Great River Honor Flight Comes to Center

By Robin Gregg

The Great River Honor Flight will leave from and return to Mark Twain High School in Center, MO. on June 15th.

Normally they alternate between John Wood in Quincy and HLGU in Hannibal, but since this flight is almost completely Ralls County Veterans, Tara Lewis graciously let us use Mark Twain high school to make it easier for our Veterans!

I plan to live feed the return on the Ralls County Herald Enterprise Facebook page.

We have Veterans from the Korean War, Vietnam War and from in between these conflicts. We will meet at 1 am (yes, a.m.) on Thursday June 15th then return at 10 p.m. that evening for our hero's `homecoming' which is a wonderful opportunity for everyone here to honor them and give them the welcome home they never got before! Come join us, bring flags and signs to welcome these veteran's home! We invite EVERYONE to come and help us celebrate our heroes, yes, I know it is late for some, but this is an event like no other, and you will never regret losing a little sleep to see this! We also have five women Veterans going on this trip.

When they get to Washington DC, they will be visiting the Vietnam Wall Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, the Korean Memorial, the Air Force Memorial, Arlington Cemetery, and the Changing of the Guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. We will also stop at the Navy Memorial, the Women's Memorial, and Iwo Jima, you can google the origin of how the Honor Flight started, it is pretty cool!

Great River Honor Flight was started on Veterans Day 2009 with its first flight scheduled on April 13, 2010. To date Great River Honor Flight, the Tri-States' hub of the Honor Flight program has flown 2,009 local Veterans to Washington D.C.. Back then all the veterans were from World War II. That is the way it continued for several years until it was decided to expand to those veterans who had served during the Korean War. Since then, we have also expanded to include veterans during the Vietnam War as well as those who served between those conflicts. Our goal is to continue to increase the total number of local veterans who have flown to Washington DC for free thanks to the financial support of so many individuals, groups and businesses in the area who remained supportive of the cause since its beginning.

Great River Honor Flight, a Missouri Nonprofit Corporation established in October of 2009, was created solely to honor America's veterans that live in our area for all they have sacrificed by providing, free of charge, transportation to Washington D.C. to visit the memorials dedicated to honor their service and sacrifices.

Those going on this honor flight are: Richard Flick; Ron Leake; Rodney Stout; Stephen Stout; Bill Wright; Dan Cary; William Giltner; Diane Couch; Gerald Couch; Tammi Latifoski; Dick Reynolds; Bill Reynolds; John McElfresh; Kenny McElfresh; Larry Foute; Wayne Gottman; Dennis McMillen; Chuck Wade; Gordon Camden; Joe McAlfee; Lindel "Peddle" Jackson; Bill Heim; Charlie Foster; John Wren; Richard Berry; Richard Cerretti; Gary Nelson; Gary Epperson; John Frier; Skip Kirby; Eva Leake; Robert Myers; and Gary McAfee.