Back Home - Honor Flight

[Ironhorse]

Can't think of a more appropriate time to post some of the pics I took on my Kansas Honor Flight trip to Washington, DC. As I sit hear I just glanced at my watch and it is just a few minutes past 8:00 AM. Twenty years ago at this very time I was still working prior to retirement and watching live on the TV in our break room as the second aircraft slammed into the second of the two World Trade Center Towers. At the time no one knew we were witnessing our own "Pearl Harbor " moment but there was a sense that this was a moment we would not forget.

We departed Wichita Kansas early dark thirty Weds. morning and arrived back home just yesterday afternoon around 1:00 PM. A quick but very emotional and moving trip. As I post pics of our trip will most likely have to edit as I go to add a bit of a description and information during the thread.

The first pic is of the unloading the bus with one WW2 veteran, 95 years young, who fought on the beaches of Iwo Jima and later in the hills of Korea. There was also one other Korean War veteran and 32 Vietnam War veterans along with numerous "Guardians" who went along to aid and assist the less able bodied veterans who needed the use of a wheel chair to view the Memorials.

The second pic is of the arch entrance for the Pacific entrance to the WW2 Memorial. There is a Atlantic arch entrance at the opposite side of the Memorial but I neglected to get a pic of it. Sorry for that but there is just so much too see and the time constraints of keeping such a large group together was a bit over whelming as we attempted to see as much as possible in the time we had.

The third pic shows a stone column and laurel wreath depicting each of the individual states at the time of the war and the Atlantic arch entrance in the background. Fourth pic is a bit closer to those columns.

The fourth pic of this group showing a wall covered in gold stars each representing 100 American lives lost during the time period of WW2.