(bright music) - [Announcer] Production funding for Central Valley Honor Flight, the team behind the mission, provided by, Educational Employees Credit Union, proudly supporting our veterans and Central Valley Honor Flight.

EECU, smarter banking since 1934.

(ambient music) (insects chirping) I talk about the bell of war, (bells tolling) like a church bell when we first hear that perhaps on a Sunday morning, that wonderful ring that calls us to service, calls us to worship, calls us to a higher calling.

There's another bell in all the servicemen's lives that we serve, and that's what I called the bell of war.

But this bell, unlike the church bell that calls us to peace and reflection, the bell of war is sharp, violent, life-ending, and certainly life-altering.

(helicopter blades whirring) (people clapping) (gentle music) - [Paul] Good morning!

- [Crowd] Good morning.

- What a great looking group for Central Valley Honor Flight '23.

Thank you so much for being here this morning.

- The first time we meet is probably six months ahead of time when we pick out the dates, we check out availability of the buses, the hotels.

- We're doing it, we're doing it.

- How many times have we all flown out of Fresno Airport and no one claps when we leave the ground?

At Honor Flight, our veterans are clapping.

They're really starting to build that excitement.

And you can see the smiles coming across our veteran's face.

You can feel their energy as they're suddenly realizing they're on this trip we call a trip of a lifetime, one last trip of honor.

(plane engine revving) (gentle music) - The benefit of Honor Flight is that veterans do talk to one another.

And I didn't see that for about five trips, and then about 10 trips in, the greatest thing ever happened.

School children would start coming up and saying hello to veterans, and other people would start saying hello to veterans.

And the whole concept of welcome home only got born maybe less than... Well, certainly less than 10 years ago, in my opinion.

And that was a shocking thing to see.

- Welcome Honor Flight Fresno, California!

Veterans!

WWII!

Korea!

Vietnam heroes!

- With the Vietnam crowd, there are the PTSD things, and we have the counselors that go with us in case anybody does need, I mean, we're light and have fun, but there's the serious side of everything too.

And safety is always, always our main priority.

- Some of our volunteers, they'll say, you know, my dad was in the war and I never heard what he went through, or my grandpa, and they want to serve in honor of that person.

But the common denominator through all these people, and they're from all walks of life, all ethnicities, all religions, all tax brackets, all ages, really.

The common denominator is they get it.

They understand that freedom is not free and that they are a people who paid for it with their lives.

That's why those memorials are in DC and there are others who paid for it with scars that we can see and scars we can't see.

- How we treated our Vietnam vets, especially when they came home, is something that is just unforgivable and fractured our country.

And this little thing we do, the Honor Flight, if we can put a little dent in that, a little chink in that.

the chink in the armor, I think that's it.

something that we can just do to, for them to know that what they did, their service for their country, that we appreciate it, that it meant something.

(reflective music) (reflective music continues) - Hello, good morning.

- Good morning.

- You ready to go to DC?

- I'm ready.

I'm ready.

(crowd clapping) - Flight day is insane.

I'll never forget the first time I came on a flight.

I get there.

I'm supposed to be there by 5:30 and I show up a little bit early.

And I always equate it to that movie "Elf," with Will Ferrell, when he stays up all night long, decorating the department store.

And his boss comes in, in the morning and he looks around going, "Who did all this?"

That's kind of what it looks like.

Here I am, five o'clock in the morning.

I look around.

We've taken over all the baggage claim at Fresno Airport.

We have tables set up and all, we have a USO booth, where they could have their coffees and their donuts.

Everything's set up there before I get there.

And I'm like, "Oh my God, what time did you people get here?

Were you there all night?"

It's kind of crazy.

(gentle piano music) - [Interviewer] Let's talk about the planning that goes into an Honor Flight.

I've been on one of them.

- Yes, you were.

(laughs) - [Interviewer] And I was blown away at the logistics and the timing and the preciseness of the operation as it ran.

And it's a fairly complex schedule for a few days.

For those of people that don't know, let's start with this.

What does Honor Flight typically entail from a scheduling standpoint?

- Well, like you said, pre-flight, there's just hours devoted to this, on the planning side of it, the logistics side.

Our medical staff, I mean, they review all the medical records of every veteran that goes on this flight as well as the guardians.

Those medical meetings I've been involved with, they can go hours long.

Our board meetings, especially like what we call our red zone board meetings, usually two weeks prior to the flight, those meetings will go two or perhaps even three hours as we ensure all the details that need to be met have been met, that there's no surprises at the airport, no surprises on the flight that we couldn't have reasonably anticipated.

And that's the thing about Honor Flight is that we have some faces on a camera here, but it's all the team behind that, that makes this work so well, as you well stated, and I appreciate your comments about our precision.

- First time we are here... - I watched two documentaries, one right after another, and that was probably 2013 or '14.

The first one was about Honor Flight and how that was, how that began in Ohio.

And that hit me to the core.

I thought, "Whoa, that's something I want to be involved in."

And I immediately went on the website and Googled and found Central Valley Honor Flight.

But at the same time, I watched another documentary about these troop greeters and Bangor, Maine, and that hit me to the core, a couple things.

There was a gentleman, 33 years in the military.

He probably was 80 at the time, but his life goal was to make sure that there weren't any soldiers that came back from Afghanistan, Iraq, that were not welcome homed.

And he talked about Vietnam and how we screwed that up.

And he said, he wanted to make sure that it never happened again, that everyone that walked out that plane got a handshake, a free phone call, a warm meal, just a welcome home.

And he said, he just wants to be a good citizen, and that you don't have to do anything outstanding.

You just need to serve others.

And then he got really contemplative and he said that he was worried that he had grown out of his usefulness in his community.

And that, I'll tell you, that just tore me up.

And I put kind of two and two together, like, to be able to, that we can't cast aside our elderly and especially those that served in the military.

Outlived your purpose, your usefulness?

I just, I put those together and I thought, there's gotta be, you know, that was something that, you know, that just resonated in my heart that I want to be a part of.

The welcome home, the honoring and and dignity and giving dignity to our elderly.

It kind of just came together.

This kind of a perfect storm there.

(gentle violin music) - Good morning.

- Good morning!

- I said, good morning.

- [Crowd] Good morning!

- That's more like it!

Boy, you're a good looking group.

My name's Paul Loeffler.

And it's my privilege on behalf of our all volunteer team with Central Valley Honor Flight to officially welcome all of you to our 24th Central Valley Honor Flight.

(crowd cheering) (reflective music) (water spraying) - The National World War II Memorial wasn't built till 2004 and it wasn't a governed project.

It was $197 million donated by World War II veterans themselves.

My grandpa was one of 'em who donated, never got to see the memorial.

Finally gets built in 2004.

And there was one man in Ohio named Earl Morris, who was working at a VA hospital as a physician's assistant.

And he asked one of his patients, a World War II vet, "Hey, are you gonna go see that memorial?"

And the guy said, "No, I'm too old.

I'm not in the right kind of shape."

And Earl said, "Well, I have a plane.

What if I fly you?"

So it was one man flying one veteran.

And from there it started to spread.

The next time he took three or four veterans and his friend in North Carolina said, "I'll charter a whole plane."

And these flights started to take place.

And I became aware and I actually had Earl Morris, the founder of the very first Honor Flight on my radio show, Hometown Heroes.

And I continued to interview veterans over the years.

Funny thing happened.

Tim Tebow came to town, of all people, and Tim Tebow probably has no idea what role he played in all this, but he came to town to raise money for Break the Barriers and Fresno Christians, two awesome causes.

And I MC'ed the event.

And the next day I get this call and this guy says, "Hey Paul, it's Al.

I just wanted to tell you I was there last night.

You did great job MCing and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah."

I said, "Hey, wait a second.

Didn't you just retire?"

And he says, "Well, yeah."

I said, "Well, what are you up to now?"

I says, "I'm doing some consulting here and there."

So this is Al Perry, who for 13 years ran the VA hospital in Fresno, took it from maybe a middle of the road facility to one of the top five VAs in the whole country.

Rave reviews.

Everybody loved him.

So clear that his entire career has been serving veterans.

And so if a year before when I wanted to do it, if I had pushed through and been stubborn about it, he wouldn't have been available to lead us.

But he retired at just the right time.

When I told him what Honor Flight was, I went through a five minute spiel.

And finally as soon as I stopped talking, he said, he quoted the old Jerry McGuire line.

He said, "Paul, you had me at hello."

And he dove in headfirst.

- It was in the spring that we got organized as a board.

And I was chair and we weren't fully staffed.

And there was a lot to plan.

And the only guidance we had was YouTube (chuckles).

And there's a manual because it's a national program.

And we thought, "Well, let's start small."

Let's just start with maybe one bus in Washington and we'll buy seats on the plane.

Before I knew it, I got the call that there were 400 World War II veterans on the waiting list.

And you can only take probably, even with three buses, 70 veterans, plus other staff.

So I said, "There's no way we can only take one bus."

We need a roll of the dice and get three buses and charter a plane.

And we didn't have enough money for it.

So it's like gambling, betting on a (indistinct), that would be able to do that.

And that's how the first flight began.

And we had six months to get that started.

We actually came home for the first flight on Halloween of that year and had barely enough money to do it.

- And one, two, three, one more.

Thank you.

(crowd indistinctly chattering) - The first time I heard of Honor Flight, I was not impressed with the concept at all because that was close to 10 years ago.

And 10 years ago, military people still weren't talking about the days of the military.

If you're a Vietnam vet of any kind, you learned to not discuss it.

You learned... You kept that in your mind forever, that you were not welcome back in the United States, et cetera, et cetera.

And so 10 years ago, I was a little bit shocked that somebody wanted to do what they were doing.

I thought the public would rise up again.

I was nervous about what the public would do.

I've been in the television business for 40 years and one of the big supporters of Honor Flight is Fahrney Automotive.

And Fahrney Automotive knew I was a Vietnam vet and said, "Would you consider going and documenting it?"

And so I did do that.

Since then, I really enjoy immortalizing the trip of a lifetime for veterans, of all ages.

(reflective music) That's really what what I started doing was immortalizing the trip of a lifetime.

- [Attendant] Boarding all passengers.

(indistinct) - Do you want any glasses on your hat?

All right, squeeze together.

- We do a lot of video of the trips so that people can see it on the news at the time, especially in the beginning.

And social media was very new when this began, new to World War II veterans, weren't too involved in social media.

And so my daughter is, well, she's 40 years younger and she understood social media and she happens to be an excellent still photographer.

And so I started inviting her on the trip and she gets the same reward I do.

She gets to see veterans talking together for the first time and she gets to help 'em immortalize their trip.

- You're gonna be on the blue bus, okay?

(people indistinctly chattering) You're on the blue bus.

- There you go.

- [Interviewer] When did you first get to know each other?

Was it through Honor Flight?

- It was.

We actually met on our Honor Flight or one of my first Honor Flights.

I think I was a guardian.

- Yeah.

- And she was a guardian, so we kind of piled up then.

And since then, I have been on 14 flights.

- 12, I think, yeah.

- You've been on 12?

- Yeah.

- [Interviewer] And Gina, now how long have you and Joe been together?

- It'll be 37 years in a couple weeks.

- [Interviewer] Yeah, so you guys are newlyweds.

So now when Joe got, kind of answered the call to Honor Flight, did he kind of bring you along on that journey?

- He did.

He was probably 12 flights in or 11 flights in and he was like, "You really need to go on this 'cause you'll enjoy it."

I kind of went to school for gerontology and so it kind of fell right into my interest.

And so I, yeah, ever since then I've been hooked, especially with this one.

- Here come the Peelz.

You should have some in your lunch too, guys.

But we got extras.

We got extra chips, too.

Does anyone want a salad?

It's just a plain Jane salad.

Hats off to when they first started the very first Honor Flight.

They decided to travel from Fresno to back east.

We all know we've all traveled out of Fresno before.

It's a difficult task to get back East, especially to Washington DC.

And hats off to our board and Al Perry at the time, who got a chartered plane.

That's the only way we could do this.

Kinda like a go bigger or go home.

Many of the other Honor Flights in California, they go from here to Dallas or you know, here to Salt Lake and they do...

But our veterans, it's too hard for them.

Especially, when we first started with the World War II veterans.

Too hard for them to get off in at a stop, wait two hours for another plane.

So our biggest expense is our aircraft.

You know, we have a chartered Airbus 320 that gives us a direct flight to DC.

We are the fastest and safest way from Fresno to Washington, DC.

(reflective music) - You don't know how much it matters until the plane lifts off and the veterans and guardians cheer.

And when we land they do the same thing.

They put their hands up in the air like we're on a roller coaster ride.

(reflective music) (airplane engine whirring) (veterans cheering) (reflective music) - I think both of our personalities are just kind of light, I would say.

You know, it's fun.

It's like these guys are away from home and they're just letting their hair down so it's like let's just embrace it and- - [Allison] Right, and we want them to feel comfortable with us- - And have fun, yeah.

- Or be able to open up to us.

And we'll tell you, like when they leave us, we don't lose contact with them.

- Yeah.

- So they're always part of our Honor Flight family.

So we definitely make those connections from moment one, even boarding the plane and on the way out, Gina and I are usually the last ones to hug 'em out on the way out and it's amazing.

- [All] Happy birthday to you.

Happy birthday to you.

- Whoo.

- [All] Happy birthday, dear Bob.

Happy birthday to you.

- Whoo hoo.

(veterans cheering) - And many more!

- [Interviewer] Talk a little bit about the duality of a role you play in outwardly maybe everybody sees Joe Fry, happy high fiving everybody, but in the back of your mind, you gotta be working on some serious stuff to make sure everything's staying on track.

- Exactly.

To be a successful trip leader, you have to be ahead of the trip, I call it.

You have to be a couple hours ahead.

Everything has to be in place.

So I'm thinking two, three, four hours ahead on everything.

Check in with the logistics guys if they've talked to the different parts of the trip.

Is our meal ready?

Did you talk to Mission BBQ?

Is the banquet setup?

Are the buses there?

You know, I have the bus driver's personal phone numbers.

You have to be ahead of the trip and when you're ahead of the trip, you will be successful, 'cause if you're behind the trip, you're gonna just be reactive.

And I want to be proactive.

(airplane engine whirring) (reflective music) (veterans cheering) (gentle music) - [Interviewer] When you land on the ground in Baltimore, that's really when, you know, the rubber meets the road, right?

- Amen.

- [Interviewer] And that's when the team members spring into life.

Walk me through that next phase.

- Well first off is getting everyone safely off the plane and accounted for.

In some cases that can be a little bit of a longer process 'cause we take veterans and we have in the past, that a normal airline might not let them fly, but we take them with Honor Flight because of our competent and complete medical team we fly with.

So we make sure everyone's okay.

We start taking 'em off the plane and we have a rally point in Baltimore under our red, blue and gold bus banners and start breaking the veterans in those kind of groups.

Making sure we stop in a bathroom like so we know where all the bathrooms are.

And then as they process to the airport and going to our first buses that we're gonna load on, it's so wonderful because so often, those people there at BWI, they have seen Honor Flights come in and they applaud.

As one veteran told me, I mean this is the first time he ever had applause for being in the service.

And he experienced it there.

And the magic now starts to build from there.

(country music) - How you doing?

(country music) (faint chattering) (country music continues) (faint chattering continues) - Touch down.

Bam!

(country music) (faint chattering) - We take with us just under 50 wheelchairs and a lot of these veterans, most of them walk okay.

Their mobility problems are okay, but a lot of them need canes, they need walkers.

So we take the wheelchair to use as a cane and a couple, on our trip, we do have some very long walks, so we call 'em chick magnets, you know?

It's like a wheelchair, there's nothing sexier in DC than having a veteran in a wheelchair.

You know what I mean?

If you want the girls to come up and kiss you on the cheek, a veteran in the wheelchair will do it.

- Each trip we learn something.

Each trip is critiqued.

I think they call it the hot wash for Air Force pilots.

You get back and you sit down and you critique everything, good or bad.

And that happened after every flight so it's grown to the point where like when you are on the trip, a bus has a team leader, it has a safety person, there's a medical person on that bus and there's a crew that can help unload the baggage.

That evolved flight by flight by flight.

- All right, guys.

But I do wanna introduce a few things to you.

We do have our nurse on bus, Miss Cheryl.

(veterans cheering) You guys need anything throughout the entire trip.

Cheryl's our first contact here.

- Yes, we stop but I think it's the Turner Post, American Legion Post 276 named after a KIA that occurred when he died in Korea.

Very often American Legion and the FW Posts, people don't know this, civilians don't realize that when they see a name on the post, that's always from a KIA.

When we go there, we're welcomed by the staff that has served us so well over the years.

And I mean, served us well.

That one time we were so late on flight, they were there till I think 10 o'clock at night waiting to serve us, all volunteers, and it's Mission BBQ.

And as Joe Fry will tell you later, it's the best mac and cheese in the world.

And so, and you've experienced it, Joe?

- [Interviewer] Yeah.

- And it's another setting a stage of how special of a flight it is.

We're escorted over there by what's called the BWI Brownies, a motorcycle escort group.

And when they have that fantastic meal, 'cause it's absolutely some of the best barbecue I've ever had by Mission BBQ.

The specialness of Honor Flight, it's just double stamped with them right then and there.

- Mission BBQ, they call it.

It's a veteran-owned and a veteran-run barbecue place on the east coast.

And we have a buffet dinner that is absolutely awesome, pulled pork, mac and cheese, you know, everyone loves the mac and cheese and uh- - [Interviewer] I heard you really liked it!

- I really, oh, mac and cheese is the best.

Oh, it's awesome.

It's good stuff.

A little too good, I should say, but it kind of sets the stage.

We go in there, we introduce, that's the one time we introduce our staff just so they know who we all are.

If they do have any questions on the trip, we introduce ourselves and just so they know who we are and if they have any questions, you know, we'll take care of 'em.

- [Interviewer] Everybody talks about that great barbecue.

And Joe in particular, likes the macaroni and cheese.

What's your favorite thing on the menu there?

- (laughs) Smoked turkey.

Hands down, hands down, smoked Turkey.

Mac and cheese.

That's great.

It's fine.

Mission BBQ comes out and serves one of the best barbecues that you'll have with all their sauces and their meats and their pork.

And it might be chicken, it might be turkey.

I love the smoked turkey.

The ladies at the hall will have their sweet tea and regular tea and they'll be serving their brownies and cookies and cake and cornbread and chili.

- And their staff of volunteers have been helping every single time.

We're going on 10 years of Honor Flights.

They have been here every time.

So let's give them a great round applause.

Thank you.

(veterans cheering) Amanda (indistinct), 276, serving sweet tea and lemonade and a lot of love.

Thank you very much.

(veterans clapping) - Ah, I'll tell you.

It's a great barbecue and it almost made me realize, slow down, guys.

Slow down.

You probably don't eat like this all the time.

(pensive music) - [Announcer] And when that occurs, the engravers come back here to the wall in May and they change the (indistinct).

They've now changed 520, including 13 this May.

- You know, you don't know what you don't know.

And I remember being a kid and seeing in my grandpa's closet underneath his shoes, there were some metals and I didn't know what they meant.

I was told at some point, of them was from the Pope for medical care he had done along the way.

But some of the others were from World War II and I didn't know that much about World War II.

I think when my sister was in high school, she wrote a paper about some of his experiences.

But there was something I did remember when I was a kid playing hide and seek in my grandparents' house.

They had this great closet with all his records stacked to the ceiling where you could come in one door and exit another.

And so it was a great place to hide and my big brother might not catch me.

In this case, he caught me and as I'm trying to get away, I caught my shirt on something and it was this frame facing the wall, turned so you wouldn't see what it was.

So I had to figure out what it was.

I turned it around and it's this framed newspaper from Chicago in 1944 and it says in big red letters, "Chicagoan Saves 26."

And you find what the story is and it's my grandfather pulling 26 guys out of burning tanks in France in August of 1944.

They gave him the Silver Star, one of the highest medals you can receive.

And that wasn't the only thing he saw in the war.

I mean he was through the Battle of the Bulge, got a Bronze Star there for taking over an aid station that had been shelled.

At the end of the war, his division liberated Buchenwald and he was one of the first in, was the ranking medical officer and saw things he never should have seen.

But France, the start of August, 1944, their column in the Sixth Armored Division gets hit by German 88s and they pick off the vehicle in front and the one in back.

So everyone else was sitting ducks and they're getting decimated and these shells are still coming in.

And while everyone was ducking for cover, my grandpa and his jeep driver kept going in to pull guys out of these burning vehicles.

So I said, "If everybody else was taking cover and you kept going in knowing the fire was coming in, what were you thinking?"

He said, "What was I thinking?

I thought I was gonna get killed."

And I said, "I'm glad you didn't."

And he said, "Yeah, you wouldn't be around."

And I laughed and then it was like I had a broken rib or something.

If you ever laughed with a broken rib, you start to feel that pain.

It was like this sobering thought.

I wouldn't even exist if my grandpa was one of those 400,000 Americans who didn't come home from World War II.

(reflective music) (reflective music continues) - Early call, we get up in the morning, your team meets for breakfast and what happens at that little round table discussion that you're having before everybody comes in and eats?

- Yeah, so we have a 0-dark-thirty, so we have a meeting at 6:00 AM Washington time and you know, we tell the staff and of course, we tell the veterans and guardians that, "What time is that in Fresno time?"

And that's three o'clock in the morning.

So obviously, we wanna get to bed early, get started, we have a 6:00 AM all staff meeting before breakfast and we go through all the stops of the day.

We kind of just remind everyone of what we're up against, any problems with mobility of any of the veterans.

We talk about any little things that come up.

We just try to hit those details then.

(pensive music) - I'm not responsible for breaking your camera, you know?

(pensive music) (faint chattering) (pensive music continues) (faint chattering continues) (pensive music continues) (faint chattering continues) - [Interviewer] That first memorial that we visited was the Iwo Jima Memorial.

And for me, that was the first time I'd seen that memorial in person.

That is a striking indoctrination to the way the rest of the trip's gonna be, isn't it?

- Yes.

Yes, so we always point that out.

We enter there, that way.

That circular path around the memorial gives it the illusion that the flag is being eternally risen there at the Iwo Jima Memorial.

And the attention to detail, I always tell my Marine brothers, I say, look at that 'cause being in the Army, I know what that web gear looks like that we wore and the attention of the detail, those large, the world's largest bronze statues have.

And that was done in 1955 dedicated by the three surviving flag raisers.

It's just an incredible testimony.

The courage and tenacity that our Marines have shown and given to the United States.

- Going to Iwo Jima is just awesome.

The first stop of the morning's always the best.

It's crisp outside.

It's usually quiet.

And our first stop is Iwo Jima, the largest bronze statue of any kind in the world.

And it happens to be with a rising of the flag over Iwo Jima, which we've all seen that famous picture and famous statue and it's awesome, especially for the Marines that are on our trip.

We take a Marine photo there and they just sit there in awe and just look at that memorial.

And it's the first stop of the trip and it just sets the tone for what we're gonna do for the rest of the trip.

(veterans faintly chattering) - Hoo ra!

- Yeah, we went into it.

When we got the title of taking over a bus, which we got titled "The Gold Bus."

We wanted to make it fun and engaging for the vets.

We know that they're going on this mission and a lot of it is closure for them and it's hard.

And so we wanted to make sure that we brought some fun into that and that we made it lively.

And as much as we respect their journey, we still want to celebrate them.

So we made it the party bus and it just kind of evolved from there and it keeps evolving with every flight.

- [All] Sweet Caroline!

Ba ba ba.

Good times never seem so good!

So good, so good, so good!

♪ I've been inclined ♪ ♪ To believe they never would, oh, no, no ♪ (reflective music) (reflective music continues) - On this last flight, we had two World War II veterans that we had the privilege of flying with us and they were, I could see how well they enjoyed that memorial.

I mean, that's another thing that every American should see because there's 4,008 gold stars there representing 100 combat deaths in the United States.

And that's why we say, "The price of freedom is not free."

And every American should see and ponder that.

(reflective music) - [Interviewer] How do you take a picture of 160 people at the World War II Memorial?

How far back do you have to get?

What kind of lens are you using?

It's a great photograph.

- It's a 35 millimeter photograph because we are trying to feel and see the memorial.

We're also still trying to keep the Lincoln Memorial over their head.

So sometimes we remove, we ask politely to move about a thousand people out of the way so that we can get back about 150 to 200 feet in order to take the shot.

And then we need a prime lens so that it's crystal clear and ideally, we'd like the sun to be out.

(laughs) (light pensive music) (light pensive music continues) (people indistinctly chattering) (pensive music) (people indistinctly chattering) (pensive music) (people indistinctly chattering) - Come on, Richard!

(pensive music) (people indistinctly chattering) (pensive music) (intense reflective music) (intense reflective music continues) (people indistinctly chattering) (camera clicking) - My girl.

- One more time.

One more time.

(veterans cheering) (people indistinctly chattering) - Thank you, guys.

- Thank you.

Appreciate you.

(pensive music) (dramatic music) - The minute you come on the grounds in Arlington, you can feel the sacredness of this.

Oh, we're 640 acres of, I can't even remember how many graves are in turn there of our war dead that died during the wars and then after their service there and returned there.

I mean, Arlington now to me is so sacred.

I've had this change of opinion and I know it's not possible, but I think every congressman, every president should be inaugurated there or sworn in office at Arlington and tell them one thing, one thing.

And that is you be worthy, you be worthy of all this 'cause yes, you were elected, but here are the people that earned the right for you to be in office and take that accordingly, be up to the same standard of devotion that they have given, that are marked here and returned here forever at Arlington.

And I think that when you see the changing of the guard, the precision, the preciseness, the cleanliness, the absolutely attention to detail, guarded 24/7 since 1932, by the old Tomb Guard, that shows that I think, it imprints on so many of my brothers, I believe that 'cause one of the things I think we all have that in our heart is that fear of being forgotten, of sacrifice not remembered.

And Arlington... Arlington keeps that faith alive 24/7, every day of the week.

And for my brothers, and we're there like that, you can just see how they're struck and how captivated, how this regal, majestic, silent ceremony with such precision of 21 seconds waiting, 21 steps, that encapsulates the experience of service that we live through then and carry with us still to this day.

And I think that honor, that silence, that reverence is not only palatable, but healing and also so humbling.

(reflective music) (reflective music continues) (plane engine soaring) (tense reflective music) (tense reflective music continues) - We have Vietnam veterans that are, they're working over 50 years of the effects of the Vietnam War.

And I think more, I guess more critical about the way they were treated when they came back.

And I know we can't go back there and have a redo, but maybe we have a redo now.

50 years and you still have nightmares, night terrors?

(helicopter blade whirring) (man yelling) That just amazes me.

I was a really young kid, but I'm glad that my father was very patriotic and very supportive of the military.

And we watched the news every night about Vietnam and we were raised to respect and support the military no matter what.

It's not about the war, it's about respecting and supporting them.

And I had a hard time not serving until one of my veterans, the old sitting knee to knee in the hotel room at night when I was telling him about the guilt that I had.

And he said, "Stop."

He said, "You're serving right now."

And that meant a lot to me.

- We're okay.

(reflective music) - [Interviewer] I know from talking to you before, there is a deep connectivity and respect you have for our veterans and the women and men in that, that laid it down on behalf of this country.

I'm wondering if the reason you keep going back on all these trips is that there's a strong connectivity, deep down, viscerally, that you have to not just this cause but to these individuals that you take?

- Eh... (somber music) - [Interviewer] There's something that speaks to you deep down in the heart.

(somber music) - Well, in simple terms, my best friend died.

(somber music) (Gene sighs) - [Interviewer] In Vietnam?

Or after?

(somber music) I know it's tough.

You do this for that friend?

(somber music) What can you tell me about your friend?

(airplane engine whirring) (bombs exploding) (Gene sighs) (guns banging) (men yelling) - Nine days before he died, he was still upset because he survived.

(somber music) (intense music) (guns banging) (missiles banging) (explosions booming) Yeah, nine days from death, he died of 30 years of Agent Orange poisoning.

(somber music) - [Interviewer] That's something we don't spend enough time talking about today.

- I knew he was in bad health for 30 years.

I knew that Agent Orange was slowly killing him.

And he had every cancer you get with Agent Orange and the government refused to acknowledge that he had Agent Orange or that Agent Orange was caused by the government.

And so he was unable to get disability until the last five years of his life.

(somber music) - [Interviewer] So naturally, you have and had some anger about this and some tough feelings about this.

- Well, it's not anger.

It's uh...

He paid the price.

- [Interviewer] And circling it back to you and this Honor Flight mission that you help tell this visual story of every time you go, I'm sure you think of that friend every time your wheels are up and every time you're on the ground in DC and certainly, when you visit that Vietnam Memorial.

- That's right.

(reflective music) (reflective music continues) (reflective music continues) (reflective music continues) (reflective music continues) (reflective music continues) (reflective music continues) (reflective music continues) (reflective music continues) (reflective music continues) - So on Honor Flight 23, we went to the American History Museum.

On the third floor, they have a whole exhibit on the different wars that we've had, but especially my favorite there is we have the Star Spangled Banner.

So the Star Spangled Banner is, some people call it Old Glory.

It's the flag that flew over Fort McHenry in the War of 1812.

And most people forget their history.

But the War of 1812 is when the British came back and tried to take back the United States.

Most people don't realize they burned down the White House before in DC and there's remnants in the Museum of the charred wood of the White House that the British burned down.

At Fort McHenry, they fought off the British and that's, you know, "Bombs bursting in air."

Francis Scott Key wrote our national anthem and at the end of our trip, so they see the Star Spangled Banner that's at the museum.

And at the end of our trip, we actually go to Fort McHenry where this actual flag, that actual flag flew at Fort McHenry.

And that was the last place on the United States where a foreign country has tried to take over our country.

And it's just an awesome tie-in to see how great this country is and how we fought them off.

(pensive music) - That's something special to be able to stand there and see where they came in.

You can't see Chesapeake Bay, but you can see the route that they came through, the British came through and you can feel, you know, you can feel that history and Bill Goodreau was talking about how there's a similarity between the combat at the battles in Vietnam and the battle at Fort McHenry that at Fort McHenry, they tried to explode the cannons, the bombs above the ramparts so it would rain on top.

Well, that's the same thing they did at Vietnam.

And he made that connection.

A lot of the guys did make that connection that you can't just... You can't push through bullets and missiles through the wall.

You have to explode 'em on top just like they did in the jungles.

And so there was quite a connection that made things, I guess, real and connected, you know, today to what happened years ago.

- That's the one place we visited in Washington DC, that Americans died at.

Two young Americans were killed there during that epic bombardment that the Star Spangled Banner that Francis Scott Key, he wrote that poem.

He witnessed the bombing of Fort McHenry.

And one thing I always bring up to my Army brothers, when you go up to those ramparts there, the lack of cover that was there, those ramparts only come up to about your shoulder.

And especially like one of the artillery brothers that served in Vietnam, He said, "Man, look at this, Bill."

He said, "Those are muzzle loading weapons."

I said, "Yeah."

He says, "You know what that means?"

I said, "Yeah."

They had to have their back to the enemy ships when they were trying to recharge those weapons to return fire.

Now think about that.

- I mean the words, "O'er the ramparts we watched," you're touching the ramparts right now.

(pensive music) (gentle piano music) (people faintly chattering) (gentle piano music) - I love you, man.

Thank you.

- [Interviewer] Typically when your wheels are up out of Baltimore and headed home, you know that you've pulled off another trip and that all that awaits is this final, awesome homecoming moment.

- It is an awesome moment when we take off from Baltimore and wheels are up but the flight is not done.

You know, it's not done until I could bring that veteran safely home to his family.

So it is a sense of relief when the wheels come up, but the job is still not done.

(gentle classical music) (gentle classical music continues) - The other critical thing I think that the veteran doesn't understand, and I've studied this.

World War II homecoming, what's in their mind is a ticker tape parade in New York City.

That was specially arranged by a politically connected general with the White House.

That's not what veterans in this valley got.

And I've talked to all of them when I was trip leader.

What they got from where they were discharged was maybe a train ride, maybe a bus ride, maybe it arrived at 9:00 PM and getting back to their home or maybe their farm and maybe their father was out on the farm and maybe the first person they saw was their mother.

There was no welcome home.

And that's the gift of Honor Flight.

It's the welcome home they never got.

(gentle piano music) (people faintly chattering) - Oh, buttercream pie, baby.

- Buttercream pie.

Buttercream pie.

(veterans cheering) - You know, that's our grand finale, right?

This is something that they've always deserved and they never received.

So we wanna make sure that's the biggest closure of their mission that they take with them forever.

Our duty on the ground is that we go down and the very first session that's off the plane, we're wheeling down and we're cheering them on.

'Cause as everything else, it's a hurry up and wait that we do.

And so, 'cause we wanna make sure everyone goes together and everyone has that same experience from first to last.

So we're down there cheering 'em on.

We're doing the wave.

We're doing crazy stuff just to entertain them, to make it fun and inviting.

But once we get them through that corridor and they walk through the sea of servicemen that have been standing there waiting to greet them and then they see the crowd, it's just, it's like another mission for us.

- [Gina] It's emotional every single trip because you just know their, you see their faces light up.

- Right.

- [Gina] Like you said, that's the grand finale and it's so, it's rewarding for us.

- Right.

- [Gina] And I can't even imagine how they must feel.

I mean, because you know, their families are there and their friends are there and they just, they light up like Christmas trees.

It's pretty exciting.

(bagpipe music) - [Announcer] Welcome home, fellas!

(people cheering) (triumphant music) (bagpipe music) (celebratory music) (people cheering) (celebratory music continues) (people cheering continues) (celebratory music continues) (people cheering continues) - [Woman] Welcome home!

(celebratory music) (people cheering) - Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

(celebratory music fades) (people cheering) - We have names on those walls.

And when we reflect on those names, that means they're still here with us and we're still here with them.

There's a communion, so-to-speak, that can't be broken by the names on that wonderful black marble.

And I understand that.

But I think it's beneficial for the memories of those that we served with, cared for and suffered with.

And it's beneficial for us that had the greatest privilege of, of coming home (voice breaks), to have a life, to live again, to have an existence that we just couldn't imagine when we were 19.

And I think when we have this experience in Honor Flight, it helps the brothers, I believe, putting us in the right perspective and in the library of the books of all of our lives, those days of our lives.

- [Man] It was great traveling with you- - Thank you.

- And I feel therefore that... - [Veteran] Thank you, man, for everything.

- That anxiety can be healthy, life-giving, life-affirming and helping us realize what a miracle it's been for us to come home and have a life.

(reflective music) - One of my favorite letters we ever got at Honor Flight was the wife whose World War II vet husband came back and she said in this letter, "For 70 years we could never get him to talk about anything in the war.

And then he went on Honor Flight and now we can't get him to shut up!"

(laughs) I mean, I love it.

That's what this has done for families.

It's healing, it's encouraging, it's honoring and affirming for our veterans.

But there are so many other side effects, right?

What it does for our community, how it educates young people, the new way that they see our veterans, the power of what we can do when we come together.

Every time we do a flight, our team grows.

And every volunteer that's a part of Honor Flight is just as valuable as every other one because their heart is in the right place.

They're doing it for our veterans.

And to me, it's the best thing we do in our amazing valley, what we do for our veterans.

And it makes me wonder, what else can we do if we all get together and move in the same direction?

(people cheering) - We can't leave it up to the, you can't leave it up to the military to take care of the military.

It takes everybody whether they're in it or not.

And we actually have a great opportunity to right the wrong that happened to these Vietnam vets.

And I know, I couldn't do anything more important than what I'm doing right now with Honor Flight.

Nothing.

- There's still somewhere around 500 Vietnam veterans on the waiting list.

And these are veterans, who I know for a fact, 'cause some of my ROTC classmates served in Vietnam, helicopter pilot.

And the process was fly a military transport back to Travis Air Force Base and then take him into SFO and the protestors were lined up at SFO.

I mean, literally spitting on these people.

So that's my generation, is (indistinct).

They're owed this, I think they are owed this welcome home.

And if you talk to Bill Goodreau, I'm sure, a combat vet, stories emerge that have been locked away.

World War II also because they're with a family member.

We have counselors.

And that's the other gift is that what has been locked away but remembered for better or worse, can now be presented in public, can be cleansed and they can be proud of what they did, proud of their service.

I think that's a great Central Valley gift.

(reflective music) (guns faintly banging) (shoes clack) ("Amazing Grace") ("Amazing Grace" continues) ("Amazing Grace" continues) ("Amazing Grace" fades) (piano music) - [Announcer] Production funding for Central Valley Honor Flight, the team behind the mission provided by Educational Employees Credit Union, proudly supporting our veterans and Central Valley Honor Flight, EECU, smarter banking since 1934.