Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Okay, folks in America, we're back on the show. It's
your Sarge James Hemingway with Justin Leppard relead the way.
Today we have Naomi President of the Honor Flight of
Southwest Florida. How are you doing today? Naomi?
Speaker 2 (00:14):
I am good. How are you? Jay?
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Not too bad? Not too bad for you folks in
America land not familiar with Naomi and the organization. Basically,
they take our veterans to Washington, d C. For a
star studded event all day only to return back to
a complete welcoming party of our community here in Southwest Florida,
(00:39):
to basically welcome home those who have served our country.
But rather than have me explain it, Nami, won't you
explain yourself once again to those listeners who don't know
what you do.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Oh that's awesome, Thank you Jay.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
So.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Honor Flight Network was actually birthed twenty years ago this
May by a genius named Earl Morse. He worked with
some World War Two veterans as a physician's assistant and
he would meet them and see them and talk about
(01:12):
the World War Two memorial being built in Washington, d C.
Bob Dole was fundraising for it, and his simple question
to them was when it's built, will you go see it?
And they all heartily said yes they would, Yes they would,
and he would see that great generation a year later,
and they had never seen the memorial. So Earl was
(01:35):
a pilot in a little Cessna aircraft club and he
went to his friends and said, hey, you guys have
the airplanes. I have the veterans. If I can get them,
will you fly them? And a dozen pilots volunteered their
airplanes and flew about twenty four World War Two veterans
(01:55):
to Washington, d C. On May twenty first, two thousand
and five, and they toured them around their memorial and
honored them, and low and behold when they landed back
at the airport on the tarmac was the community to
welcome home that greatest generation, those World War Two veterans.
(02:16):
Earle came along a gentleman named Jeff Miller from Hendersonville,
North Carolina. And Jeff will tell you he's the business
end of it. Earle is the dreamer end of it.
And together they created this entire honor flight network which
Southwest Florida is has the utmost privilege of being a
(02:39):
part of there are one hundred and thirty hubs nationwide,
that's what we're called, including Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico.
Most trips are a one day up and back trip.
Once you get a little west of the Mississippi, they
turned into two days, and obviously Alaska, Hawaii, California those
(03:03):
are a three day Honor Flight trip to our nation's
capital to honor our veterans. And we are one of
ten hubs here in the state of Florida and Southwest Florida.
Honor Flight has the privilege of connecting with veterans from Charlotte, DeSoto, Hardy, Hendry, Highlands,
(03:28):
Manatee and Sarasota Counties and to date, we were just
at our national summit in February when the numbers were
revealed to us. To date, Earl and Jeff's dream has
flown three hundred and nineteen thousand veterans to be honored
at their memorials in our nation's capital and get the
(03:51):
welcome home they deserve. And there are still fifty thousand
veterans on the wait lists across the nation on the hub,
on the hub within the hubs, I should say we
have been working really, really hard the last three years
to get a lot of exposure for Southwest Florida. There's
about four hundred veterans that are on our weight list,
(04:12):
which is a small number compared to many of these
hubs that have you know, one thousand, two thousand, and
three thousand. So I don't want our veterans to be
afraid that four hundred is the number on our weightlist.
We want them to get their applications in in early.
There is kind of an order that we will call
(04:33):
our veterans to be on their honor flight and the
sooner you get your application in the higher up on
the waitlist.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
You are, oh, well, that's amazing.
Speaker 4 (04:46):
Yeah, I'm actually going on the next one with my wife,
who's also an Army veteran, and we're excited.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
I can't wait to get back and.
Speaker 4 (04:56):
Tell everyone what it was like, and you know, make
sure that we get moreeople out there.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Yeah, it's a really really special day. And I will
tell you Amanda, who who isn't with us today on
this show but is here with us. She uh, you know.
One of the big things that is really really important
to us in the Southwest Florida Honor Flight Hub is
honoring our female veterans. They have been a part of,
(05:28):
you know, our military system for generations and generations, and
they get overlooked and they we think of, you know,
the World War Two veterans will tell you that they
weren't appreciated and thanked. And and I know firsthand that
my father, who was a Korean Conflict army veteran in
the infantry UH literally came home on a train and
(05:52):
then very next day went to work. No one was
at the train station except for his mom and dad
to welcome him home from fighting in the Korean conflict.
And then you know, we you know, we hear from
our Vietnam veterans that they were spit on and called names,
and honestly, our women veterans have been treated the same
exact way. And I think as a nation, we need
(06:14):
to thank our veterans sincerely from our hearts, because they
are what keep us free and protect us against our enemies.
And you know, I've just heard stories and stories and
stories from girls that are you know, served in our
in our I got a niece in the Navy right now,
and it's hard. And so we also bump our women
(06:37):
female veterans in our hub up right up there with
our World War Two, our Korean veterans, and anyone that
has a terminal illness. My goal is always to take
at least twelve of women veterans with us on every flight,
and we honor them at the Military Women's Memorial. So
I am so excited that Amanda and you justin get
(06:58):
to experience your day of honor together.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
Oh yeah, no, it's going to be amazing. Yeah. So
my wife, Casey, she oh Casey Casey.
Speaker 4 (07:08):
Sorry, yeah, no, no, you're good because I know Amanda
and her husband are going as well. Yes, yeah, no,
my wife, Casey, she was in for nine years. She's
very humble about her service. She doesn't she doesn't like
to bring attention to herself, but I mean she's amazing.
I mean she's my rock, you know. And yeah heard
it for her to take the take advantage of the
(07:30):
opportunity to uh to get out there.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
I love it. So I'm I'm glad that I'm able
to tag along with her.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Well, and you are both veterans, so we are honoring
you both, and I think that that's important to share
because we have we're one of the last hubs in
in the network that had been allowing spouses or life
partners to go as guardians for their spouse veteran. We
(08:01):
made that really difficult decision and it's heart wrenching for us.
And you know, I hear from veterans, well, why can't
my wife go with me as my guardian. We're been
married fifty eight years. She served thirty of the years
with me as my wife was I was active duty.
And it's not an easy decision for us, but we
need our veterans to heal. Sometimes they say, hey, they
(08:25):
have a heart condition, Well, we take eight medics with us,
and a spouse is not going to save another you know,
a spouse from something happening. Our medics are going to
So we just have made a difficult decision to you know,
there's other ways that our spouses can have a significant
(08:47):
role in that day. And we're so excited that the
two of you, as honored veterans, are going to get
to be on your honor flight together.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (08:57):
No, me too, Thank you very much for the opportunity. Okay, So, Naomi,
I know that you try to prioritize. Are there any
World War Two veterans on this flight?
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Oh, that's a great question, and what I love about
Florida is I think our veterans from up north air
quotes up North, what happens is they moved to Florida
and they actually get healthier and live longer because we
you know, we live where everyone vacations in paradise, right,
(09:33):
And so what is super what has been really super
cool is for the past many flights, the last five
that I know of here in Southwest Florida, on our flight,
we've had at least three and up to seven World
War Two veterans on each flight. And this flight we
(09:55):
have not received any World War Two veteran applications yet.
I always say I do save back a couple of
seats for last minute editions of those World War Two heroes.
And so if there are any World War Two veterans
that have not been on their honored flight who are
(10:17):
in Southwest Florida, you heard me mention the seven counties,
we need you to get in touch with us. Submit
an application either on our website or please send us
an email, which you can find that on our website
which is s w s L Honor Flight dot org.
(10:42):
You can find our email address and our application. We
prioritize those World War Two veterans and we will get
them on the very next flight. And our next flight
is on Tuesday, April eighth, and we will be flying
from Punagor to Airport. And I will tell you this
is actually a really really special flight. I have friends.
(11:09):
I've been a part of Honor Flight Network since twenty ten,
first out of Honor Flight of the Quat Cities that
is my home hub right on the Illinois Iowa Missippi
River area between Chicago and Des Moines. And then I
moved to Florida eight years ago became involved with the
West Central Hub. And what is so cool is I've
(11:33):
had the privilege of knowing some folks over the course
of the years. And back in January, I received a
phone call from the chief of staff at Honor Flight Network.
And if they call you, you you know, make a
moment and you take that call. And they were asking
me about, you know, our fly. Do we take a
(11:54):
spring fly And the answer was yes, And how many
buses do we have? And we have four buses that
we charter for the one hundred and eighty three veterans
and guardians that we take with us on our flight
day and some hubs take you know, only thirty veterans
and thirty guardians and some take seventy and seventy and
(12:17):
we take one hundred and eighty three totals. So I
try to get as many veterans on the flight as
possible and then work from there with our guardians and
our staff. And she said, well, we have a national
sponsor that is looking to sponsor a four bus hub
(12:39):
and I said really, And she asked me how much
it costs for a flight, and for us, it's generally
anywhere from one hundred and nine to one hundred and
eighteen thousand dollars in expenses. I know it's crazy.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
I know.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
I can hear everybody saying, wow, yeah, that's true. And
me raise all of that money locally to take each flight.
And we have amazing organizations such as the rotary groups,
the Elks, the Knights of Columbus, Women's Garden clubs, Boys
(13:20):
and Girls Out Troops, families, generous people who know about
Honor Flight but have never served in the military. We'll
send us a twenty five dollars check here and there,
and that all adds up a few weeks.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
I'm sorry. So do you do fundraisers or we do
we do.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
We have, We do some fundraisers and I'll tell you
about those in a few minutes. So between all of
those donations and our fundraisers, we raised the money for
a flight. And Marion called me back about three weeks
later and said, your your hub has been chosen by
(14:03):
the national sponsor for their twenty twenty five flight out
of all one hundred and thirty hubs nationwide. And I
said really, and she said yes, the sponsor is Anheuser
Busch and I went, well, I mean, I just started crying.
I immediately had to get Alex, my vice president, on
(14:24):
the phone because I just I just got goosebumps again
sharing the story. And so Anne Heiser Bush is coming
alongside Southwest Florida on her flight to sponsor this flight
and our area everyone knows. In twenty twenty four, in
(14:44):
the period of September and October, we experienced three devastating
back to back from a tropical storm to two back
to back hurricanes, and our donors have donor fatigue because
they're just trying to recover from all three of those storms.
(15:07):
But it goes even back further than that to twenty
twenty two. For Charlotte County and Hurricane Ian And when
I explained that to the chief of staff, she took
that back to Anheuser Bush. And I've had multiple conversations
now with a couple of vice presidents within their organization
(15:27):
to get our April eighth flight a reality, and they
didn't know how impactful their sponsorship would be to our
veterans in Southwest Florida. So with that, we've had to
make a few changes because they want us to have
dinner with them in d C. And so for the
(15:49):
first time, we're gonna fly into Dulles and then from
there we're going to take our four buses and go
to downtown d C. We're gonna spend this same amount
of time honoring our veterans at the memorials that we
always have, and then we are going to go to
a location right across the street from the White House
(16:12):
and have dinner. There will be some folks from our
national Network leadership will be there to greet our veterans,
which has not ever happened for our hub. There will
be Anhuyser Busch executive, and there will be some I
believe some legislators there to say thank you folks that
(16:36):
have served themselves. So I'm excited to see who that is.
I don't know who any of the people are, but
it's a really special flight, which means on April eighth,
we're going to be landing more like ten o'clock ten
fifteen at night at Pontagorda Airport just because of some
additional time we've got to spend for our dinner. So
(16:56):
as far as fun, it is super are exciting. And
I tell you, every single time, they've got some surprises
for our veterans, and so I can't wait. And every
time I speak with them, which is about every other day,
the logistics to plan the flight is crazy. I am
so reinvigorated and re energized. And I'll tell you I
(17:20):
say that to our veterans and our guardians as I'm
making the confirmation calls, and every time we talk to
our veterans and our guardians, we just all get re
energized and reinvigorated. We're all volunteers. We do not get
paid for this at all. We work full time jobs.
Some of us are overachievers and work a part time
(17:41):
job on top of a full time job, on top
of honor flight. But busy people do busy things, I guess,
and it's all for our veterans. So for our fundraisers,
we think out of the box. And we have seven
counties to cover, and so we need to cover and
(18:02):
be accessible to our veterans in all seven of those
counties because not only is it about raising funds, sometimes
it's more about visibility and letting the community know, Hey,
Southwest Florida on or flight serves, you see Bring Florida,
LaBelle Florida and so Parish, Florida on top of you know,
(18:28):
Port Charlotte and Sarasota and Brandenton and all the big
towns that you sit here of immediately. And so we
are in the midst of a fundraiser for someone to
win a chance at an all expense paid trip for
two to Ireland for ten days. We have an amazing
(18:49):
partnership with Ireland US Experience and there are two hubs
in our network that you know, take a donation and
give a ticket and no donation is necessary also for
someone to win ten days in Ireland. And we're going
to do that drawing on March twenty sixth at eight
(19:12):
o'clock and it will be live on our Facebook page.
We're working on a car show at Seabring International Speedway,
so I'm hoping to have those plans firmed up here
this week. We are doing a clay shoot in June
for the first time at a location in Pantagorda, Florida.
(19:37):
And then we do some dining give back nights, you know,
partners like Texas Roadhouse Freddays. We just did a great
one at Anna Maria Oyster Bar here in Sarasota. So
we've got lots of different ways and we are always
in need of people that want to come alongside of us.
So if you are a small business owner and are
(19:58):
willing to do a give back night, you know, please
email us. We're interested in interested in collaborating with you together.
Speaker 4 (20:07):
So I know that there is a meeting on March
twenty sixth, So if there's like a veteran owned business
that wants to get involved, would it be a good
idea for them to be at that meeting or yes?
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Yes, I will tell you Three years ago, right before
I became president, we had our monthly Hub meetings is
what it's called. We had twelve people that would come
to that meeting and through a series of events, I
became president in June of twenty two, and we just
(20:47):
started thinking out of the box. And I hope that
people think I'm a fun person. I love to have fun,
I love to laugh and I laugh at myself, and
so we just started having fun at our meetings and
they just started growing to the point we outgrew. There
was actually also a hurricane that came and wiped out
the meeting space unfortunately that we were meeting in. So
(21:10):
we moved to another training conference room location and we
would have thirty and forty and fifty and sixty and
seventy people attend our monthly hub meeting. We outgrew that
place and so we are meeting. We meet the fourth
Wednesday of every month and it is at seven pm
(21:32):
and it is open to the public, and we love
veterans to come. We love any business or organization that
wants to learn more about Honor Fly and how to
collaborate and come together for our veterans. Is usually about
an hour and fifteen minutes and it is at Kingsgate
(21:53):
Golf Club off of Rampart Boulevard and King's Highway in
Port Charlotte. And I will tell you we have anywhere
from eighty to one hundred and fifteen people that consistently
show up month after months to our meetings. They are informative,
they are lots of fun. Again, I like to have fun.
(22:17):
We have fifty drawing so we just have a lot
of fun things. And we would love to meet any
veteran that's not been on their honor flight yet. We've
got applications. We always are in need of guardians, and
our guardians pay a portion of their way to come
serve a veteran Our Greatest Treasures on their honor flight.
(22:40):
So we are always accepting applications for guardians as well,
and we share information about everything about our upcoming flight.
So March twenty six, seven pm Kingsgate Golf Club, Import Charlotte.
You can also find information out about it on our
Facebook page and our website.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
So I have a question about the guardians. So if.
Speaker 4 (23:04):
So, the guardians pay, but do fundraisers offset that or
how does that work?
Speaker 2 (23:12):
Yeah? So yes they do, because the the nominal fee
that our guardians pay to be a guardian to serve
our Greatest Treasures is nowhere near actually what the cost
of their seat on the plane and their bus and
their food and the shirts is. So a lot of
(23:34):
hubs have a very small fee of like one hundred
dollars because they have these crazy organizations and companies and
I mean professional sports teams sponsor some of the hubs
in you know areas like Milwaukee and Chicago and Indianapolis
(23:54):
and in Buffalo. So you know, there's a lot of
money that infiltrates in these hubs in some of these areas.
We don't have that yet. We don't have that yet,
and so we are looking for that organization that wants
to come along and be our transportation provider sponsor, which
(24:19):
would be you know, sponsoring our aircraft, which is tens
of thousands of dollars, our buses, you know, the day
of transportation. So I'll tell you Kingsgate and the Friends
of the Kingdom have been a fantastic sponsor, if you will,
of Honor flight. They let us meet in their ballroom
(24:41):
at no cost. So we put their logo up and
let everyone know that they are a sponsor of Unterfly
of Southwest Florida on our flight. And then we have
other organizations that will make you know, some donations, so
we make sure people get their recognition. But we don't
don't have a significant Anheuser Bush is honestly the first
(25:05):
national sponsor or large sponsorship that has come along beside
us to help underwrite an honor flight for us. So
once we start getting you know, those bigger sponsorships, we
will be able to make the guardian fees less and
less and less. But we're not there yet.
Speaker 4 (25:26):
But even though a guardian has to pay out of
pocket once, once you break it down, they're still getting
a really good deal.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
I mean, besides the you know, just the.
Speaker 4 (25:37):
Honor, for lack of a better word, the honor of
being able to do it like that, it's still.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
A low cost for them.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Well, I will share with you this. This flight on
April eighth is personally my twenty fourth honor flight, fifteen
of those times I paid my own way to have
the immense privilege of serving as a guardian for a
(26:11):
veteran that I had never met before orientation. And so
what you pay, in my opinion, is nominal to what
you receive on that day and the life long connection
that you have with that veteran and their family for
(26:33):
the following years. And excuse me as I'm talking to
veterans and guardians and sharing information and presentations. I will
tell you it is an immense privilege. I have shared
the happiest of times with my veterans and their families
that I've served, and I've shared very, very sad times
(26:54):
with them. And I will tell you from our summit
in February, we were delayed. There was four of us
from our hub that went to the conference, and our
flight was delayed, and we're sitting at at Reagan International
Downtown d C. And all of a sudden, I see
Jeff Miller come walking by and I'm like, Jeff, come
(27:16):
have a seat with us. You're waiting for your flight,
and he's like, yeah, it's got delayed, and I'm like, yeah,
ours has two And we just started talking and just
asking him questions to learn more, like tell us more,
tell us more. And he said, you know, I'll tell
you I have met so many veterans, and so many
(27:36):
veterans and their families have wanted us, you know, hey,
my dad's in hospice. Can you come come be with us?
And he said I had to stop doing that because
the pain of losing that veteran just overcame him every
single time. And I will tell you. That happened to
(27:58):
me recently in our I call it our up number flight.
We were supposed to fly in October of twenty four
got delayed to November because of the hurricane, and we
had just I had made a really special connection with
this one particular veteran and who became their guardian, and
(28:21):
we got on our fly, had the best day ever.
They were on my bus. We we just became fast friends,
and that's what happens. And after the fly, you know,
I hug every veteran and tell them thank you and
welcome home. And there was this tears coming down this
one veteran's face, and I knew he had been very
sick and had stopped his cancer treatments back in the summer.
(28:46):
And you know, then you go about your life. And
I was at work one day and got a text
message and said, hey, Naomi, I know you will want
to know this, but so and so so it is
in hospice. And I knew you would want to know that,
and they would want you to know that as well.
(29:07):
And I got myself together after crying for a moment,
and said can I call you? And the person said, yes,
you can, and I called them and I said, can
I come see to him? And they said yes, please,
and I'll send you where they're at. And I said,
I will tell you. I just unloaded six hundred Christmas
(29:28):
trees onto a Christmas tree lot for the organization I
work for. I smell like a Christmas tree and they're like,
don't worry. Come And I raced to the hospice house,
went into the room and got on my knees and
just held the hand of that veteran who was unconscious
(29:50):
and shed tears and talked to them and just thanked
them for their service and thanked them and thanked them
and thanked them. And I got up after a while
and sat in a chair for a minute and then
walked out to the front door and we hugged, and
I just let them know how loved they were, and
(30:10):
I loved and I just felt I needed to come
to Sarasota National Cemetery, where my mom and dad are interned,
and spend a moment with them, And got back into
my car after spending some time with them to find
another text that the veteran had passed away. In between
my leaving and getting to National Cemetery. They had passed away,
(30:34):
and I was so honored and privileged that that connection
I had with that veteran was so important that they
felt they I could be with them in that moment.
And that is the privilege our guardians get to serve
our veterans on an on or flight day. It doesn't
(30:56):
matter if it's one hundred dollars. There are some hubs
there a seventeen dollars guardian fee. It is more than
worth that in what you received back from spending that
time with that veteran on their honor.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
Flight, right, Yeah, you can't put a price on that,
for sure.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
It is such a blessing.
Speaker 4 (31:15):
Yes, Is there anything so Amanda and I have talked
about this, Is there anything available for those who can't
make the flight? Have you ever thought about anything like that,
like maybe doing like a tour taking them to the.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
Wall here in Point of Gorda or anything like that.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
So what's really really cool is actually our hub owns
two sets of virtual reality glasses, and I know a
couple of hubs do what they call an honor flight
at home and we That is one of my goals
and aspirations. I'll tell you I had a lot to
(32:04):
do to get our hub back to where we should
be visible in our communities honoring our veterans on their
one honor flight, not multiple. And I just haven't had
a chance yet to get that program up and running,
but it is a goal of ours for twenty twenty
(32:25):
five twenty twenty six to get an Honor Flight at
home program going for Southwest Florida Honor Flight. We have
had a couple of veterans in the previous years be
in a hospice house and not able to actually fly
on their honor fly. And I know our hub has
(32:45):
taken those virtual reality goggles and that veteran has been
able to experience the memorials from the World War Two
to the Korean and Vietnam Wall, to Arlington and the
Changing of the Guard. It's a Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers,
to the Women's Military Memorial, to the Air Force Memorial,
(33:06):
to the Naval Memorial and more so that is something
that's on my radar for in the near very near future. Also,
we have a thing a program called Flags of Our Heroes,
and what that is is we take four flags with
(33:27):
us on each and every flight and we honor and
it's a World War Two veteran, a Korean veteran, a
Vietnam veteran, and a female veteran if there is one.
If not, it's a force veteran from any era who
has not been on their honor flight and they passed
(33:49):
away before they were able to make their flight. And
so if you have a flag of a hero who
has not been on their honor flight, please email us
and we will connect with you again. We only take
four flags on every flight because oh man, we could
take dozens and dozens, and then we just want it
(34:09):
to be extra special that flag is honored. All of
our veterans pass those flags as they board our aircraft.
It is the last thing that we put on our aircraft.
They have a very special place of honor on the airplane.
It is the first thing that we unload, and we
(34:31):
process from the back of the aircraft to the front
with these four flags, and they are at the gate
as every veteran goes past. So it is a super
huge thing for us. And then we do a flag
fold at that memorial for them and honor them, and
so we want a picture of them from their time
and the service and their flag, and then we want
(34:53):
you to be back at the airport so that when
we come home, they're the first flags off and lead
our person ussion and are handed back over to the family.
So super super cool thing that we do.
Speaker 4 (35:08):
So speaking of the coming home ceremony, so what exactly
does that entail? And if I'm if I'm just Joe public,
but I want to get involved?
Speaker 3 (35:18):
Uh, how can I be a part of it?
Speaker 4 (35:20):
How do I attend the coming home?
Speaker 2 (35:25):
Yeah? Absolutely, So we'd love for this to be a
surprise for our veterans, and we do talk about it
generally with with our our friends, our our our veterans
that are coming on the flight, and I know through
the awe of the day they tend to forget what's
at the airport when they come home. And so we
(35:48):
invite the community, neighbors, friends, strangers, church groups, boy Scout groups, girls, Uh,
I mean legions, Lions clubs, please come to Puntagorda Airport
on Tuesday, April eighth. I think you'll want to be
(36:09):
there by nine o'clock PM. I know, my Welcome home
and send off coordinator, Carolyn Laski has a great group
of people lined up. There'll be some music, music, there'll
be I think a couple of food trucks. There will
be just this overwhelming sense of patriotism from these patriotic
(36:32):
Americans coming to say welcome home to our veterans. And
we call it Operation Welcome Homes. She has a whole
parade route through the airport and in front of the
airport mapped out. Please wear your patriotic colors of red, white,
or blue. It's not required, but it's a bunch of
(36:55):
patriots coming together to say welcome home to our greatest treasures.
We love it when you make welcome home posters, when
you have pom poms. But if you are a service organization,
I think of the high schoolers. I know they need
so many community service hours to graduate. This is a
great way to get some volunteer hours helping welcome home
(37:19):
our veterans again. Tuesday, April eighth, we expect our plane,
depending on the plans right now, to land somewhere between
ninety five and ten o'clock. But I promise you will
want to come in advance of that. Wear comfortable shoes
because you are going to be standing. There's not a
(37:41):
lot of seating areas at Pontagorda Airport, so I know
you know, if you want to bring a little lawn
chair or something, you're more than welcome to do that.
We'll have a lot of space out front of the airport.
There are hundreds of community members that show up for us,
and this is not going to be any different of
a flight. We're just a smidge later in the evening,
(38:03):
but we've been late before and we've still had a
massive crowd there, So please come out, thank our veterans.
And it is open to the public.
Speaker 4 (38:13):
So I can say from personal experience coming back from
deployment from Iraq or Kuwait or Guitar even when you
get back to the States, when you get back to
your first airport in the United.
Speaker 3 (38:30):
States, you'll have like five people.
Speaker 4 (38:32):
From the USO, you know, at the airport USO standing
at the gate and welcoming you back, and.
Speaker 3 (38:39):
Like you're all together. So you're a little bit like.
Speaker 4 (38:46):
You know, I'm too cool for this whatever, But then
like at the same time, it's it's very powerful, and
it's even though it's a small group of people, like
it's very powerful. So I'm really looking forward to it
experiencing that again. And just I feel like this is
(39:09):
going to be on a much grander scale, and I
really don't know how I'm going to be myself. So
I'm looking forward to this opportunity. And I'm sure that
a lot of the Vietnam era veterans who who have
never experienced that at all, I know that that's going
to be very moving.
Speaker 3 (39:32):
So so I'm excited to be a part of that
for sure.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
And it is. And I will tell you I have
two sons who are now Navy veterans, but one of
my sons. Both of my sons have been on honor
flights and ben guardians with me with the couple of
hubs that I've been a part of. And my oldest son,
it was in the Navy on submarines, and he came,
(39:59):
I believe in the spring of twenty twenty two, it
might have been spring of twenty twenty three, came on
that flight, got leave, came served as a guardian to
a Vietnam veteran. Had an amazing day. We get back
to Pontagorda Airport and this Vietnam veteran is walking with
(40:19):
my son and they're just they're just chatting, making small
talk as they talk, and this veteran hits the doors
at an Agorda Airport and sees people and starts crying.
And he turns to my son and in tears says, wow,
(40:42):
I never expected this. And my son just puts his
arm around him and gives him a side hug and
holds him and keeps walking with him about five more steps,
and the gentleman stopped again and turned to my son
and said, Nick, I expected the US in nineteen sixty
nine and is in full on falling tiers. It's that
(41:08):
moment that makes it all worth everything we do, the
hundreds and hundreds of hours that I spend making phone calls,
preparing for meetings, going to fundraisers, that my entire board
of fourteen volunteers spend hundreds of hours out in the
(41:28):
community sharing information about on or flight, preparing medics to
serve our veterans, and making sure we have bandages and
band aids. It's death is what it's all about, and
so it's a big, big change maker. If you can
show up to the airport to just say thank you,
(41:51):
those veterans see you and are appreciative more than that
is one of the last things that they will ever remember,
and they talk about it until their last breath.
Speaker 4 (42:03):
Right, So do you have any kind of like tracking
mechanism to to know what veterans we have here in Florida?
Speaker 3 (42:13):
I know the VA.
Speaker 4 (42:15):
Tracks it, but like there's no World War Two veterans
on this flight.
Speaker 3 (42:19):
Do you know? Do you know how we still have
out there?
Speaker 2 (42:25):
Or we do? And I'll tell you my database manager
has those numbers because she just gave them to me.
She was on the Veterans Florida's veterans website. And there
are like eight hundred and six World War two veterans
that live in the seven counties we serve now a
(42:47):
couple of them. I know of one hundred and four
year old that's World War two veteran that lives in Arcadia,
and I we just sometimes they just we can't get
them on the flight because sometimes the pysically they can't go,
time wise, they can't go. And you know there's like
thirty or forty thousand Korean veterans in like just a
(43:10):
couple of counties. We know that there are about one
hundred thousand veterans in Charlotte, DeSoto, Hardy, Henry, Highlands, Manitee,
and Sarasota counties. And in just Sarasota and Manitee County alone,
there's eighty thousand veterans. And that brings me to what
(43:32):
we're really excited about is on our fall flight, which
is on October fourteenth, twenty twenty five, we will be
flying from Sarasota International Airport and that is huge for
our hub. So we are taking our spring flight from
(43:54):
Ponta Gorda and then this fall flight will be from
Sarasota International Airport. And I want everyone to know it's
not because Sarasota Airport hasn't wanted to host us. They
have wanted to for years and years and years. We
have just finally been able to make it happen. We
have quite a few veterans on our waitlist right now
(44:17):
that are from Sarasota, Bradenton Parish, Ellington, Anna, Maria Island, Osprey, Nacomas,
and Lakewood Ranch. We are looking for more, but what
we need more to make this happen is volunteers from Sarasota, Bradenton,
Lakewood Ranch. It takes an army of volunteers to pull
(44:41):
off a flight when we return, and we need your help,
so please reach out to us email us. We are
looking for rotary clubs kawanis clubs, church groups, neighborhood associations, hoas,
school groups who help us get this October fourteenth flight
(45:02):
off of the ground from Sarasota Airport. We also are
monthly hub meetings are also on Zoom virtually, and so
if you are in that you know, if you can't
make it all the way to Port Charlotte, but you
want to be a part, please email us and we'll
make sure you get the Zoom link to join us
on our meeting and then connect with us afterwards.
Speaker 4 (45:23):
So when do you start planning for the October flight?
Is that time now?
Speaker 2 (45:28):
Yeah? I already I'm already planning for it. We already know.
I already have aircrafts and buses. We already have everything
the logistics. I just now need to find volunteers and organizations.
One thing that we're looking for is a place to
host our guardian training and our orientation. We need a
(45:49):
ballroom for free, at no cost, because if we have
to pay for a ballroom or a meeting room, that
just means it's that many less veterans we can fly,
and so we really focus our finances on flying our
veterans rather than playing paying for meeting spaces. So if
(46:14):
you are in Sarasota or Bradington and you have a
ballroom that can accommodate a couple one hundred people, it's
usually about three hundred and fifty people, please reach out
to me. We are we need we have that orientation
where we bring the guardians and veterans together about two
weeks before flight day. It can be a Saturday morning,
(46:35):
it can be a Sunday afternoon, and we need we're
looking for you, So please, that's a great way to
collaborate with us. We will make sure we acknowledge you
and let everyone know. Like I you know, have shared earlier.
Kingsgate has been a great partner for us. They give
us our meeting spaces at no cost.
Speaker 3 (46:55):
I'm sorry, and tell us again how they can reach
out to you.
Speaker 2 (47:00):
Email is f w f L Honor Flight at gmail
dot com, or you can go to our website s
w f L Honorflight dot org. If you can't remember
all of that, just google Southwest Florida Honor Flight and
(47:21):
our website will show up for you.
Speaker 3 (47:24):
Okay, awesome, thank you very much.
Speaker 4 (47:27):
Yeah, so the we're about to wrap it up here,
but yes, the the Honor flight at home. I'm really
interested in getting involved in that and hopefully some of
those veterans that are not necessarily homebound but can't make
the flight, hopefully we can we can get out on
(47:47):
the sticks and start.
Speaker 3 (47:48):
Getting them involved.
Speaker 2 (47:50):
The West Central Hub up in St. Pete does a
fantastic job of that, and we will be meeting with
them to learn how they do it. It's basically like
our orientation. It's just you know, they do it. I
think from like ten to three, they do a meal,
(48:11):
they do the welcome home. It's kind of a whole
big thing. So I'm all about working smarter and not
happen to reinvent the wheel when there's been some of
our hubs that have done it very well, learning from them,
and I would love your help because I just can't
do it all justin and I just don't have the bandwidth.
(48:34):
And while we're trying to do all these fundraisers and
raise funds to get a flight off the ground, something
has to I don't want to say something has to
go by the wayside, but we just haven't been able
to execute it yet. So I need volunteers to help
with that, and that is one huge way that can
be a man a major impact and I would love
your health.
Speaker 4 (48:54):
Okay, awesome, well alrighty, all right, so we've been talking
to Naomi Copeland from Southwest Honor Flight and like I said,
if you can, please get out to the point of
go to airport on April the eighth for the welcome
home ceremony.
Speaker 3 (49:12):
And it's been great talking to you.
Speaker 2 (49:14):
Thank you so much, we really appreciate it, and thank
you everyone for listening.
Speaker 3 (49:19):
Okay, thanks, bye bye,
Okay, folks in America, we're back on the show. It's
your Sarge James Hemingway with Justin Leppard relead the way.
Today we have Naomi President of the Honor Flight of
Southwest Florida. How are you doing today? Naomi?
Speaker 2 (00:14):
I am good. How are you? Jay?
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Not too bad? Not too bad for you folks in
America land not familiar with Naomi and the organization. Basically,
they take our veterans to Washington, d C. For a
star studded event all day only to return back to
a complete welcoming party of our community here in Southwest Florida,
(00:39):
to basically welcome home those who have served our country.
But rather than have me explain it, Nami, won't you
explain yourself once again to those listeners who don't know
what you do.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Oh that's awesome, Thank you Jay.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
So.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Honor Flight Network was actually birthed twenty years ago this
May by a genius named Earl Morse. He worked with
some World War Two veterans as a physician's assistant and
he would meet them and see them and talk about
(01:12):
the World War Two memorial being built in Washington, d C.
Bob Dole was fundraising for it, and his simple question
to them was when it's built, will you go see it?
And they all heartily said yes they would, Yes they would,
and he would see that great generation a year later,
and they had never seen the memorial. So Earl was
(01:35):
a pilot in a little Cessna aircraft club and he
went to his friends and said, hey, you guys have
the airplanes. I have the veterans. If I can get them,
will you fly them? And a dozen pilots volunteered their
airplanes and flew about twenty four World War Two veterans
(01:55):
to Washington, d C. On May twenty first, two thousand
and five, and they toured them around their memorial and
honored them, and low and behold when they landed back
at the airport on the tarmac was the community to
welcome home that greatest generation, those World War Two veterans.
(02:16):
Earle came along a gentleman named Jeff Miller from Hendersonville,
North Carolina. And Jeff will tell you he's the business
end of it. Earle is the dreamer end of it.
And together they created this entire honor flight network which
Southwest Florida is has the utmost privilege of being a
(02:39):
part of there are one hundred and thirty hubs nationwide,
that's what we're called, including Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico.
Most trips are a one day up and back trip.
Once you get a little west of the Mississippi, they
turned into two days, and obviously Alaska, Hawaii, California those
(03:03):
are a three day Honor Flight trip to our nation's
capital to honor our veterans. And we are one of
ten hubs here in the state of Florida and Southwest Florida.
Honor Flight has the privilege of connecting with veterans from Charlotte, DeSoto, Hardy, Hendry, Highlands,
(03:28):
Manatee and Sarasota Counties and to date, we were just
at our national summit in February when the numbers were
revealed to us. To date, Earl and Jeff's dream has
flown three hundred and nineteen thousand veterans to be honored
at their memorials in our nation's capital and get the
(03:51):
welcome home they deserve. And there are still fifty thousand
veterans on the wait lists across the nation on the hub,
on the hub within the hubs, I should say we
have been working really, really hard the last three years
to get a lot of exposure for Southwest Florida. There's
about four hundred veterans that are on our weight list,
(04:12):
which is a small number compared to many of these
hubs that have you know, one thousand, two thousand, and
three thousand. So I don't want our veterans to be
afraid that four hundred is the number on our weightlist.
We want them to get their applications in in early.
There is kind of an order that we will call
(04:33):
our veterans to be on their honor flight and the
sooner you get your application in the higher up on
the waitlist.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
You are, oh, well, that's amazing.
Speaker 4 (04:46):
Yeah, I'm actually going on the next one with my wife,
who's also an Army veteran, and we're excited.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
I can't wait to get back and.
Speaker 4 (04:56):
Tell everyone what it was like, and you know, make
sure that we get moreeople out there.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Yeah, it's a really really special day. And I will
tell you Amanda, who who isn't with us today on
this show but is here with us. She uh, you know.
One of the big things that is really really important
to us in the Southwest Florida Honor Flight Hub is
honoring our female veterans. They have been a part of,
(05:28):
you know, our military system for generations and generations, and
they get overlooked and they we think of, you know,
the World War Two veterans will tell you that they
weren't appreciated and thanked. And and I know firsthand that
my father, who was a Korean Conflict army veteran in
the infantry UH literally came home on a train and
(05:52):
then very next day went to work. No one was
at the train station except for his mom and dad
to welcome him home from fighting in the Korean conflict.
And then you know, we you know, we hear from
our Vietnam veterans that they were spit on and called names,
and honestly, our women veterans have been treated the same
exact way. And I think as a nation, we need
(06:14):
to thank our veterans sincerely from our hearts, because they
are what keep us free and protect us against our enemies.
And you know, I've just heard stories and stories and
stories from girls that are you know, served in our
in our I got a niece in the Navy right now,
and it's hard. And so we also bump our women
(06:37):
female veterans in our hub up right up there with
our World War Two, our Korean veterans, and anyone that
has a terminal illness. My goal is always to take
at least twelve of women veterans with us on every flight,
and we honor them at the Military Women's Memorial. So
I am so excited that Amanda and you justin get
(06:58):
to experience your day of honor together.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
Oh yeah, no, it's going to be amazing. Yeah. So
my wife, Casey, she oh Casey Casey.
Speaker 4 (07:08):
Sorry, yeah, no, no, you're good because I know Amanda
and her husband are going as well. Yes, yeah, no,
my wife, Casey, she was in for nine years. She's
very humble about her service. She doesn't she doesn't like
to bring attention to herself, but I mean she's amazing.
I mean she's my rock, you know. And yeah heard
it for her to take the take advantage of the
(07:30):
opportunity to uh to get out there.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
I love it. So I'm I'm glad that I'm able
to tag along with her.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Well, and you are both veterans, so we are honoring
you both, and I think that that's important to share
because we have we're one of the last hubs in
in the network that had been allowing spouses or life
partners to go as guardians for their spouse veteran. We
(08:01):
made that really difficult decision and it's heart wrenching for us.
And you know, I hear from veterans, well, why can't
my wife go with me as my guardian. We're been
married fifty eight years. She served thirty of the years
with me as my wife was I was active duty.
And it's not an easy decision for us, but we
need our veterans to heal. Sometimes they say, hey, they
(08:25):
have a heart condition, Well, we take eight medics with us,
and a spouse is not going to save another you know,
a spouse from something happening. Our medics are going to
So we just have made a difficult decision to you know,
there's other ways that our spouses can have a significant
(08:47):
role in that day. And we're so excited that the
two of you, as honored veterans, are going to get
to be on your honor flight together.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (08:57):
No, me too, Thank you very much for the opportunity. Okay, So, Naomi,
I know that you try to prioritize. Are there any
World War Two veterans on this flight?
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Oh, that's a great question, and what I love about
Florida is I think our veterans from up north air
quotes up North, what happens is they moved to Florida
and they actually get healthier and live longer because we
you know, we live where everyone vacations in paradise, right,
(09:33):
And so what is super what has been really super
cool is for the past many flights, the last five
that I know of here in Southwest Florida, on our flight,
we've had at least three and up to seven World
War Two veterans on each flight. And this flight we
(09:55):
have not received any World War Two veteran applications yet.
I always say I do save back a couple of
seats for last minute editions of those World War Two heroes.
And so if there are any World War Two veterans
that have not been on their honored flight who are
(10:17):
in Southwest Florida, you heard me mention the seven counties,
we need you to get in touch with us. Submit
an application either on our website or please send us
an email, which you can find that on our website
which is s w s L Honor Flight dot org.
(10:42):
You can find our email address and our application. We
prioritize those World War Two veterans and we will get
them on the very next flight. And our next flight
is on Tuesday, April eighth, and we will be flying
from Punagor to Airport. And I will tell you this
is actually a really really special flight. I have friends.
(11:09):
I've been a part of Honor Flight Network since twenty ten,
first out of Honor Flight of the Quat Cities that
is my home hub right on the Illinois Iowa Missippi
River area between Chicago and Des Moines. And then I
moved to Florida eight years ago became involved with the
West Central Hub. And what is so cool is I've
(11:33):
had the privilege of knowing some folks over the course
of the years. And back in January, I received a
phone call from the chief of staff at Honor Flight Network.
And if they call you, you you know, make a
moment and you take that call. And they were asking
me about, you know, our fly. Do we take a
(11:54):
spring fly And the answer was yes, And how many
buses do we have? And we have four buses that
we charter for the one hundred and eighty three veterans
and guardians that we take with us on our flight
day and some hubs take you know, only thirty veterans
and thirty guardians and some take seventy and seventy and
(12:17):
we take one hundred and eighty three totals. So I
try to get as many veterans on the flight as
possible and then work from there with our guardians and
our staff. And she said, well, we have a national
sponsor that is looking to sponsor a four bus hub
(12:39):
and I said really, And she asked me how much
it costs for a flight, and for us, it's generally
anywhere from one hundred and nine to one hundred and
eighteen thousand dollars in expenses. I know it's crazy.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
I know.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
I can hear everybody saying, wow, yeah, that's true. And
me raise all of that money locally to take each flight.
And we have amazing organizations such as the rotary groups,
the Elks, the Knights of Columbus, Women's Garden clubs, Boys
(13:20):
and Girls Out Troops, families, generous people who know about
Honor Flight but have never served in the military. We'll
send us a twenty five dollars check here and there,
and that all adds up a few weeks.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
I'm sorry. So do you do fundraisers or we do
we do.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
We have, We do some fundraisers and I'll tell you
about those in a few minutes. So between all of
those donations and our fundraisers, we raised the money for
a flight. And Marion called me back about three weeks
later and said, your your hub has been chosen by
(14:03):
the national sponsor for their twenty twenty five flight out
of all one hundred and thirty hubs nationwide. And I
said really, and she said yes, the sponsor is Anheuser
Busch and I went, well, I mean, I just started crying.
I immediately had to get Alex, my vice president, on
(14:24):
the phone because I just I just got goosebumps again
sharing the story. And so Anne Heiser Bush is coming
alongside Southwest Florida on her flight to sponsor this flight
and our area everyone knows. In twenty twenty four, in
(14:44):
the period of September and October, we experienced three devastating
back to back from a tropical storm to two back
to back hurricanes, and our donors have donor fatigue because
they're just trying to recover from all three of those storms.
(15:07):
But it goes even back further than that to twenty
twenty two. For Charlotte County and Hurricane Ian And when
I explained that to the chief of staff, she took
that back to Anheuser Bush. And I've had multiple conversations
now with a couple of vice presidents within their organization
(15:27):
to get our April eighth flight a reality, and they
didn't know how impactful their sponsorship would be to our
veterans in Southwest Florida. So with that, we've had to
make a few changes because they want us to have
dinner with them in d C. And so for the
(15:49):
first time, we're gonna fly into Dulles and then from
there we're going to take our four buses and go
to downtown d C. We're gonna spend this same amount
of time honoring our veterans at the memorials that we
always have, and then we are going to go to
a location right across the street from the White House
(16:12):
and have dinner. There will be some folks from our
national Network leadership will be there to greet our veterans,
which has not ever happened for our hub. There will
be Anhuyser Busch executive, and there will be some I
believe some legislators there to say thank you folks that
(16:36):
have served themselves. So I'm excited to see who that is.
I don't know who any of the people are, but
it's a really special flight, which means on April eighth,
we're going to be landing more like ten o'clock ten
fifteen at night at Pontagorda Airport just because of some
additional time we've got to spend for our dinner. So
(16:56):
as far as fun, it is super are exciting. And
I tell you, every single time, they've got some surprises
for our veterans, and so I can't wait. And every
time I speak with them, which is about every other day,
the logistics to plan the flight is crazy. I am
so reinvigorated and re energized. And I'll tell you I
(17:20):
say that to our veterans and our guardians as I'm
making the confirmation calls, and every time we talk to
our veterans and our guardians, we just all get re
energized and reinvigorated. We're all volunteers. We do not get
paid for this at all. We work full time jobs.
Some of us are overachievers and work a part time
(17:41):
job on top of a full time job, on top
of honor flight. But busy people do busy things, I guess,
and it's all for our veterans. So for our fundraisers,
we think out of the box. And we have seven
counties to cover, and so we need to cover and
(18:02):
be accessible to our veterans in all seven of those
counties because not only is it about raising funds, sometimes
it's more about visibility and letting the community know, Hey,
Southwest Florida on or flight serves, you see Bring Florida,
LaBelle Florida and so Parish, Florida on top of you know,
(18:28):
Port Charlotte and Sarasota and Brandenton and all the big
towns that you sit here of immediately. And so we
are in the midst of a fundraiser for someone to
win a chance at an all expense paid trip for
two to Ireland for ten days. We have an amazing
(18:49):
partnership with Ireland US Experience and there are two hubs
in our network that you know, take a donation and
give a ticket and no donation is necessary also for
someone to win ten days in Ireland. And we're going
to do that drawing on March twenty sixth at eight
(19:12):
o'clock and it will be live on our Facebook page.
We're working on a car show at Seabring International Speedway,
so I'm hoping to have those plans firmed up here
this week. We are doing a clay shoot in June
for the first time at a location in Pantagorda, Florida.
(19:37):
And then we do some dining give back nights, you know,
partners like Texas Roadhouse Freddays. We just did a great
one at Anna Maria Oyster Bar here in Sarasota. So
we've got lots of different ways and we are always
in need of people that want to come alongside of us.
So if you are a small business owner and are
(19:58):
willing to do a give back night, you know, please
email us. We're interested in interested in collaborating with you together.
Speaker 4 (20:07):
So I know that there is a meeting on March
twenty sixth, So if there's like a veteran owned business
that wants to get involved, would it be a good
idea for them to be at that meeting or yes?
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Yes, I will tell you Three years ago, right before
I became president, we had our monthly Hub meetings is
what it's called. We had twelve people that would come
to that meeting and through a series of events, I
became president in June of twenty two, and we just
(20:47):
started thinking out of the box. And I hope that
people think I'm a fun person. I love to have fun,
I love to laugh and I laugh at myself, and
so we just started having fun at our meetings and
they just started growing to the point we outgrew. There
was actually also a hurricane that came and wiped out
the meeting space unfortunately that we were meeting in. So
(21:10):
we moved to another training conference room location and we
would have thirty and forty and fifty and sixty and
seventy people attend our monthly hub meeting. We outgrew that
place and so we are meeting. We meet the fourth
Wednesday of every month and it is at seven pm
(21:32):
and it is open to the public, and we love
veterans to come. We love any business or organization that
wants to learn more about Honor Fly and how to
collaborate and come together for our veterans. Is usually about
an hour and fifteen minutes and it is at Kingsgate
(21:53):
Golf Club off of Rampart Boulevard and King's Highway in
Port Charlotte. And I will tell you we have anywhere
from eighty to one hundred and fifteen people that consistently
show up month after months to our meetings. They are informative,
they are lots of fun. Again, I like to have fun.
(22:17):
We have fifty drawing so we just have a lot
of fun things. And we would love to meet any
veteran that's not been on their honor flight yet. We've
got applications. We always are in need of guardians, and
our guardians pay a portion of their way to come
serve a veteran Our Greatest Treasures on their honor flight.
(22:40):
So we are always accepting applications for guardians as well,
and we share information about everything about our upcoming flight.
So March twenty six, seven pm Kingsgate Golf Club, Import Charlotte.
You can also find information out about it on our
Facebook page and our website.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
So I have a question about the guardians. So if.
Speaker 4 (23:04):
So, the guardians pay, but do fundraisers offset that or
how does that work?
Speaker 2 (23:12):
Yeah? So yes they do, because the the nominal fee
that our guardians pay to be a guardian to serve
our Greatest Treasures is nowhere near actually what the cost
of their seat on the plane and their bus and
their food and the shirts is. So a lot of
(23:34):
hubs have a very small fee of like one hundred
dollars because they have these crazy organizations and companies and
I mean professional sports teams sponsor some of the hubs
in you know areas like Milwaukee and Chicago and Indianapolis
(23:54):
and in Buffalo. So you know, there's a lot of
money that infiltrates in these hubs in some of these areas.
We don't have that yet. We don't have that yet,
and so we are looking for that organization that wants
to come along and be our transportation provider sponsor, which
(24:19):
would be you know, sponsoring our aircraft, which is tens
of thousands of dollars, our buses, you know, the day
of transportation. So I'll tell you Kingsgate and the Friends
of the Kingdom have been a fantastic sponsor, if you will,
of Honor flight. They let us meet in their ballroom
(24:41):
at no cost. So we put their logo up and
let everyone know that they are a sponsor of Unterfly
of Southwest Florida on our flight. And then we have
other organizations that will make you know, some donations, so
we make sure people get their recognition. But we don't
don't have a significant Anheuser Bush is honestly the first
(25:05):
national sponsor or large sponsorship that has come along beside
us to help underwrite an honor flight for us. So
once we start getting you know, those bigger sponsorships, we
will be able to make the guardian fees less and
less and less. But we're not there yet.
Speaker 4 (25:26):
But even though a guardian has to pay out of
pocket once, once you break it down, they're still getting
a really good deal.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
I mean, besides the you know, just the.
Speaker 4 (25:37):
Honor, for lack of a better word, the honor of
being able to do it like that, it's still.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
A low cost for them.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Well, I will share with you this. This flight on
April eighth is personally my twenty fourth honor flight, fifteen
of those times I paid my own way to have
the immense privilege of serving as a guardian for a
(26:11):
veteran that I had never met before orientation. And so
what you pay, in my opinion, is nominal to what
you receive on that day and the life long connection
that you have with that veteran and their family for
(26:33):
the following years. And excuse me as I'm talking to
veterans and guardians and sharing information and presentations. I will
tell you it is an immense privilege. I have shared
the happiest of times with my veterans and their families
that I've served, and I've shared very, very sad times
(26:54):
with them. And I will tell you from our summit
in February, we were delayed. There was four of us
from our hub that went to the conference, and our
flight was delayed, and we're sitting at at Reagan International
Downtown d C. And all of a sudden, I see
Jeff Miller come walking by and I'm like, Jeff, come
(27:16):
have a seat with us. You're waiting for your flight,
and he's like, yeah, it's got delayed, and I'm like, yeah,
ours has two And we just started talking and just
asking him questions to learn more, like tell us more,
tell us more. And he said, you know, I'll tell
you I have met so many veterans, and so many
(27:36):
veterans and their families have wanted us, you know, hey,
my dad's in hospice. Can you come come be with us?
And he said I had to stop doing that because
the pain of losing that veteran just overcame him every
single time. And I will tell you. That happened to
(27:58):
me recently in our I call it our up number flight.
We were supposed to fly in October of twenty four
got delayed to November because of the hurricane, and we
had just I had made a really special connection with
this one particular veteran and who became their guardian, and
(28:21):
we got on our fly, had the best day ever.
They were on my bus. We we just became fast friends,
and that's what happens. And after the fly, you know,
I hug every veteran and tell them thank you and
welcome home. And there was this tears coming down this
one veteran's face, and I knew he had been very
sick and had stopped his cancer treatments back in the summer.
(28:46):
And you know, then you go about your life. And
I was at work one day and got a text
message and said, hey, Naomi, I know you will want
to know this, but so and so so it is
in hospice. And I knew you would want to know that,
and they would want you to know that as well.
(29:07):
And I got myself together after crying for a moment,
and said can I call you? And the person said, yes,
you can, and I called them and I said, can
I come see to him? And they said yes, please,
and I'll send you where they're at. And I said,
I will tell you. I just unloaded six hundred Christmas
(29:28):
trees onto a Christmas tree lot for the organization I
work for. I smell like a Christmas tree and they're like,
don't worry. Come And I raced to the hospice house,
went into the room and got on my knees and
just held the hand of that veteran who was unconscious
(29:50):
and shed tears and talked to them and just thanked
them for their service and thanked them and thanked them
and thanked them. And I got up after a while
and sat in a chair for a minute and then
walked out to the front door and we hugged, and
I just let them know how loved they were, and
(30:10):
I loved and I just felt I needed to come
to Sarasota National Cemetery, where my mom and dad are interned,
and spend a moment with them, And got back into
my car after spending some time with them to find
another text that the veteran had passed away. In between
my leaving and getting to National Cemetery. They had passed away,
(30:34):
and I was so honored and privileged that that connection
I had with that veteran was so important that they
felt they I could be with them in that moment.
And that is the privilege our guardians get to serve
our veterans on an on or flight day. It doesn't
(30:56):
matter if it's one hundred dollars. There are some hubs
there a seventeen dollars guardian fee. It is more than
worth that in what you received back from spending that
time with that veteran on their honor.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
Flight, right, Yeah, you can't put a price on that,
for sure.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
It is such a blessing.
Speaker 4 (31:15):
Yes, Is there anything so Amanda and I have talked
about this, Is there anything available for those who can't
make the flight? Have you ever thought about anything like that,
like maybe doing like a tour taking them to the.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
Wall here in Point of Gorda or anything like that.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
So what's really really cool is actually our hub owns
two sets of virtual reality glasses, and I know a
couple of hubs do what they call an honor flight
at home and we That is one of my goals
and aspirations. I'll tell you I had a lot to
(32:04):
do to get our hub back to where we should
be visible in our communities honoring our veterans on their
one honor flight, not multiple. And I just haven't had
a chance yet to get that program up and running,
but it is a goal of ours for twenty twenty
(32:25):
five twenty twenty six to get an Honor Flight at
home program going for Southwest Florida Honor Flight. We have
had a couple of veterans in the previous years be
in a hospice house and not able to actually fly
on their honor fly. And I know our hub has
(32:45):
taken those virtual reality goggles and that veteran has been
able to experience the memorials from the World War Two
to the Korean and Vietnam Wall, to Arlington and the
Changing of the Guard. It's a Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers,
to the Women's Military Memorial, to the Air Force Memorial,
(33:06):
to the Naval Memorial and more so that is something
that's on my radar for in the near very near future. Also,
we have a thing a program called Flags of Our Heroes,
and what that is is we take four flags with
(33:27):
us on each and every flight and we honor and
it's a World War Two veteran, a Korean veteran, a
Vietnam veteran, and a female veteran if there is one.
If not, it's a force veteran from any era who
has not been on their honor flight and they passed
(33:49):
away before they were able to make their flight. And
so if you have a flag of a hero who
has not been on their honor flight, please email us
and we will connect with you again. We only take
four flags on every flight because oh man, we could
take dozens and dozens, and then we just want it
(34:09):
to be extra special that flag is honored. All of
our veterans pass those flags as they board our aircraft.
It is the last thing that we put on our aircraft.
They have a very special place of honor on the airplane.
It is the first thing that we unload, and we
(34:31):
process from the back of the aircraft to the front
with these four flags, and they are at the gate
as every veteran goes past. So it is a super
huge thing for us. And then we do a flag
fold at that memorial for them and honor them, and
so we want a picture of them from their time
and the service and their flag, and then we want
(34:53):
you to be back at the airport so that when
we come home, they're the first flags off and lead
our person ussion and are handed back over to the family.
So super super cool thing that we do.
Speaker 4 (35:08):
So speaking of the coming home ceremony, so what exactly
does that entail? And if I'm if I'm just Joe public,
but I want to get involved?
Speaker 3 (35:18):
Uh, how can I be a part of it?
Speaker 4 (35:20):
How do I attend the coming home?
Speaker 2 (35:25):
Yeah? Absolutely, So we'd love for this to be a
surprise for our veterans, and we do talk about it
generally with with our our friends, our our our veterans
that are coming on the flight, and I know through
the awe of the day they tend to forget what's
at the airport when they come home. And so we
(35:48):
invite the community, neighbors, friends, strangers, church groups, boy Scout groups, girls, Uh,
I mean legions, Lions clubs, please come to Puntagorda Airport
on Tuesday, April eighth. I think you'll want to be
(36:09):
there by nine o'clock PM. I know, my Welcome home
and send off coordinator, Carolyn Laski has a great group
of people lined up. There'll be some music, music, there'll
be I think a couple of food trucks. There will
be just this overwhelming sense of patriotism from these patriotic
(36:32):
Americans coming to say welcome home to our veterans. And
we call it Operation Welcome Homes. She has a whole
parade route through the airport and in front of the
airport mapped out. Please wear your patriotic colors of red, white,
or blue. It's not required, but it's a bunch of
(36:55):
patriots coming together to say welcome home to our greatest treasures.
We love it when you make welcome home posters, when
you have pom poms. But if you are a service organization,
I think of the high schoolers. I know they need
so many community service hours to graduate. This is a
great way to get some volunteer hours helping welcome home
(37:19):
our veterans again. Tuesday, April eighth, we expect our plane,
depending on the plans right now, to land somewhere between
ninety five and ten o'clock. But I promise you will
want to come in advance of that. Wear comfortable shoes
because you are going to be standing. There's not a
(37:41):
lot of seating areas at Pontagorda Airport, so I know
you know, if you want to bring a little lawn
chair or something, you're more than welcome to do that.
We'll have a lot of space out front of the airport.
There are hundreds of community members that show up for us,
and this is not going to be any different of
a flight. We're just a smidge later in the evening,
(38:03):
but we've been late before and we've still had a
massive crowd there, So please come out, thank our veterans.
And it is open to the public.
Speaker 4 (38:13):
So I can say from personal experience coming back from
deployment from Iraq or Kuwait or Guitar even when you
get back to the States, when you get back to
your first airport in the United.
Speaker 3 (38:30):
States, you'll have like five people.
Speaker 4 (38:32):
From the USO, you know, at the airport USO standing
at the gate and welcoming you back, and.
Speaker 3 (38:39):
Like you're all together. So you're a little bit like.
Speaker 4 (38:46):
You know, I'm too cool for this whatever, But then
like at the same time, it's it's very powerful, and
it's even though it's a small group of people, like
it's very powerful. So I'm really looking forward to it
experiencing that again. And just I feel like this is
(39:09):
going to be on a much grander scale, and I
really don't know how I'm going to be myself. So
I'm looking forward to this opportunity. And I'm sure that
a lot of the Vietnam era veterans who who have
never experienced that at all, I know that that's going
to be very moving.
Speaker 3 (39:32):
So so I'm excited to be a part of that
for sure.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
And it is. And I will tell you I have
two sons who are now Navy veterans, but one of
my sons. Both of my sons have been on honor
flights and ben guardians with me with the couple of
hubs that I've been a part of. And my oldest son,
it was in the Navy on submarines, and he came,
(39:59):
I believe in the spring of twenty twenty two, it
might have been spring of twenty twenty three, came on
that flight, got leave, came served as a guardian to
a Vietnam veteran. Had an amazing day. We get back
to Pontagorda Airport and this Vietnam veteran is walking with
(40:19):
my son and they're just they're just chatting, making small
talk as they talk, and this veteran hits the doors
at an Agorda Airport and sees people and starts crying.
And he turns to my son and in tears says, wow,
(40:42):
I never expected this. And my son just puts his
arm around him and gives him a side hug and
holds him and keeps walking with him about five more steps,
and the gentleman stopped again and turned to my son
and said, Nick, I expected the US in nineteen sixty
nine and is in full on falling tiers. It's that
(41:08):
moment that makes it all worth everything we do, the
hundreds and hundreds of hours that I spend making phone calls,
preparing for meetings, going to fundraisers, that my entire board
of fourteen volunteers spend hundreds of hours out in the
(41:28):
community sharing information about on or flight, preparing medics to
serve our veterans, and making sure we have bandages and
band aids. It's death is what it's all about, and
so it's a big, big change maker. If you can
show up to the airport to just say thank you,
(41:51):
those veterans see you and are appreciative more than that
is one of the last things that they will ever remember,
and they talk about it until their last breath.
Speaker 4 (42:03):
Right, So do you have any kind of like tracking
mechanism to to know what veterans we have here in Florida?
Speaker 3 (42:13):
I know the VA.
Speaker 4 (42:15):
Tracks it, but like there's no World War Two veterans
on this flight.
Speaker 3 (42:19):
Do you know? Do you know how we still have
out there?
Speaker 2 (42:25):
Or we do? And I'll tell you my database manager
has those numbers because she just gave them to me.
She was on the Veterans Florida's veterans website. And there
are like eight hundred and six World War two veterans
that live in the seven counties we serve now a
(42:47):
couple of them. I know of one hundred and four
year old that's World War two veteran that lives in Arcadia,
and I we just sometimes they just we can't get
them on the flight because sometimes the pysically they can't go,
time wise, they can't go. And you know there's like
thirty or forty thousand Korean veterans in like just a
(43:10):
couple of counties. We know that there are about one
hundred thousand veterans in Charlotte, DeSoto, Hardy, Henry, Highlands, Manitee,
and Sarasota counties. And in just Sarasota and Manitee County alone,
there's eighty thousand veterans. And that brings me to what
(43:32):
we're really excited about is on our fall flight, which
is on October fourteenth, twenty twenty five, we will be
flying from Sarasota International Airport and that is huge for
our hub. So we are taking our spring flight from
(43:54):
Ponta Gorda and then this fall flight will be from
Sarasota International Airport. And I want everyone to know it's
not because Sarasota Airport hasn't wanted to host us. They
have wanted to for years and years and years. We
have just finally been able to make it happen. We
have quite a few veterans on our waitlist right now
(44:17):
that are from Sarasota, Bradenton Parish, Ellington, Anna, Maria Island, Osprey, Nacomas,
and Lakewood Ranch. We are looking for more, but what
we need more to make this happen is volunteers from Sarasota, Bradenton,
Lakewood Ranch. It takes an army of volunteers to pull
(44:41):
off a flight when we return, and we need your help,
so please reach out to us email us. We are
looking for rotary clubs kawanis clubs, church groups, neighborhood associations, hoas,
school groups who help us get this October fourteenth flight
(45:02):
off of the ground from Sarasota Airport. We also are
monthly hub meetings are also on Zoom virtually, and so
if you are in that you know, if you can't
make it all the way to Port Charlotte, but you
want to be a part, please email us and we'll
make sure you get the Zoom link to join us
on our meeting and then connect with us afterwards.
Speaker 4 (45:23):
So when do you start planning for the October flight?
Is that time now?
Speaker 2 (45:28):
Yeah? I already I'm already planning for it. We already know.
I already have aircrafts and buses. We already have everything
the logistics. I just now need to find volunteers and organizations.
One thing that we're looking for is a place to
host our guardian training and our orientation. We need a
(45:49):
ballroom for free, at no cost, because if we have
to pay for a ballroom or a meeting room, that
just means it's that many less veterans we can fly,
and so we really focus our finances on flying our
veterans rather than playing paying for meeting spaces. So if
(46:14):
you are in Sarasota or Bradington and you have a
ballroom that can accommodate a couple one hundred people, it's
usually about three hundred and fifty people, please reach out
to me. We are we need we have that orientation
where we bring the guardians and veterans together about two
weeks before flight day. It can be a Saturday morning,
(46:35):
it can be a Sunday afternoon, and we need we're
looking for you, So please, that's a great way to
collaborate with us. We will make sure we acknowledge you
and let everyone know. Like I you know, have shared earlier.
Kingsgate has been a great partner for us. They give
us our meeting spaces at no cost.
Speaker 3 (46:55):
I'm sorry, and tell us again how they can reach
out to you.
Speaker 2 (47:00):
Email is f w f L Honor Flight at gmail
dot com, or you can go to our website s
w f L Honorflight dot org. If you can't remember
all of that, just google Southwest Florida Honor Flight and
(47:21):
our website will show up for you.
Speaker 3 (47:24):
Okay, awesome, thank you very much.
Speaker 4 (47:27):
Yeah, so the we're about to wrap it up here,
but yes, the the Honor flight at home. I'm really
interested in getting involved in that and hopefully some of
those veterans that are not necessarily homebound but can't make
the flight, hopefully we can we can get out on
(47:47):
the sticks and start.
Speaker 3 (47:48):
Getting them involved.
Speaker 2 (47:50):
The West Central Hub up in St. Pete does a
fantastic job of that, and we will be meeting with
them to learn how they do it. It's basically like
our orientation. It's just you know, they do it. I
think from like ten to three, they do a meal,
(48:11):
they do the welcome home. It's kind of a whole
big thing. So I'm all about working smarter and not
happen to reinvent the wheel when there's been some of
our hubs that have done it very well, learning from them,
and I would love your help because I just can't
do it all justin and I just don't have the bandwidth.
(48:34):
And while we're trying to do all these fundraisers and
raise funds to get a flight off the ground, something
has to I don't want to say something has to
go by the wayside, but we just haven't been able
to execute it yet. So I need volunteers to help
with that, and that is one huge way that can
be a man a major impact and I would love
your health.
Speaker 4 (48:54):
Okay, awesome, well alrighty, all right, so we've been talking
to Naomi Copeland from Southwest Honor Flight and like I said,
if you can, please get out to the point of
go to airport on April the eighth for the welcome
home ceremony.
Speaker 3 (49:12):
And it's been great talking to you.
Speaker 2 (49:14):
Thank you so much, we really appreciate it, and thank
you everyone for listening.
Speaker 3 (49:19):
Okay, thanks, bye bye,
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