By Jenna Racz \u201813<\/p>\n
In 1948 Melvin \u201cMel\u201d Wellington left home in attempt to join the United States Marines at the age of 16. He was not allowed in, so a year later he tried again at the age of 17 and succeeded, not knowing he was enlisting a year before the United States was to enter the Korean War and would eventually serve and live through all three years of the war.<\/p>\n
Mel was a truck driver on the front lines, bringing desperately needed supplies to ground troops, as well as desperately needed ground troops to the front lines. If one were to look at a map of the progression of the Korean War with a streak showing the front line between North and South Korea, that\u2019s where you\u2019d find Mel. He made Sergeant at the young age of 18, being in combat for only a few months. He was promoted mainly due to his predecessors being killed in the line of duty and Charlie Company\u2019s 7th Motor Transportation Battalion needing some leadership. Eventually Mel was promoted to Staff Sergeant before the war\u2019s end.<\/p>\n
During the Korean War he earned 3 silver stars, 2 bronze stars and 3 purple hearts. He denied one of the silver stars he earned when he was stabbed in the stomach by an enemy soldier in the Battle of Chosin Reservoir with a bayonet. He survived the attack to kill the same enemy soldier, and request that he return to his unit after he recovered from his wounds.<\/p>\n
Another one of the purple hearts was given to him when a grenade was thrown into a trench, and a fellow soldier threw himself on it in order to save Mel\u2019s life. A piece of frag remained in his forehead the remainder of Mel\u2019s life.<\/p>\n
On a lighter note, Staff Sergeant Wellington did not only face horrors of war. On one occasion, Mel bribed a guard at a gate protecting vehicles, with a pack of cigarettes and a bottle of sak\u00e9. Why would he do such a thing? Mel\u2019s unit needed more vehicles, and well, he really wanted the 50 cal. that was mounted on the halftrack he drove off the base.<\/p>\n
After commandeering this transport vehicle, they simply painted \u201cMC\u201d after \u201cUS\u201d so no one would be the wiser. The first time Mel told his grandson about obtaining this vehicle, he said he found it abandoned because he did not want to encourage him to steal.<\/p>\n
Mel Wellington joined the Marines at an early age to enter a harsh environment that gave him an experience like no other. He shared the majority of this experience with no one else except his grandson, who now speaks to keep Mel\u2019s memory alive. When asked what made him so proud of his grandfather Sean Wellington replied \u201cHe\u2019s the greatest. You don\u2019t question it. You just accept it. He overcame a lot in his life.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Jenna Racz \u201813 In 1948 Melvin \u201cMel\u201d Wellington left home in attempt to join the United States Marines at the age of 16. He was not allowed in, so a year…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":183,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=156"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":188,"href":"https:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156\/revisions\/188"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}