10-05-2025
Army vets married on branch's birthday experience Honor Flight
WASHINGTON (KELO) — Army veterans Frankie and Joe Laird of Sioux Falls will celebrate 57 years of marriage on June 14.
'Nobody I'd rather spend any time with,' Joe said Tuesday at the Marine Corps War Memorial in northern Virginia.
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Their wedding anniversary is also the Army's anniversary, and the branch has a big one in 2025: 250 years. The Lairds experienced the memorials of northern Virginia and Washington, D.C. Tuesday alongside other honored veterans; Midwest Honor Flight, a nonprofit organization based out of Iowa, brought the group to the area. Joe's time with the Army between 1965 and 1989 included the fall of Saigon, and the trip to Washington took place just six days after the 50th anniversary of April 30, 1975. Nearly all of the 85 honored veterans on the trip, including Joe and Frankie, served during the Vietnam War era.
Santella: How are you feeling about the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War? Have you been thinking about that?
'It was so long ago for me, it was like in another lifetime,' Joe said Tuesday. 'I don't spend any time dwelling on it anymore.'
The welcomes the veterans received with their trip Tuesday were a far cry from how the country received its servicemen and servicewomen decades ago.
'They looked at me, like, disgusted because I had to wear my uniform when I traveled,' Frankie said as she sat next to her husband Tuesday.
Veterans had to process hostility and press forward.
'I'll tell you the truth: I never lost any sleep over that any way,' Joe said. 'I had my job to do, and I did it. I didn't care what they thought.'
Today, they feel appreciated.
'I want people to understand how organized this is,' Joe said about the trip to Washington.
'This is run well … the whole thing has just been super,' Frankie said.
'And not just the tour people from Midwest Honor Flight, but in the airports and driving around at Arlington and stuff,' Joe said. 'The people that just show up and clap.'
'And clap and say, 'thank you, thank you, thank you for all you've done,'' Frankie said. 'We didn't have that when, during the Vietnam era.'
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