{"id":50540,"date":"2021-07-15T17:36:35","date_gmt":"2021-07-15T17:36:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/uncategorized\/2021\/07\/15\/ailing-vets-visit-to-dc-previews-long-awaited-return-of-honor-flights\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T08:18:07","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T08:18:07","slug":"ailing-vets-visit-to-dc-previews-long-awaited-return-of-honor-flights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/veterans\/2021\/07\/15\/ailing-vets-visit-to-dc-previews-long-awaited-return-of-honor-flights\/","title":{"rendered":"Ailing vet\u2019s visit to DC previews long-awaited return of Honor Flights"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Since the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/news\/coronavirus\/\" target=\"_blank\">coronavirus pandemic<\/a> shut down <a href=\"https:\/\/www.honorflight.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">Honor Flights<\/a> 16 months ago, at least 757 veterans have passed away waiting for a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/off-duty\/military-culture\/2020\/03\/19\/honor-flight-postpones-all-veteran-tours-through-may-31-in-response-to-covid-19\/\" target=\"_blank\">chance to visit the nation\u2019s war memorials<\/a> in Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ronald Dean\u2019s family wanted to make sure he wasn\u2019t the next one on that list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On Thursday, Dean \u2014 a 74-year-old Marine Corps veteran who served in Vietnam in 1967 and 1968 \u2014 made his first visit to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, accompanied by an emotional cohort of family members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In pre-coronavirus times, scenes like this were common on the National Mall, as the Honor Flight program brought thousands of veterans a year from all over the country to tour the memorials and meet with local officials.<\/p>\n\n\n\t<aside class=\"smg-interstitial-link wp-block-smg-interstitial-link\">\n\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/militarytimes\/video\/2018\/11\/07\/celebration-for-first-ever-all-female-honor-flight-to-washington\/\" class=\"smg-interstitial-link__inner\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"smg-interstitial-link__media\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" src=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/video-poster-644fe7f3-0b13-45d6-b9d5-797fa03ff68d.jpg?w=300\" class=\"smg-interstitial-link__image wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" \/>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"smg-interstitial-link__content\">\n\t\t\t\t<span class=\"smg-interstitial-link__kicker\">Related<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"smg-interstitial-link__title\">Celebration for first ever all-female honor flight to Washington<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p class=\"smg-interstitial-link__excerpt\">The first ever all-female honor flight with 135 veterans visited the Washington area on Sept. 24.  They received a warm welcome at Reagan National Airport.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/aside>\n\t\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Lawmakers and veterans groups often greet buses full of veterans to the sites with cheering, photographs and copious thanks for military service rendered long ago. Those flights are set to resume next month, and the program expects to transport its 250,000th veteran to the nation\u2019s capital sometime this fall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But Dean was recently diagnosed with dementia, and his family worried that he may not have any time left to wait.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWhen we talked about what else he wanted to do, he said he had always wished he had made it here to see the wall,\u201d said his daughter Joy. \u201cSo we booked plane tickets right away.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After flying in from California early in the morning with his wife, four children and four of his 12 grandchildren, Dean arrived at the memorial to loud applause from a small crowd of veterans advocates waving American flags, anxious to greet a man who they had never met before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cAt the end of the day, we\u2019re just trying to honor him and his service to the country,\u201d said Matthew Shuman, board member for the Honor Flight Network who helped organize the welcome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The crowd followed Dean as he walked down to examine the names of fellow service members lost during the war more than five decades ago. Sporting a shirt which read \u201cI\u2019m a dad, a grandpa and a Vietnam vet,\u201d Dean picked up an entourage of a few extra tourists as he traveled slowly between each polished granite panel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As he searched the site, he spoke softly about his high school classmates Terrance Nelson and Ronald Vilardo \u2014 \u201cRonald was a serious artist, I was just in that class to horse around\u201d \u2014 and got emotional as he saw other names of Marines he served alongside who never returned home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A nearby park attendant helped him get rubbings of each fallen friend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIt\u2019s all just overwhelming,\u201d he said, as his wife, Paula, teared up nearby. \u201cThe number of men and women here [on the wall], these were lives that were cut short. I remember having thoughts about why not me, why them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThis was just something I wanted to do,\u201d he said, hugging his grandson as he answered questions. \u201cThis was an experience I\u2019m glad I had, this was worthy of coming here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Honor Flight officials hope that\u2019s a sentiment that repeats itself again and again in the months to come. The first post-pandemic flight is scheduled for Aug. 16, with dozens of veterans like Dean already planning their visits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\"><blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/LeoShane\/status\/1415659009068179460\">https:\/\/twitter.com\/LeoShane\/status\/1415659009068179460<\/a><\/blockquote><\/div><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>More than 750 veterans have died waiting for a chance to visit the nation&#8217;s war memorials since Honor Flights were suspended in early 2020.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":89614,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":19,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[101,23,89,12,26,62,19],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3222],"class_list":["post-50540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-news-roundup","category-home","category-middle-column","category-news","category-newsletters","category-pentagon-congress","category-veterans"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"HJ3GQNWFBJAJVFYI3DWRCJYS3M","arc_canonical_url":"\/veterans\/2021\/07\/15\/ailing-vets-visit-to-dc-previews-long-awaited-return-of-honor-flights\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented 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