Area veterans who missed the Honor Flight trip to Washington, D.C., in May, haven’t missed their chance to see the national memorials built in their honor.
The Buffalo Niagara Honor Flight hub is planning another flight for Sept. 23, and veterans in the McKean/Potter county area are invited to join them. Through the program, veterans are transported to Washington, D.C., to see the memorials.
“Wherever they go, they get treated like heroes, which they are,” said Tom Petrie, president of the Buffalo Niagara Hub for the Honor Flight program, describing each trip.
This flight will have room for a total of 96 veterans and guardians. A guardian is the companion who travels with each veteran.
They are looking to include between 10 and 20 veterans from the Pennsylvania side of the border, or 20 to 40 people including the companions. The Pennsylvania veterans will join veterans from New York state on this trip.
The trip is open to all veterans, but priority is given to World War II veterans or veterans with a catastrophic illness, according to Petrie.
“The guardian can be a family member or a friend,” explained Petrie.
He noted that for participants coming up from Bradford, the Honor Flight will put them in a hotel room the night before the trip. He noted that it’s easier to accommodate when the companion is a relative and can be put in the same room as the veteran.
Applications can be found on buffaloniagarahonorflight.org, then printed and mailed back to the veteran coordinator.
“We’re hoping to get the trip filled by the end of July,” said Petrie, who noted there are already three or four people from the Bradford area who have shown interest.
The cost is free for all veterans and $350 for each guardian.
Petrie explained that while a relative such as a daughter, son, grandchild is invited to come as a veteran’s guardian, spouses are not usually invited to be guardians, as it’s usually older veterans who go, many with medical conditions, and difficult for older guardians to handle the day.
On Sept. 23— a Saturday — the flight will likely leave Buffalo between 6:45 and 7:45 a.m. after a “big sendoff,” said Petrie, who explained there is a parade to the airport. The group will fly into Baltimore, Md., and take three buses into Washington, D.C. During bus travel, the group has police escorts — last time it was 14 police cars, five police trucks and members of a motorcycle club escorting two buses — which saves time for the travelers, who are already on a tight schedule.
With the police escort, “We don’t stop in traffic,” said Petrie, who said they save around an hour each way. “It’s quite amazing.”
This trip, the group will visit Arlington Cemetery, where they will see the Changing of the Guard ceremony. Also, a couple of “celebrity veterans” will be chosen from the group for the wreath-laying during the tribute at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
They will visit memorials for World War II, Vietnam, Korea, Seabees, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and 9/11. They may try to squeeze in a visit to the Air Force Memorial, too.
“Then we do a bus tour of the city through the day,” he said. “The bus driver are very good.”
If it’s nice, they will eat their catered lunch outside.
“We head back to Baltimore typically around 4:30 to 5 p.m.,” Petrie explained, then they take the group out for dinner before the flight. This time, dinner will be a banquet at the airport restaurant.
In addition to the planned activities, “There’s a lot of surprises for them throughout the day,” he noted. The surprises offer more ways to honor the veterans.
The volunteers put a lot of effort to accommodate the needs of the aging soldiers.
“It’s a very fast-paced day,” said Petrie. “We encourage the veterans if they need to stay at the bus at any point. There’s always one of us who stay on the buses.”
Also, wheelchairs are made available during the day to each veteran, though it’s up to them whether they decide to use them. There will be three nurses, too: one for each bus.
“It’s a very, very emotional day, but they deserve it,” said Petrie, who explained that he helps the Honor Flight program in memory of his own father. “He never made it to the memorial.”
But he’s going to make sure as many surviving veterans as possible do.
“These guys and gals deserve the recognition. They protected us; they served us,” he said. “They all need to be given that welcome home.”
Petrie praised the efforts of the Bradford volunteers who have brought the program into Pennsylvania, including Nancy Fire, Katharine Pude and Sarah Tingley.
“They have all been huge, huge ambassadors for us down there,” he said.
The September trip won’t be the end of the program, either, according to Petrie, who explained that right after they will begin setting up a spring trip. Depending on the budget, they may make a trip in October, too.
“The cost is just under $1,000 per veteran per trip,” he explained. Businesses and individuals can donate to or serve as sponsors for the program by visiting the Buffalo Niagara Honor Flight website.
