Hoffman Estates man 'bleeds red blood' for his fellow veterans
Ensuring the well-being of his fellow veterans and honoring the memory of those who've died are passions for Les Montag.
For the past two decades, the 70-year-old Navy veteran from Hoffman Estates has chaired the village's Veterans Memorial Commission. Among its other duties, the commission holds a ceremony every Sunday afternoon at the memorial to raise an American flag in honor of a specific veteran who has passed.
"We're proud of the fact that we've never missed a Sunday," Montag said.
He joined the commission in 1994, nine years after it established the memorial outside the village's former police headquarters. There are currently 90 names on the flag rotation list, and some have been there since the start in 1985.
Montag himself takes part in the flag rotation ceremonies on the second and fourth Sundays of every month, as well as whenever there's a fifth Sunday. He knows of no other veterans group that holds remembrances with such regularity.
Hoffman Estates Mayor Bill McLeod said members of the commission fulfill this self-imposed duty without fail, no matter what the weather and even if a honorees' family is not able to attend.
"The families love it because the people are remembered and remembered for their service," McLeod said. "It's very touching for them."
Though Montag was not a member of the commission when the memorial was created through donations, a nearly equivalent task during his watch was the memorial's move in 2010, when the police department left its old station on Gannon Drive for the current facility at 411 W. Higgins Road.
But he's very happy with the layout. which features monoliths honoring each branch of the U.S. military.
Among the upgrades that came with the move were a separate flagpole for the POW/MIA flag and an underground heating unit to keep the memorial area free of snow and ice.
Through his long membership in Schaumburg-based American Legion Post 1983, Montag and his colleagues have found opportunities to help living veterans, including one who needed assistance buying a bus ticket to Texas and a single mother who lacked the funds to provide for her son at Christmas.
Through the post's Poppy Day collections, it also has been able to provide financial assistance to the Hines and North Chicago Veterans Affairs hospitals and donations to the Schaumburg Township Food Pantry.
Active in what he sees as the American Legion's main task of recruiting and maintaining members, Montag has served as post commander for four 2-year terms during this century and early on was a district commander for all of Cook County.
"The American Legion is dedicated to helping veterans," he said. "Any way we can help we do."
McLeod regularly sees Montag's commitment firsthand.
"Les bleeds red blood for veterans," he said. "He's done this for decades. Les will take on anything. I really can't say enough about him."
A native of Dubuque, Iowa, Montag joined the Navy out of high school in 1966 to see the world. But he ended up spending most of his time serving on the USS Alamogordo - a floating dry dock near Charleston, South Carolina, that maintained and repaired nuclear submarines and mine sweepers - until he completed his service in 1969.
He requested a transfer to Vietnam but was passed over, and he still has mixed feelings about that.
He moved to Chicago after he met his wife, Myrt, on a blind date while visiting relatives during one of his leaves.
They moved to Hoffman Estates in 1978. There they raised their son and daughter, while Myrt became deputy village clerk for 21 years.
Montag became an electrician and, despite retiring in 2015, still takes on occasional jobs for some of his longtime clients. The most recent took him to China a couple of weeks ago to do some work on American-made machines there.
• Do you know of veterans helping other veterans, doing good things for their community or who have an interesting story to tell? Share your story at veterans@dailyherald.com.