Wellington WWII veteran dedicated to serving his country and state

By Mike Lange
Staff Writer

    WELLINGTON — Estol “Mac” McClintock recalled that he had two good reasons for wanting to join the Army in 1941. “My dad was drafted in World War I and landed in Germany with very little training,” said McClintock. “We almost lost him from the flu epidemic that hit France. He came home with an enlarged heart, and was never the same.”

Observer photo/Mike Lange

    OUTSTANDING VETERAN — Retired Command Sgt. Maj. Estol “Mac” McClintock of Wellington is shown with his Outstanding Veteran of the Year certificate.

    But “Mac” knew that a major war was imminent in 1941. “So I wanted to serve; and as it turned out, I wound up in my dad’s old unit: the 1st Infantry Division.”
    After a career that included combat in North Africa and tours of duty in Germany, Fort Benning, Ga.; Fort Devens, Mass., Virginia Military Institute and the United Nations Command in Korea, McClintock retired in 1967.
    Today, he and his wife, Emaline, lead a quiet life at their spacious log home in Wellington where he keeps track of current affairs and tends to a large garden. “The deer are getting more food from it than I am,” he joked.
    On July 11, Gov. Paul LePage presented McClintock with one of two outstanding service awards, given in appreciation to veterans who show leadership and support and consistently go above and beyond the call of duty for fellow veterans.
    McClintock, who turned 91 on Aug. 18, was chairman of the Maine Army Retiree Council for more than 20 years and still attends board meeting on occasion. “I can’t travel as much as I used to,” he said. “But I plan to go to the next one in October.”
    McClintock joined the retirement advocacy group after moving to Maine in 1967 and realizing the limits of health care access to veterans like him in rural areas. “At one time, you couldn’t see a doctor at Martin’s Point unless you were within 40 miles of Portland,” he recalled. “So we went to work.”

Observer photo/Mike Lange

   DISTINGUISHED SERVICE AWARD — One of the many honors bestowed on Command Sgt. Maj. Estol “Mac” McClintock is the Distinguished Service Award from the Military Order of the Purple Heart. He was wounded in North Africa.

    He displayed a two-inch thick binder of letters that went to John Baldacci and Olympia Snowe, when they were serving in the U.S. House of Representatives and William Cohen when he was a U.S. Senator. The council lobbied hard for changes in the military health care plan, but it didn’t come overnight. “It took seven years to get things straightened out,” said McClintock, “and one thing that helped us was Sen. Cohen’s appointment (by President Bill Clinton) as Secretary of Defense.”
    Remembering that his father’s unit was apparently rushed into combat unprepared, “Mac” took every opportunity he could to learn military training techniques, despite being wounded by shrapnel in North Africa. “We didn’t meet any resistance during the amphibious landing, but we had to fight all the way to Tunisia,” he recalled.
    But during one of the battles, McClintock’s left leg and right foot were struck with mortar shrapnel. “I had a piece that went through my boot that hurt worse than the leg wound at first,” he said. As it turned out, there was a 2-inch piece of metal embedded in the bone. After 31 days in a field hospital, he went back to the front lines.
    “Mac” went up through the ranks quickly, thanks to his expertise on weapons training and leadership. He was even offered an opportunity to attend West Point, until he reminded his superiors that he never finished high school. But after the war was over, he returned to his home in rural Pennsylvania where he and his brother-in-law started a timber business. “That didn’t work out too well,” he recalled, “so I started thinking about going back in the Army.”
    He re-enlisted at one rank lower than his discharge, but soon got his stripe back and more. Within a few years, he was promoted to command sergeant major and assigned to the prestigious Virginia Military Institute and later, as the ranking non-commissioned officer with the U.N. Command in Seoul, Korea.
    During his tenure at VMI, he and his wife took a long-overdue vacation, and drove to Maine. He found the Wellington property on the market for $1,000 in a weekly newspaper. “One thing that sold me was the trout stream nearby. I like to fish,” McClintock said.
    There was a burned-out house on the property, but “Mac” and his son, Michael, replaced it with the home the couple is living in now.
    Even though it’s been 46 years since he wore a uniform on active duty, McClintock says he’ll continue to represent his fellow veterans to the best of his ability. “When your country calls, you answer”