Southwest & Central Virginia Honor Flight prepares for 10th annual trip to Washington D.C.

Yahoo

27-03-2025

ROANOKE, Va. (WFXR) – Southwest and Central Virginia will celebrate the 10th annual Honor Flight that is set to take off to bring veterans from WWII, Korea, and Vietnam the chance to visit memorials created in their honor. It is said to be a journey of a lifetime to give veterans who were not properly thanked for their service a chance to receive thanks.
The Honor Flight will take place in Washington, D.C., from April 4 to 6, and the visiting veterans will be free of charge. Martin Leamy joined WFXR News to share more information about this opportunity for veterans.
Martin Leamy said, 'The Honor Flight is a Nationwide organization comprised of regional hubs or chapters that is a nonprofit organization. We do our own trip planning, fundraising, marketing, and most of the hubs do the geography fly into the D.C. area to visit the memorial. There is about eight of us that are close enough to ride a bus up there, and that's kind of our situation. We are actually honor bus if you want to put it that way.'
Leamy talked about how eye-opening it is to see veterans coming to visit as their mission is to take veterans up there to see the memorials created in their honor. He explained that the visitation of the men and women is a 'means to an end' to bring the veterans closure and healing and the gratitude that many did not receive when they returned from overseas.
Honor Flight taking local veterans to Washington D.C. in recognition of service
Leamy got involved with the Honor Flight when he first started as the Director of Facilities and Risk management for the National D-Day Memorial in Tennessee. The Tennessee Hub would stop there, and he worked with them on their visiting logistics. 2014 was the 70th anniversary of the D-Day attack, and he worked with Jeff Miller to bring around 320 WWII and D-Day veterans from Tennessee and South Florida to see the commemoration ceremony.
Leamy said, 'I got to know Jeff Pretty Well, and he invited me to start participating in their Honor Flight summit, which is their annual meeting up in Baltimore. I was up there plugging the memorial for about two years, and I had this epiphany, 'Hey you need to look at the map to see where the hubs are in Virginia.' I looked, and there was one in Tide Water, and there was one up in Stephen City, which is up near Winchester, and there was a big hole in our part of Virginia.'
He then went to Jeff to get into the business to get a role to get Southwest, Virginia on a flight, and 2018 was when they took the inaugural trip.
This event is still in need of volunteers and has no paid staff as they have guardians that aid the veterans on the trip. The guardian's primary job is to ensure veteran safety to prevent a fall especially as they get off the bus. Guardians are trained for three hours before the event to be the companion of the veteran during the entire trip.
Guardians are asked to donate $400 to help cover their trip costs, and their applications are screened and accepted on a first come, first serve basis.
To learn more or to apply as a guardian, you can visit cswvirginiahonorflight.org.
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