Welcome Home of Honor Flight Veterans: Awesome!

It was a giant pep rally with tears, ‘Taps’, color guards

If you want to go on an emotional high, just join the hundreds of people who gather to welcome home the Honor Flights which take the veterans of World War II to Washington DC to view their very own Memorial. There was a 98-year -old veteran on Saturday’s Honor Flight. The plane also held 108 veterans which left Rochester early in the morning and came home shortly after nine o’clock the same night. It was a long day, but the men and women coming off the plane were met with an enthusiastic crowd of family, friends and color guards from American Legion and VFW Posts from all over southern Minnesota. It was huge!

Families were advised to be at the airport about 8:30 Saturday evening, in contrast to the 5 a.m. roll call to board the plane that morning. But even getting to the airport near the 8:30 time seemed to be a late call since the lobby was already filled with color guards, a bagpiper band and people. They were everywhere. And the cheers were being shouted and the band was playing and the people were yelling, "Welcome Home!" But, this was just a practice session! How loud can you cheer? LOUD! Let’s hear it for these veterans who will be coming in this very door. And again, the cheers go up and the Welcome Home yells are passed down the line.

The chief cheerleader has a story to tell about how important it is to make this welcome home become a memory for these World War II veterans who were not welcomed home loudly at the end of the war. They came home, one by one, to their families, to their hometowns, and just went back to work, if they found a job. So, the cheerleader explains, this is the big "Welcome Home" that these veterans are finally getting. Tell them that. Tell them thanks for a job well done. And another cheer goes up and over the heads of the waiting crowd. Spotters keep an eye on the entrance from the airfield as the program goes on, and the bagpipers play, and the color guards stand waiting. Will they ever come?

And then, word is passed around. The plane has landed. With that, the official cheerleader hushes everyone as Taps is sounded from above the crowd and the tears are wiped away. This is the special time when all the veterans who have died are remembered with a moment of silence. It is dramatic and sad. A prayer is said for all the veterans, living and dead.