VETERANS - The 'Honor Flights'

"Honor Flights Serve Those Who Have Served With a Trip to Remember" PBS Newshour 5/27/2013

Excerpt

JEFFREY BROWN (Newshour):  And now a special effort to honor those who have served in the nation's wars.

World War II veterans from Arizona preparing to take a flight, one filled with anticipation and special meaning.  This is an Honor Flight, part of an eight-year-old nonprofit program for vets who've never had the chance before to go to Washington to see the memorials, particularly the one honoring their service.

Upon landing in Baltimore, they met a large crowd of well-wishers offering a hero's welcome.  This group, 30 men in their 80s and 90s, is one of 370 visiting the nation's capital this year alone.

Eighty-five-year-old Marvin Murphy lives in Apache Junction, Ariz., east of Phoenix.

MARVIN MURPHY, U.S. Military Veteran:  We had tears.  I was speechless.  They didn't promise us this before we came.  It was just, well, we're going to take you here, you know?  And forever, forever, I will be grateful.  It is something, really something.

JEFFREY BROWN:  The next day, at the World War II Memorial, the tour and the welcome, this time by middle schoolers, continued.

More than 800 veterans of that war die every day.  And there's a quiet understanding on these trips that this may well be a first and last visit.