The American Veteran is one of our greatest treasures…those men and women who answered our nation’s call, especially in our times of greatest need. Our mission is to honor and thank those veterans – especially our WWII veterans and Alaskan Territorial Guard – by bringing them to Washington DC, for trip of honor – AT NO COST TO THEM. Please join us in sending them to experience their memorials. Volunteer or send support, it all makes the difference for a group that gave so much and asked for so little!
We are the Alaska hub of the Honor Flight Network. We are part of a national network that is flying WWII, Korean and Vietnam veterans to their monument in Washington, D.C. Our mission is to fly as many veterans from Alaska to Washington, D.C. as we can find – at no cost to the veteran. Top priority is given to WWII, Alaska Territorial Guard, Korean War Veterans and terminally ill veterans from all wars. The program will naturally transition to the Vietnam War and all other conflicts on a chronological basis.
For more in-depth information and history of Honor Flight, please visit our “Program ” page or our national website, www.honorflight.org.
Contact us to learn more about the war memorials we visit on our honor flights.
Where it all began - The Ron & Lynda Story
Lynda and I were visiting my mother who was living in assisted living in Republic Washington. A small town in Eastern Washington. this was in November of 2012. One of the residents at the assisted living was an old family friend and a WWII veteran, he and my Dad were friends and both belonged to the American Legion and were always very active in Veteran events. It so happened he had just returned from an Honor Flight out of Spokane Washington.
He spotted me and was so excited and wanted to tell me all about how honored to be asked to go along and visit the memorials, especially the WWII Memorial that was built 60 yrs after WWII was over. He took me to his room and started showing me pictures of all the memorials they had visited and the recognition he was given and the number of hands he shook. He mentioned how much my Dad who was also a WWII Navy Veteran would have loved to be able to go along, but had passed away several years earlier.
We stayed almost a week with my Mom visiting, each day when he would see me he had more pictures to share and stories to tell, each time there were tears in his eyes couldn’t express how much it meant to him. When we left to come back to Alaska, Lynda and I were determined to find our local hub in Alaska and sign up to help out, We couldn’t imagine that Alaska would not have one. Being that Alaska has more veterans per capita than any other state.
When we got back to Big Lake, I started looking online for an address or contact information, I ended up at the Honor flight Network home page, it showed all the honor flight hubs around the US. Alaska was missing from the map, I called the new hub coordinator listed in Atlanta Georgia, after talking to him for a half a hour, realizing that there in fact was not a hub in Alaska, he offered to send me a packet to look over and see how to go about setting up a hub, non-profit and other details. His last words to me were if you decide to take this on it will change your life.
Wow! That was an understatement. We received the packet, Lynda and I called a few friends who we knew would be enthusiastic, In January 2013 we had a meeting and all agreed to give it a go, we set our goal for the first flight for October 2013. Glad to report we are still going strong, the talent and dedication of our volunteers is hard to put into words.