Army veteran Delaino Helm once visited Washington D.C. on an honor flight.
“It was exciting, especially when we got to Washington to the airport. We walked down there to the terminal, and everybody was greeting us,” Helm said.
He said other veterans should take the same opportunity.
“I encourage them to go if they didn’t,” Helm said.
Western North Dakota Honor Flight President, Kathleen Bien, said she believes in acknowledging service members of the military, and this is just one way to do that.
“All of our veterans, whether they were World War II, Korea, or Vietnam, they came home, they went to work,” Bien said.
That’s what brought people to this pancake breakfast to raise money to help pay for veterans to take that honor flight to Washington D.C.
Veterans on that flight would get to go sightseeing in the nation’s capital.
Bien explained some of the things they’d see, “the military monuments, Lincoln, Vietnam, Korea, WWII, Iwo Jima, as well as some of the museums.”
Upon arrival, Bien said the 90 service members will receive the ultimate experience, with a police escort and everything.
“The Honor Flight Network is the only one other than the president to get a police escort and it was quite fantastic to watch.”
In 2019 and 2020, the organization scheduled an honor flight but it was canceled in 2020 because of COVID-19.
Bien hopes that this flight will go uninterrupted.
The flight is scheduled for April and will cost an anticipated $100,000.