Greater Peoria Honor Flight treats 75 area veterans to a trip to Washington, D.C. and the respect they’ve earned
Seventy-five military veterans from central Illinois, accompanied by their guardians and volunteers, took off from the Gen. Wayne A. Downing Peoria International Airport on May 23, destined for the nation’s capital and its many war monuments.
The Greater Peoria Honor Flight organization sponsors the trip with the help of private and corporate donations, sending veterans, free of charge, on a day-long trip to Washington, D.C.
Dean Kendall, 99, of Washington, Illinois, was one of three World War II veterans to make the trip. An Army medic, he landed in France just days after the initial D-Day invasion of June 6, 1944. Memories of his war experience returned as he was shuttled around with other veterans.
“The reception at the airport in D.C. was the nicest part,” Kendall said as a large crowd welcomed him and fellow vets upon their arrival to begin their tour. Kendall’s daughter, Karen Cleeton, served as guardian and chaperone for her father, pushing him in his wheelchair from one monument to another. She witnessed the look on her father’s face.
“It was emotional,” Cleeton said. “With so many monuments and memorials to see, I wish we could have had two days.”
For many of the veterans, the return to Peoria was the most emotional of all. “I was crying the whole time,” said Cleeton.
‘Just when you think the world has gone to crap, these people renewed our hope’
Army vet Farrell Lord of Metamora looked over the headstones at Arlington National Cemetery, a place he first visited fresh out of high school before enlisting and serving from 1958-62.
“It was magnificent,” Lord said of the experience. “Our government would be well to use the Greater Peoria Honor Flight as an example of cooperation and teamwork to make great things happen for these vets.”
Tim Bryne accompanied his father, Donald Bryne, a Korean War veteran, and watched as his father soaked in the experience, tears in his eyes. The elder Bryne, 95, took the hand of his older brother, Jules Bryne, 99, a WWII vet, as they walked among the monuments, then again as they made their way through the hundreds who lined the corridors of Peoria’s airport.
“I wish I could have shaken everyone’s hands who came out for this,” said Tim Bryne. “Just when you think the world has gone to crap, these people renewed our hope.”
In another touching moment, Ken Staley, a Vietnam-era veteran, came to a stop as he walked in the procession of travel-weary old soldiers to return the salute of a group of children saluting him.
The first Honor Flight was conceived in 2005 by Earl Morse, an Ohio physician and retired Air Force captain. The Greater Peoria Honor Flight joined the network of honor flights in 2013, flying nearly 2,000 veterans since then.
“This was one of the best days of my life next to my children being born,” Vietnam veteran Patrick Lykins said of the trip. Of the volunteers who made it all possible, “they were more organized than the Marines,” he said.
The next Greater Peoria Honor Flights are scheduled for Sept. 6 and Oct. 10 of this year. For more information, visit the organization’s website at greaterpeoriahonorflight.org
