‘A healing time’: Honor Flight brings veterans of Vietnam, Korea and World War II to D.C.

WASHINGTON – Charlie Pase considers himself “unusually lucky.”

He was just 17 when he joined the Marine Corps in 1943, hoping to help free his older brother, a prisoner of war in Japan. In the years that followed, he survived the battles of Tarawa, Saipan, Tinian and Okinawa – despite being a machine gunner “right in the middle of it” – and stayed in Japan once World War II ended as part of the force that occupied Nagasaki after the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the city.

When he arrived on the National Mall on Thursday, now 99, Pase was the eldest of the 94 veterans who spent the day visiting memorials to those who have served in the U.S. military. He said the experience helped him reflect on his own life and the lives of his fellow veterans and their fallen comrades.

“It takes us back and gives us a sense of what this was all about. I think that, perhaps, is the most important thing,” Pase said. “I’m amazed at the friendship, and it makes you realize that it’s all been worth it and nothing is ever free.”

The trip was organized by Inland Northwest Honor Flight, which charters a plane from Spokane to the nation’s capital each year for scores of veterans – who travel free of charge – and volunteer “guardians” who accompany them. Tony Lamanna, who founded the nonprofit in 2009, said he and his team have organized about 50 of the trips, which began by taking smaller groups on more frequent commercial flights.

Thursday’s group included two World War II veterans, seven Korean War veterans and 85 veterans of the Vietnam War. The nonprofit gives priority to veterans of earlier wars and those with terminal illnesses.

At the World War II Memorial, Pase met Bill Beckstrom, who was also 17 when he joined the Navy in 1944 and served in the Battle of Okinawa.

Now 98, Beckstrom said he had never been to the eastern half of the United States and wishes he had made the trip sooner.

“I should have done it before,” he said. “I wasn’t going to come at all, but everyone wanted me to come so I finally said, ‘OK, let’s see how it goes.’ And I’m glad I did. It’s been wonderful.”

Norval Figy, 93, was one of the Korean War veterans who made the trip. He said he didn’t want to miss the chance to see the memorials for the first time in his life. His son Dan Figy, a fellow Air Force veteran, was one of the guardians who accompanied the veterans along with the nonprofit’s board, six medics, a comfort dog named Isaac and his handlers.

Mike Jones, a Navy veteran from Spokane Valley who has returned for multiple trips as a guardian since he benefitted from an Honor Flight himself, recalled taking a fellow Vietnam veteran a year earlier to the wall that bears the names of those who died in that war.

“He had a lot of trauma,” Jones said. “He left a lot of pain at that wall, like a lot of the vets do. It’s a healing time.”

As Beckstrom and Jones left the World War II Memorial and walked to their bus, they passed through a cheering group of students that applauded and waved signs that read “Thank You Veterans.” When the group disembarked at its next stop, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, some of the younger members remembered receiving a different welcome when they returned home from a war that much of the public opposed.

Gray Wolf, a member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians who also goes by Joseph Parker, grew up on the Qualla Reservation in North Carolina and joined the Army when he was 18. Staring at the thousands of names on the memorial wall, he said that in nearly eight years in Vietnam as a sniper and Special Forces soldier, he witnessed the deaths of so many of his comrades that he wasn’t sure which name to look for first.

The experience left him with severe post-traumatic stress disorder, he said. The attitude many Americans had toward Vietnam veterans made his return to the country he had left as a teenager even harder.

“People just don’t realize how much it rips somebody apart,” he said. “And then getting back here and getting called all kinds of names, spit on.”

As Gray Wolf stood in front of the wall, several children stopped to thank him for his service. After he thanked them in return and they moved on, he said the gesture touched his heart.

“It makes me feel a little bit better that some people care, but there’s still a lot of people that don’t give a crap about a Vietnam vet,” said Gray Wolf, who lives in Airway Heights.

Then, watching families strolling in front of the memorial, he said quietly, “I wish I could be as normal as they are.”

Also at the wall, Joe Hemmerich struggled to stand up from his wheelchair with the help of his son, Aaron. The Navy veteran, who lives in Colville, stretched to touch the name of Lloyd G. Howie, a friend whose story Hemmerich said he hadn’t told until that day.

In 1970, Hemmerich was working as a radar operator on the USS Bon Homme Richard, an aircraft carrier off the coast of Vietnam. Howie, who would chat with the younger Hemmerich in the combat information center, was flying a patrol mission in his F-8 Crusader that turned disastrous when he couldn’t safely land on the carrier’s deck and ran out of fuel, crashing into the sea.

When he recalled seeing his friend’s remains, Hemmerich broke down. Now battling advanced cancer that he believes is connected to his exposure to the herbicide Agent Orange, the Navy veteran said the trip was an opportunity to reconnect with that formative part of his life.