Sadly, today another 1200 veterans of World War II will die.

In Washington, DC there is a gleaming new memorial to the warriors of the Greatest Generation. The WWII memorial is a few years old but it is new enough that the vasy majority of WWII veterans have not seen it on previous visits to DC. And the sad truth is most of them will die without seeing and feeling the eternal gratitude of our nation embodied in this memorial.

Of course, many of them are on fixed incomes. Many of them live a solitary life as loved ones have passed away or moved them to assisted living facilities. Yet, all of them should have the opportunity to see the memorial if they want to. This is where Honor Flight comes in.

From their website. www.honorflight.org

Honor Flight is a non profit organization created solely to honor America’s veterans for all their sacrifices. We fly our heroes to Washington, DC to visit and reflect at their memorials. Top priority is given to the senior veterans – WW II survivors along with those other veterans that may be terminally ill. Honor Flight first flew in May 2005 with six small planes flying 12 WW II veterans, departing out of Springfield, Ohio. In 2006, with a waiting list of veterans expanding rapidly, we transitioned to commercial airline carriers to accommodate the maximum number of veterans as possible. ….Honor Flight will continue do whatever it takes to fulfill the dreams of our veterans and, very importantly, our senior heroes travel absolutely free.

One of my biggest regrets in life is that I was unable to get my father to a reunion of his navy mates from the ship he served on in the Pacific. By the time I learned of these events his health was too poor for him to attend. I wish he were around to take him to DC to see this memorial and the Navy memorial of The Lone Sailor. Such is life, but I can help others to avoid these regrets. I can help others veterans to go to DC for one of their final moments in the sun.

You can too. Of course, Honor Flight is self-supporting through private contributions. There are chapters across the country, some close to you, that you can support in a number of ways. Talk about a great corporate team building event. Raise money to send some of your local veterans to their memorial. While the PR you can get in your community would be nice, the pride you will feel in helping these men and women will exceed any bump in sales you might experience and will burn in you for the rest of your life. You can even volunteer to accompany them on their trip. I hope you do.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 15th, 2008 at 3:52 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.