Honor Flight Takes Southwest Florida Veterans to Washington

The final Honor Flight of 2023 was Saturday, September 30, leaving Southwest Florida International Airport in the early morning with 85 military veterans and their 85 Guardians, bound for Washington DC. 

The honorees were veterans of WWII, Korea, Vietnam, and all U.S. conflicts between and since. Their guardians were volunteers, including friends, family, strangers, JROTC cadets and others.

The Honor Flight Network was created in 2005 by Earl Morse, a retired Air Force Captain and pilot Jeff Miller with a simple, yet powerful, mission – honoring our nation's veterans by taking them to Washington, D.C. to visit the memorials built to commemorate their service and sacrifice.

During the one-day journey, veterans visit the WWII Memorial, the Iwo Jima Memorial, Arlington National Cemetery, the Air Force Memorial, the Korean Memorial and the Vietnam Wall. 

The inaugural Honor Flight took place in May of 2005. Six small planes flew out of Springfield, Ohio taking twelve World War II veterans to the nation’s capital to visit their just-completed memorial. 

Today, there is a robust network of 130 participating Honor Flight programs using commercial carriers in 45 states, all financed completely by donations of time, effort, and money.

In the past 18 years, more than 274,000 veterans have been honored and more than 200,300 Guardians have served.

Massive and moving displays of patriotism, exuberance and reverence occur at airports across the country when the Honor Flights return their veteran passengers to the greeting cheers and tears, bands, bagpipes, flags, signs and songs of welcoming crowds. 

As Will Rogers put it: "We can't all be heroes. Some of us have to stand on the curb and clap as they go by."

For more information or to donate, visit www.Honorflight.org, www.swflhonorflight.org