#Middlebury #Veterans
VETERANS POST
by Freddy Groves
Honor Flights are back. After sitting out the trips for the last two years due to the pandemic, Honor Flights are up and running again.
The Honor Flight Network consists of independent groups (hubs) that take veterans on all-expenses-paid trips to Washington, D.C., to visit the memorials and monuments. This involves free airfare and visits to the memorials with guardians and volunteers every step of the way while in the company of other veterans.
You only have to see the trip photos and videos to understand how much these trips are appreciated. In 2019 alone (the last year they had the trips before COVID shut things down), they flew over 23,000 veterans and 18,000 guardians.
Since its beginning in 2005, Honor Flights has taken over 245,000 veterans on these trips. At this point their focus is signing up veterans who served in World War II, as well as veterans who are severely ill or injured.
Would you like to go, either as a veteran, a guardian or a volunteer? Go online to Honor Flights at www.honorflight.org. Click the regional hubs for a map of states; click your state for contact info and the hub’s website and schedule, as well as the applications for veterans, guardians and volunteers. My state, for example, has one flight planned every month through October. Scroll down the page for state-related info and videos. Call them at 937-521-2400 with your questions.
Honor Flights is non-profit and can use our dollars. (They rate 4 stars from Charity Navigator.) You can donate on their website (www.honorflight.org/donate-online.html), either to one of the regional hubs that covers your state or to the network as a whole. Or, if you’d rather send a check than make a donation online, you can send it to:
HonorFlight, Inc.
1405 South Fern Street No. 702
Arlington, VA 22202
We haven’t opened our wallets in quite a while. I think we should do so for this.
© 2022 King Features Synd., Inc.
