Recently, an east coast contact of Honor Flight AZ, Lt. Col. William Clark, contacted Honor Flight AZ to request that one of our WWII veterans come to Fort Eustis to be a Keynote Speaker for their Change of Command ceremony.  We immediately thought of Col. Stone, a recent recipient of an HF AZ trip to Washington, D.C.  He was a pilot in the Army Air Corps during WWII where he was shot down and wounded in the skies over Iwo Jima.

At the end of May 2012, Col. Stone, his wife Steffi and Board Member Nancy Page will be traveling back east for this outstanding occasion.  Col. Stone will be speaking to the Chinook Helicopter Battalion at Fort Eustis, VA.

Thank you Col. Stone for agreeing to represent all of our Arizona WWII veterans and Honor Flight AZ, and thank you so very much for your service to our nation!

Are you a great Texas Hold’Em player? Come be a designated player for FREE!! Call Nancy at Honor Flight for information.

Did you know the founder of Freddy’s is a WWII veteran and a wonderful patriot?

Click here to find the location nearest to you.

Come support Honor Flight AZ and thank Freddy’s for all they do for our veterans!

Receiving national recognition from this deeply patriotic and service-oriented organization truly made for a special event. We thank the Daughters of the American Revolution, Anasazi Chapter for this honor.

Anyone who was born in the 1920s through the 1940s is familiar with Kilroy.  Even me, a child of the 1950s, remember drawing Kilroy in school. No one knew why he was so well known, but we were all familiar with his long nose and fingers hanging over the fence.  So, who the heck was Kilroy?

In 1946, the American Transit Association, through its radio program, ‘Speak to America”, sponsored a nation-wide contest to find the real Kilroy, offering the prize of a real trolley car to the person who could prove himself to be the genuine article.  Almost 40 people stepped forward to make that claim, but only James Kilroy from Halifax, Mass. had evidence of his identity.

Kilroy, a 46-year-old shipyard worker during the war worked as a checker at the Fore River Shipyard in Quincy.  His job was to go around and count the number of rivets completed on the ships.  Riveters worked on piecework and got paid by the rivet.  Kilroy would count a block of rivets and put a check mark in semi-waxed lumber chalk, so the rivets wouldn’t be counted twice.  When Kilroy went off duty,  someone would follow and erase the check marks.  Then, the next shift’s inspector would come through and count the same rivets a second time, resulting in double pay for the riveters.

One day, Kilroy’s boss called him into his office.  The foreman was upset about all the wages being paid to the riveters and asked him to investigate.  It was then Kilroy realized what was going on and sought to solve the problem.  The tight spaces he sometimes had to crawl into to count the rivets didn’t lend themselves to lugging around a paint can and brush, so Kilroy decided to stick with the sticky chalk.  He continued to put his chalk mark on each job he inspected but added KILROY WAS HERE in king sized letters next to the checks.

Eventually, he added the sketch of the chap with the long nose peering over the fence and that became a part of the Kilroy message.  Once he did that, the riveters stopped trying to wipe away his extensive markings.  Ordinarily, the marks would have subsequently been covered with paint, however, the ships were leaving the Quincy yard so fast, there wasn’t time to completely paint them.  As a result, Kilroy’s inspection “trademark” was seen by thousands of servicemen who boarded the troop ships the yard produced.

His message apparently rang a bell with the servicemen, because they picked it up and doodled it all over Europe and the South Pacific.  By the war’s end, “Kilroy” had been here, there and everywhere.

As the war went on, the legend grew.  Kilroy became the super GI who always seemed to be there before the GIs no matter where they went.  Underwater demolition teams routinely slipped ashore on Japanese-held islands in the Pacific to map the terrain for coming invasions by U.S. Troops (and thus presumably, they were the 1^st GIs there) On one occasion, however, they reported seeing evidence of enemy troops painting over the Kilroy logo!

In 1945, an outhouse was built for the exclusive use of Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill at the Potsdam conference.  Its first occupant was Stalin who emerged and asked in Russian, “Who is Kilroy?”

It became a challenge to place the logo in the most unlikely of places imaginable (it is said to be at the top of Mt. Everest, the Statue of Liberty and the underside of the

I’ arc De Triomphe and even scrawled in the dust on the moon) Now, as seen in the above photo, it is even carved into the outer walls of the WWII Memorial in Washington, D.C.

To help prove his authenticity in 1946, James KIlroy brought along officials from the shipyard and some riveters.  He won the trolley car, which he gave to his nine grandchildren as a Christmas present and set it up as a playhouse in the Kilroy front yard in Halifax, Mass.

So now you know.

-Author of original rendition unknown

I seem to say this over and over, but there sure seems to be a lot going on!  A few highlights stand out, however, that will be reviewed here.

The biggest and best happenings are two trips that were successfully launched – one in March and one in April with a total of almost 60 WWII veterans.  Both trips were outstanding and so appreciated by our vets.   We already have our two May trips booked and ready to go.

A couple of new features were tried on each of the last two trips.  First, on the March trip, the veterans were invited to dine at Annapolis with the Midshipmen.  It seems everyone retired from dinner with renewed hope in the future of our country, as seen in the youth on that historical campus.

On the April trip, the veterans were able to have dinner at Fort Myer, the home of the Old Guard who are in charge of guarding the Tomb of the Unknown.  A Color Guard from this famous unit posted and then later retired the colors for their guests.   SSG John Ford also gave a fascinating talk about the history of the Old Guard and its role in WWII.  The Color Guard then joined us for dinner, much to the delight of our vets.  On this same trip, two vets who were eating together began talking and realized they had graduated the same year from the same high school in Chicago!  What are the odds of that??

Other events include the highly successful couple of afternoons spent in front of Basha’s in Gold Canyon by our volunteers.  They managed to raise a whopping $2800!!  What an amazing group of volunteers we have in the east valley.  Thank you to the Gold Canyon group.

The quilt raffle continues and is going very well.  This beautiful piece has traveled to a few stores around the state and this weekend it was displayed at the big quilt show at Yavapai College in Prescott.  Board members Judy and Nancy were manning the booth when in walked a sweet lady we both recognized;  Vera Miller was an Army WWII veteran who came on a trip with HF AZ last November with Judy and Nancy.  Not only that, but if one looks closely at the poster Vera is standing next to, seated in the front lower left corner is Vera herself.  She was up in Prescott from Mesa to attend the quilt show!  What are the odds of that??

Incidentally, if you are interested in purchasing a raffle ticket, go to our website, honorflightaz.org.  The quilt will appear on our home page.  So far we have sold $970.00 in tickets and the drawing is on June 2^nd.  The quilt is currently on display at Three Dudes Quilting in Awatukee and tickets are available.  Stop in to see this whimsically beautiful quilt.  To top off this event, the creator of our quilt has agreed to match dollar for dollar all funds we raise in this event!

Finally Susan Howe, our Hub Coordinator has issued a challenge to all of those involved with HF AZ – get out and make things happen on Memorial Day weekend.  We are responding!  So far, Freddie’s Steak Burgers and Shakes (5 locations in the valley) will be sponsoring an HF AZ fundraiser that weekend.   Bucky’s Casino in Prescott is conducting a “Battle for Honor” card game event.  Also, the quilt will be making an appearance on the big Arts and Crafts show on the historic Courthouse Square in downtown Prescott.  And that’s not all!  More events are being planned.  We will be sending out a special edition newsletter about all of our events when the details come together.  If you would like to get involved in helping at an event, we would love to hear from you.  It will be “all hands on deck” and a lot of fun.  Maybe we will even make some money for our veterans.  What are the odds of that??!       

 -NP

I was in the Navy for four years after Japan’s surrender I had to wait over two months to get discharged.  In all my years of service, I did not have any formal Honor ceremonies. I was discharged from great lakes naval training center where I had my basic training.  Graduating from that Boot Camp was without any fanfare or graduation ceremony.  Getting Honorable Discharge from Great Lakes was again, without fanfare.  My discharge did include $4.80 as travel expense. So the Honor Flight was, to me, a big deal.

Tuesday the 27th started with 28 of us Veterans at Sky Harbor Airport.  Since over half of us needed wheelchairs, we had 26 able and considerate helpers.  After checking-in and having our baggage taken care of, we had breakfast at the terminal. Our flight to Baltimore had one stop in New Jersey.  When we left the plane at the Baltimore Airport, we had a standing ovation by about 150 people as we entered the terminal. It was a wonderfully warm reception.  Arriving at the
Hilton Hotel, we were treated to a  fine dinner. After eating we were advised to get some rest as we were going to get an early start for a full day on Wednesday.

Wednesday the 28th started with a wakeup call at 5:15 AM, that was 2:15 AM Phoenix time.  After a good  breakfast at the hotel, we were bussed to Washington, D.C.  The first stop was the Capitol Building. We got to see several places in the building and around 10:30 we met with Senator John McCain.  We were all standing and sitting around the perimeter of a large room so he could rotate around and he could look at and talk to each of us almost personally.  He gave us a nice
welcome and spoke of our earning Honor for our service to the good old USA.

Then we went to the WW 2 Memorial which was impressive to say the least.  The memorial is an oval structure with high columns surrounding it.  Each column had a state name etched on it. A large cable connected the base of each column signifying unity of the states.  In the center of the oval were two water fountains surrounded by benches.  It was a great Monument.

Then we spent some time going round to the Vietnam, Lincoln, and the Korean Memorials. The drive in Arlington was flanked by at least 1000 grave markers.

All of us felt that we were survivors, not heroes. ‘But for the grace of God’,  we would be under one of those stones.  It was another emotional experience.

We then went to the United States Naval Academy.  That is home for over 4000 students preparing for military careers.  Both the Navy and the Marines get their future officers trained there.  We watched several 100 on the parade grounds marching with a marching band.  We then went to a dining room at the Academy that was set up with round Tables, each with room for 10 diners. We ate with four juniors ­ third year students. They served us our meal and also ate with us and then sat around and talked with us for quite a while.  Two of our young people were women the other two men.  I asked what the ratio of men and women was there and it is 85% men and 15% women.  So our small sample was not indicative of the actual numbers.  After that fine meal and visit, we went back to the hotel.  It was a full day but enjoyable.

Thursday morning we were able to sleep until a 7:00 wakeup call which was 4:00 AM in Phoenix.  After another good breakfast we got on the bus and we went to Fort McHenry.  That’s the fort that was under attack and is documented in our National Anthem.  We started at the visitor center and then walked up the hill to the fort itself.  The flagpole was about 90 feet tall and the flag was blowing straight across due to quite a high wind.  The wind was so great that they could not fly the huge flag that they sometimes do.  There were school children there that assisted us in unfurling that huge flag on the
parade ground.  The wind was billowing the flag but there was enough of us to hold the flag securely.  The fort is on the shore of the harbor which was busy with ships loading and unloading at the various docks.  We left there on our bus eating a box lunch on the way to our plane. The flight to Phoenix was smooth and most of us napped some on the way.

However, we had one more treat: Mail Call.  Each veteran received mail that had been sent to the Honor Flight prior to our taking off Tuesday.  The letters were from friends and relatives honoring us for our service to the USA during WW2.  That caused tears to flow again. Arrival in Phoenix was punctuated by another rousing, standing  applause by people in the terminal along with personal friends and families.  We then gathered at one corner of the terminal where there was a band and a Lady Vocal Group which played and sang for us.  One of the songs was ³ The Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B”.  Then a Chaplin had a prayer for the group and us Vets in particular. Then accolades for our support group and recognition of Honor Flight personnel and the necessary contributions by companies and individuals that paid for our flight.

My summary is that it was an awesome Honor Flight that heaped us with more honor than we felt that we deserved, but, gratefully received.  I tender this report with humble heart.

~ John (Jack) Hopkins, at one time, a Chief Radio Technician, United States Navy

I want to send a note with a special thank you for helping with the Honor Flight for daddy. This was such a special thing to do for him and having all of you involved made it so much better.

We got to the airport on March 28^th about 6:30am where we met up with the Honor Flight volunteers who were all wearing bright green shirts. They had dad and me change into our shirts with the Honor Flight logo on them gold for dad and blue for me. We were all now very color coded and very visible. These folks were so full of warmth and gratitude for what these men stood for and treated us all so good. They were very organized as there were 30 vets along with a guardian like me so they were taking on 60 of us.  Southwest airline was in on the deal also and had a rep there along with someone from homeland security to help get us all on the plane.  Just before we got on the plane the whole airport erupted in God Bless America!!!  Wow that was great.  The folks from honor flight handed us all a sack lunch and we were off to DC.

When we landed in Baltimore there was a huge crowd there that greeted us. There were uniforms from the Navy, Army, Marines, Police and just everyday folks with American flags waving. I have never seen anything like this. I was clapping, crying and trying to keep an eye on dad through this whole thing.  It was just great.

We were bused to our motel where we got settled in and then down for dinner and visiting with our group.  The next morning we were all off to see the Capitol first where we got another incredible greeting and a visit from our own Senator John McCain. Then off to see the WWII memorial.

That memorial was something to see.  What a great job they did for our WWII vets. The emotion I saw in those men is hard to express. Dad was so touched by everything he read and saw there. He was really enjoying the experience of this gift. There was an older woman there that came up to dad and asked him if he was a WWII vet. Dad said yes I am and the lady shook dads hand and said thank you for serving our country.  Dad was so touched he could hardly contain himself.

We left there and went to the Vietnam, Lincoln, Korean and Iwo Jima memorials. The folks from Honor Flight are very well organized and acutely aware of the needs of these vets.  They made the trip very nice and easy for them.

After we left the memorials we were taken to the US Naval Academy where the vets had been invited to dinner and were served by the midshipman. Wow! What a site to see all these young men and women serving dinner to our WWII vets!

The next morning we were bused over to Fort McHenry where dad and all the other vets helped unfold an American flag that was 40 feet by 35 feet. It was a site to see. I was amazed at how much Honor Flight had gotten these folks to experience in the short time they were there.

But, now it was time to head back home. We were bused to the airport and again Honor Flight was completely organized getting us on our plane. When we were about midway through our flight there was a loud speaker that came on and a gentleman’s voice said MAIL CALL!!! All the vets were handed a large manila envelope filled with letters from home. This was the most emotional thing I had ever seen as these vets sat in their seat reading these letters. They were handing out tissue like crazy for the tears!!! Yes, lots of tears and lots of laughs as they read those letters.

When we landed in Phoenix there was another even bigger crowed that greeted us and then Honor Flight had set up a special moment with the American Legion presenting our colors, all of us saying the pledge of allegiance and some ladies singing patriotic songs. It was great way to end such a special trip!!

Tom, I can’t thank you enough for helping me with this project for Dad. It was something he will never forget and knowing that all you helped him do it made so much better for him.

And finally, your dad. Dad and I had Uncle Tom and his hat with us every step of the way. He was in our hearts and he was there with us in spirit. We missed him so much and thought of him in so many ways. When we were at our dinner with the midshipman there was a special ceremony for the vets that were no longer with us. I had submitted Uncle Tom’s name and his story which was read aloud to the whole room. At the end of the ceremony an American Flag was presented to the president of Honor Flight in their honor. God Bless.

Love,

Cousin Carol

We were shipped to New York then to La Harve, France and then to Germany and Austria, fighting.  That war ended.  We were the 1^st division back in the states and in 60 days we were sailing under the Golden Gate Bridge on our way to attack Japan.  5 days out, the bomb was dropped.  We turned and landed in the Phillipines to cleanse out Japs who didn’t know the war was over.

I ended up as the 1^st engineer on General McLaskis’ boat as a staff Sgt. Nice clean infantry duty.  Spent a total of 38 months in the 86^th Infantry.

My wife worked for over 6 months to get me on an Honor Flight.  My expenses were paid for by both sides of my family as a gift.  I received letters from every member of my family that contributed and I replied by letter how grateful I was to be honored to make the trip.  The trip started and ended at Sky Harbor Airport.  The officers and staff of the Honor Flight were a very special staff of people, every need was taken care of  – that made the trip so special, right down to extra batteries for our cameras.  The ovations we received in leaving and arriving will never be forgotten.

I truly thank you from the bottom of my heart for the way the Honor Flight committee handled a trip I shall never forget.

Yours truly,

Kenny C.