Honor Flights: A thank-you to our vets

A quarter to 5 in the morning comes awfully early, but it couldn't come soon enough today for Ken Aumock.

Aumock and 103 other World War II veterans were to gather before dawn at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport's Humphrey Terminal for a flight that will arrive in Washington by midmorning, depositing them into a day of memories dating back six decades.

The highlight of the day: a visit to the National World War II Memorial, opened in 2004 to honor the 16 million who served in the U.S. armed forces during World War II, the more than 400,000 who died and the millions who supported the war effort from home.

The Minnesota vets, who were given medals, shirts and hats to honor their service, will be bused to the memorials (Iwo Jima, the Women's Memorial, and Korean and Vietnam memorials will be included on this tour) and put back on a plane to arrive home at 10:40 p.m. the same night, all free of charge.

It makes for a long day for a group with a median age in the 80s, but for many, it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. World War II veterans are dying at an estimated rate of 1,100 a day.

Aumock, who uses a walker because of bum hips and knees, plans on being in full uniform for the day. At 86, he weighs in at 160 pounds, 5 pounds less than when he was discharged from the Army as a parachute packer and rigging sewer with the 17th Airborne Division, which fought in the Battle of the Bulge. Concerns about airport security may mean he wears more comfortable shoes than his Army boots, but otherwise, he promises to be the real deal.

"I haven't been out to see it, and I'll never get out to see it otherwise, no way," he said.

This will be the third Twin Cities Honor Flight to the memorial. Jerry Kyser, who lives in Roseville and coordinates the flights, said he was approached two years ago by the national organization, which had begun flying six small planes out of Springfield, Ohio, to the memorial. Since then, an estimated 35,000 World War II vets have been taken to the memorial.

Remembering his father

There are about 8,000 World War II vets in the seven-county metro area. There are Honor Flight organizations in St. Cloud and Rochester, as well.

Kyser, whose father was a decorated colonel in World War II, said he became involved in January 2008 as a way of remembering his father, who died at 51.

"I was never was able to properly honor him, and he would have loved going on this thing," said Kyser, a past Minnesota president of Vietnam Veterans of America. The Minnesota Vietnam Veterans charity works with the National Honor Flight organization and accepts donations for the group (www.charitybox.com/mnvv). The program operates as a charity and each trip costs about $75,000.

"Most of these guys are enlisted people," Kyser said. "I treat these men and women like they are all four-star admirals. I tell them, 'We kiss your butt.' It's helped me chase my demons away."

The trips focus on World War II vets, but others can come along, too. A Vietnam veteran with terminal cancer will be along on this trip, accompanied by a personal nurse.

During a recent preflight planning session, a Roseville church sanctuary was filled with veterans and their families, many wearing leather bomber jackets or hats indicating they are Pearl Harbor survivors.

Plenty of wheelchairs

Kyser injected military efficiency into an operation that includes color codes and squad numbers that might be confusing to an 18-year-old recruit at boot camp. He advised the group to bring along an extra day of medication and assured them that 60 wheelchairs would be available, even if some might think they're unneeded.

"You talk the talk now, but by 1:30, you are pretty pooped," he warned.

Wayne DeHaven, 86, was a 22-year-old radio operator with the 17th Airborne when he was injured during a shell attack that left him with shrapnel in his head and back to this day. Although all he remembers of the time is keeping his head down, saying the Lord's Prayer and then hearing a loud bell sound, he was told later that the radio pack on his back was split in two from the explosion.

He said he hopes traveling to the memorial will bring him closer to people who went through the same sort of ordeals. He hopes to meet colleagues from his unit and will be thinking of those who died, including a cousin who was killed at Pearl Harbor.

"This kind of gives you a statement that, 'I was there, I was with some of these people,'" DeHaven said. "Like they say, 'You are a hero.' No, I was in the service with a lot of heroes. Everyone here is a hero, everyone on that wall is a hero."

DeHaven and Aumock are part of a group from the same unit that meets every month or so at a Roseville Applebees to reminisce and reconnect. But the passage of time has made for some interesting chance encounters on previous flights. On one, two vets in their 90s who had been in the same medical unit during the war discovered they had lived a quarter-mile from each other in Rochester for the past 60 years. Kyser recalls one of the vets dismissing the lost opportunities.

"I asked, 'Didn't your paths cross at all?' The guy said he never went down the other guy's street,'" Kyser said. "Then he added, 'Besides, he was Catholic, I was Lutheran.'"

Mark Brunswick • 651-222-1636