Honor Flight: All this fuss for us?

Oct 12, 2008 (Greeley Tribune - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- LCC | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating -- Darrell Watson watches the prairie sweep by. He sees a group of buddies from Mountain Vista Golf Course, which borders Interstate 25 north of Fort Collins, standing at the edge of the links and waving to the buses. He sees other clusters of smiling folks along the 30 miles to Cheyenne, all waving and saluting. Many held flags and signs with messages of thanks.

The Fort Collins World War II veteran rides in a caravan of buses on a sunny late-September morning.

For Watson, 82, this Honor Flight -- 60 years distant from the war -- was another journey for the ages.

"It's wonderful," Watson says.

Motorcycle escorts, military groups and singing trios feted 211 veterans on Sept. 23 as they began their Honor Flight trip from the Budweiser Events Center in Loveland to Washington, D.C. It was their opportunity, thanks to an outpouring of donations, to see the World War II memorial at no cost.

"Unbelievable," "fabulous" and "once-in-a-lifetime," other veterans called this whirlwind trip to the nation's capital.

All this fuss for us?

On the bus, Watson intersperses his wonder at this meticulously planned Honor Flight -- the nation's first to send a pair of chartered jets to Washington -- with contrasting memories of chaos in the Pacific.

He recalls being on a ship near Okinawa, watching kamikazes rain from the sky.

"It was really mass confusion," the naval veteran says. "You just about had to shoot in the air and hope you hit something."

At the Cheyenne Regional Airport, uniformed squads from the F.E. Warren Air Force Base stands at attention, saluting the veterans as the buses pull in. A hangar swarms with well-wishers and pulses with the music of the Cheyenne Central High School band.

A special day indeed. The trip, with tributes to the veterans at every turn, grew more special by the moment for the veterans.

"At the Bud Center, I saw all the people, the band and the motorcycle riders and all that," said Raymond Wells, a Greeley veteran. "I thought we were just going to get on the bus and ride to Cheyenne. And then we got to Cheyenne, (the celebration) started all over again."

It started again at the gate at Baltimore-Washington International Airport, where veterans were greeted by throngs of flag-waving well-wishers and members of the Baltimore Fire Department. At the WWII memorial, they were met by Colorado Sens. Ken Salazar and Wayne Allard and Rep. Marilyn Musgrave. Former U.S. Sen. Bob Dole met some of the Colorado veterans as well.

For the Honor Flight Northern Colorado organizers, spending a year raising more than $200,000 in donations -- including $50,000-plus from Water Valley in Windsor and a sizable chunk from an anonymous source in Fort Collins -- to get the inaugural northern Colorado flight off the ground wasn't simply about giving veterans a nostalgic excursion.

It was about finally giving those who fought in World War II their due.

Stan Cass, a Vietnam veteran and president of the 15-member Honor Flight Northern Colorado board, was at the center of the Herculean effort.

"It just became more apparent to us that this was truly going to be a wonderful final chapter of their lives, and that's essentially what it's become," he said. "We're doing it as a thank-you for saving the world. But (the veterans) come back and thank us for having done it."

Lee Seward, another Vietnam veteran and treasurer of the Honor Flight board, was especially touched by the veterans' humility.

"Many wanted to take the trip and see the memorial, but they didn't want to be any bother," Seward said. "It's just an amazing thing."

Mike Rosenthal is northern Colorado assistant captain for the Patriot Guard, a nationwide motorcycle group that turns out in force for veterans' events. He joined about 50 riders to escort the Honor Flight buses from Loveland to Cheyenne.

He said the debt owed to World War II veterans "really can't be repaid. What we are and what he have become and what our future holds for us is strictly due all to the veterans. ... We owe everything in this country to them because without them we'd be British subjects and we'd be speaking German."

Rosenthal, who lives in Golden, enjoys prying military stories out of his father and uncles.

"When you can get them to talk about it, they just kind of light up," he said. "It was a part of their lives that formed everything else. The stories are incredible and these men -- it's like you dropped 40 years off of them."

A youthful twinge comes to the eyes of Watson as he talked about the World War II memorial and long-distant battles. The Okinawa battle, like most of them, wore on longer than expected.

"It went on and on until finally we secured the island," he says.

After being treated like kings aboard the first-class Honor Flight -- the flight crew on the U.S. Airways jet took every opportunity to thank the veterans -- Watson and hundreds of others who braved their lives can feel they are worth all the fuss.

They can be secure in knowing they are more than appreciated.

They are revered.

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