Mike Lenker was born in 1947 in Rockford, Illinois. He enlisted in the U.S. Army on June 26, 1967, and completed basic training at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, in September 1967. Pvt Lenker next attended advanced individual training as an aircraft maintenance crewman at Fort Rucker, Alabama, from September to December 1967, followed by service as a UH-1 Iroquois helicopter mechanic and door gunner with the 58th Aviation Detachment in South Vietnam from January 1968 until he was captured and taken as a Prisoner of War on February 8, 1968. After spending 1,864 days in captivity, SSG Lenker was released during Operation Homecoming on March 16, 1973. He was briefly hospitalized to recover from his injuries in Denver, Colorado, and then served as a Tactical Training NCO and then Operations NCO with the U.S. Army Aviation Center at Fort Rucker from October 1973 until his honorable discharge from the Army on June 25, 1975.