in 2010.
Mike is not married and has five children from previous marriages. His health has been permanently affected by the Vietnam War. He was exposed to Agent Orange and suffers from diabetes, COPD, neuropathy in his legs and feet, and PTSD, all of which are constant reminders of the trauma he experienced in Vietnam.