A promise to keep: The beginning of Honor Flight

Editor's Note: This article is the first in a three-part series exploring the origins, impact and enduring legacy of the Honor Flight program. In advance of the historic first Honor Flight to be conducted on a military aircraft Sept. 21, we look back at how a simple idea near Wright-Patterson Air Force Base grew into a national movement that continues to honor America's veterans. This milestone flight, made possible through close collaboration with the Air Force Reserve and key support from the 445th Airlift Wing, marks a new chapter in the program's evolution, blending tradition with military partnership to elevate its mission.

It began with a simple question inside a Department of Veterans Affairs clinic near Dayton.

"Are you going to see your memorial?" retired U.S. Air Force Capt. Earl Morse would ask his World War II patients.

The answers were always the same. Yes, they were proud the nation had finally built the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C. Yes, they were glad their service was recognized, but no, they weren't going to see it.

They couldn't.

The youngest of them were already in their late seventies and many struggled with health issues. Most lived on fixed incomes, making travel impossible. Their friends, those who had fought beside them, were long gone.

"I knew how their lives were going to go," Morse recalled. "They were going to become more and more debilitated. Many would die in nursing homes. They waited 60 years for that memorial, and they were never going to see it."

For Morse, who grew up in an Air Force family and later spent 21 years in uniform as a medic, aeromedical evacuation crew member and physician assistant, that answer wasn't good enough. These men and women had carried the weight of a world war on their shoulders. Surely someone could help carry them to Washington.

A Flight of Hope

Morse was also a private pilot and a member of the Wright-Patterson Aero Club, the largest of its kind in the nation. In 2005, less than a year after the memorial's dedication, he stood before his fellow pilots with an idea: fly veterans to Washington, free of charge.

There would be rules. The veterans would not pay a penny. And the pilots weren't just chauffeurs, they would remain by their veterans' sides the entire day, caring for them as family.

To his surprise, 11 pilots immediately volunteered. Morse suddenly had planes, copilots and a mission. But he still hadn't asked a veteran if they wanted to go.

The first was Leonard Lloyd, a quiet man who never expected the chance. When Morse offered him the flight, Leonard didn't say yes. He wept.

"That was the first case of what we now call 'Honor Flight allergies,'" Morse said with a smile. "When he started crying, so did I. They had given up all hope. And when you gave them just a glimmer of it, the emotion was overwhelming."

Soon, nurses at the VA clinic were asking to invite veterans too. Every time, the response was the same: tears, gratitude, disbelief.

On a spring morning in 2005, six small aircraft lifted off from Springfield, Ohio, carrying 12 World War II veterans. Few people were there to see them depart. But when they returned that evening, more than 100 friends, family members and neighbors crowded the airport to welcome them home. Word had spread. Communities around Wright-Patterson had rallied.

From that day, Honor Flight was born.

A Burden Too Heavy

The idea spread quickly, but in those first years, Morse carried the weight almost alone. The requests poured in from across the nation. The waiting list stretched into the hundreds. And with each passing month, more veterans died without ever making the trip.

"I thought God had given me this mission," Morse said. "And then, I had far more veterans dying on my waiting list than we were flying. It was devastating. I was exhausted, writing letters to companies all night long asking for help, getting no responses. I was angry and bitter."

One night, when despair nearly broke him, Morse prayed. And in the silence, he said, came an answer.

"God told me He loved these veterans more than I ever could, and to keep at it," Morse said. "That kept me going."

A Partner in the Mission

Meanwhile, in Hendersonville, North Carolina, another individual was wrestling with his own grief and found his own inspiration in Morse's story.

Jeff Miller had just lost both of his parents: his father, a World War II Navy veteran, and his mother, who had lived through the war while grieving the death of her brother, a B-24 pilot shot down over Czechoslovakia in 1944. When Miller opened the family's old trunk, he discovered his uncle's flight logs, wartime letters and the telegram announcing his death.

"I leaned against that chest and thought how bad it was that they never got to see the memorial they had supported," Miller said. "I had to do something."

Miller read about Morse's small-plane flights and reached out. Unlike Morse, he wasn't a pilot. His idea was different: charter a commercial jet and fill it with veterans. Within months, he helped raise more than $130,000 and launched two Honor Air flights in September 2006, carrying 211 World War II veterans to Washington.

Soon after, Morse and Miller joined forces to form the Honor Flight Network, ensuring veterans from across the nation could make the journey.

"Earl saw something and did something about it," Miller said. "That's the difference. And together we created an opportunity for people to do what was right and live it with these veterans."

Building a Movement

By early 2007, the effort had outgrown its origins. Morse and Miller hosted the first Honor Flight "summit" in Washington, bringing together a few dozen volunteers from across the country. What began with six small planes in Ohio quickly became a coast-to-coast network of charter flights and community hubs.

Soon, hundreds of cities were flying their veterans. Today, more than 400,000 veterans have made the journey.

Former Sen. Bob Dole, himself a World War II veteran, became a regular presence at the memorial. Known for greeting Honor Flight groups in a crisp suit, shaking hands until sunset, Dole's support gave the program national credibility. His wife, Elizabeth, often joined him, delighting veterans who had long admired the couple.

"I remember one day, two veterans in wheelchairs got stuck facing each other near the Vietnam Wall," Miller recalled. "They looked at each other's name badges and realized they had been prisoners in the same German Stalag. They hadn't seen each other since the war. They both stood up and embraced, weeping. That's the kind of thing you never forget."

Healing for a New Generation

What began with World War II veterans, soon expanded. Korean War veterans followed, then Vietnam.

For Miller, the turning point came one day at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. He saw two elderly World War II veterans each holding up a guardian who was a Vietnam veteran. The man was touching a name on the wall - perhaps a comrade he lost.

"I thought, now I know we have to keep going," Miller said. "The impact on Vietnam veterans is different. You see them come back changed. It's life-changing for them."

Morse agreed.

"Of all the groups we fly, the life-changing impact on the Vietnam veterans is more significant," he said. "The last time they came forward about their service, they were rejected. On Honor Flight, they are embraced. It's reconciliation with the country they served.

For many Vietnam veterans, the first words they now hear when stepping off the plane are "Welcome home." It is a greeting they waited half a century to receive.

A Community That Would Not Let Go

Nearly 20 years later, the numbers are staggering: more than 400,000 veterans transported, hundreds of hubs across the nation, countless stories of healing and remembrance. But the true measure is not in numbers.

It is in the tears of veterans who thought they were forgotten, in the relief of families who see their loved ones open up about the past, and in the communities, like those around Wright-Patterson, who continue to gather at airports to cheer their heroes home.

From a handful of Ohio pilots to chartered jets across the nation, Honor Flight remains what it was on that first spring day: a promise kept.

"World War II veterans literally saved the world," Morse said. "All they wanted was to see their memorial. We owed them that much - and more."