I will be off to Washington DC next month on an excursion strictly for veterans to participate in what has been designated as an “Honor Flight” for those who served in World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War.

The program was created some years ago and even provided airfare for those living on the West Coast and living too far to make a trip to the nation’s capital by vehicle. That is where it got its name “Honor Flight” and in my bailiwick, that would be “Honor Flight Philadelphia.”

We will check into our lift-off facility between 4 and 5 a.m. on May 17^th and share donuts and coffee at the Upper Merion Township Middle School until we are driven to the bus departing from the City of Brotherly Love at 5:30 a.m. The first patriotic eye-opening event will occur at 9:30 a.m. as we are slated to witness the “Changing of the Guard” while visiting with the Tomb Guard.

Iwo Jima will come next and my heart and mind will be thrown back to my childhood when I dreamed of becoming a Marine due in large part to the war movies I had seen and my love of that photograph and the later monument built of the Marines raising the American flag at that Japanese island toward the end of World War II (Feb. 23, 1945).

The Air Force Drill Team will greet us next followed shortly afterward at the Navy Memorial and a bountiful lunch. (No C-rations will be offered to any of my GI friends known as “grunts“!)

The Korean War Memorial will then be shown to us shortly thereafter.

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Next, I will once again focus on the engraved names of my fallen comrades as we visit the Vietnam War Memorial where the two 200-foot-long sections of a granite wall contain the list of 58,281 U.S. service members who died in that war. The names are listed in chronological order by date of casualty.

I will once again cry when I see First Lieutenant Victor Lee Ellinger’s name inscribed near the date of November 23, 1970. We served together in C Company of 12^th Infantry, and 2^nd Battalion of the 25^th Infantry Division as unit commanders. The combat infantry platoon leader was killed by sniper fire.

Finally, we will visit the World War II Memorial at 2:30 p.m. and depart by bus from Washington a half hour later. At 6 p.m. we will be greeted by well-wishers at the Upper Merion Middle School where dinner and entertainment will be provided to those of us who served.

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(An Honor Flight Philadelphia leaflet says: