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News2008 FLYING SEASON KICKS OFF SATURDAY, 19 APRILCONTACT: Earl Morse FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE WORK: 937 521-2400 16 April 2008 Email: HonorFlight@aol.com
HONOR FLIGHT NETWORK BEGINS 2008 FLYING SEASON
Springfield, OH – On Saturday, 19 April, seven groups from across America will ascend on Washington D.C. with OVER 440 WWII veterans to visit their memorial. These senior heroes will be arriving from seventeen (17) states.
These groups will be met at Baltimore-Washington International, Reagan and Dulles International Airports upon their arrival with pomp and circumstance de-fitting these of America’s “Greatest Generation”.
They will be taken by approximately 19 motor coaches to the WWII Memorial where they will be greeted by Senator Bob Dole, another of their “battle buddies” throughout the day.
The schedule at the WWII Memorial is as follows:
Honor Flight Michigan – 36 vet/19 guardians – 9:15 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. Honor Flight Dayton Ohio – 57 vets/20 guardians – 10:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. (this is the Honor Flight Founder, Earl Morse’s group’s first flight of the season and will be met at BWI upon their arrival at BWI at 8:30 a.m. AirTran Flt #413 by the Patriot Guard Riders from Maryland and our D.C. volunteers Honor Flight Rochester Minnesota – 79 vets/32 guardians – 11:30 a.m. - 1:45 p.m. Honor Flight Tennessee Valley, Alabama – 125 vets/125 guardians – 10:30 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. TLC (their last chance) and Lone Eagles (don’t have a hub near them) 28 TLC/Lone Eagles – 10-45 – 1:15 Honor Flight Columbus Ohio - 34 vets/21 guardians – 10:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. Pride and Honor Flight Michigan – 81 vets/34 guardians – 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
For more information contact
Susan Barr PR/Media Relations, (740) 524-7744 or Earl Morse, Founder, Honor Flight Network (937) 409-8387 November, 2007: Radio Interview by Jerry Newberry on the VFW's radio show, "The National Defense" with Jim McLaughlin, Vice President, Honor Flight InternationalPRESS RELEASE 11/21/2007 :
 CONTACT: Earl Morse FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE WORK: 937 521-2400 CELL: 937 409-8387 Email: HonorFlight@aol.com
VETERAN SIGN-UP TO COINCIDE WITH OBSERVANCE OF PEARL HARBOR DAY, 7 DECEMBER.
Springfield, OH – Every World War II Veteran can remember where they were when President Franklin Roosevelt addressed the nation and said, “Yesterday, December seventh, nineteen forty-one, a date which will live in infamy, the United States was suddenly and deliberately attacked by the naval and air forces of the empire of Japan.” Their lives were changed on that day. The Honor Flight Network is committed to positively changing the lives of these same WWII Veterans with a trip to Washington DC, to visit their long-awaited WWII Memorial.
On Friday, 7 December 2007, from 4:00 PM until 8:00 PM, locations throughout Ohio will be assisting veterans with completing the Honor Flight Veteran’s Application. The trips are funded by donations. Honor Flight gladly accepts donations from anyone except for WWII Veterans. The program feels that these veterans have given enough. In addition to WWII Veterans, the program focuses on any Korean or Vietnam Veteran with a terminal illness, who has never been able to visit their memorial in DC. Those veterans are given the same priority as a WWII Veteran.
Selected locations will have applications and volunteers readily available to help complete the paperwork. Veterans desiring to take the trip are asked to bring with them their list of medications and a photo ID. Once completed, the applications will be forwarded to the Honor Flight Network Headquarters in Springfield Ohio. The 2007 flying season ended November 7. Between now and next spring, flights are suspended to avoid freezing temperatures, ice, sleet, and snow. “Our number one concern is safety,” remarked Earl Morse. “We spend the off season collecting applications, raising awareness of our program and getting better organized for our flights to resume in the spring of 2008.”
So far, over 5000 WWII Veterans have been safely transported to Washington DC, from 19 different states, to personally tour America’s “Thank You” for their service. These trips are free to the WWII Veterans. During the day, veterans are escorted and cared for by “guardians.” Guardians are next-generation family members and/or volunteers who accompany the veterans on their trip. Participants visit the WWII, Korean, Vietnam and Iwo Jima Memorials. Flights, meals, tee shirts and deluxe motor coach services are provided at no cost to the WWIII Veterans. The flight returns later that same evening.
“Time is of the essence,” said Earl Morse, Founder and President of Honor Flight, Inc. “In another five to ten years, almost all of them (WWII Veterans) will be gone. There is a very narrow window available to us to make their dreams of visiting their memorial, a reality.” According to the Department of Veterans Affairs and Arlington National Cemetery statistics, in 2007 about 1,200 WWII Veterans will pass away EVERY DAY. The youngest WWII Vet is 79 years old. Over 70 WWII Veterans on the waiting list have passed away, patiently waiting their turn. Honor Flight presently has over 4000 WWII Veterans on their national waiting list. They are asking for public support to help make the dreams of these veterans come true … before it’s too late.
While veterans will fly for free, guardians are asked to cover their own expenses of about $250.00. The contribution includes round trip airfare, meals, deluxe tour bus, tee shirts and insurance. If you would like more information about the Honor Flight, please visit our web site at www.HonorFlight.org, call (937) 521-2400, or write: Honor Flight Inc., 300 E. Auburn Ave, Springfield OH 45505.
Participating locations include:
VFW Post 1031 1237 E. Main St. Springfield, OH 45503
Phone: 937 325-3011
The Times Reporter - Dover, New Philadelphia Ohio - September 2007
American Profile.com - July 29, 2007
Earl Morse was working as a physician assistant in 2004
at a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs medical clinic
in Springfield, Ohio, when he asked a simple question
that changed his life. Morse asked one of his patients,
78-year-old World War II veteran Leonard Loy, whether
he’d thought about visiting the National World War II
Memorial, which recently had opened in Washington, D.C.
Loy shook his head sadly. “Mama’s been sick and we don’t have the money,” he said. “And we don’t have any way to get out there.” Morse, himself a licensed pilot and former U.S. Air Force captain, had just rented a private Cessna plane and was going to fly his father, a Vietnam War veteran, to the nation’s capital to see the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. He had an idea, a casual invitation that didn’t seem like such a big deal at the time. “My dad and I are renting a plane,” he told Loy. “If you’d like to go, it won’t cost you a penny.” Loy didn’t say anything, but the tears in his eyes spoke volumes. “That’s when it hit me, ‘This means more than I thought,’” says Morse, 48. In the months that followed, Morse’s casual invitation to help a fellow military veteran turned into a nationwide quest. For more than two years now, he’s been flying World War II veterans to see the memorial erected in their honor on the National Mall. Since founding his nonprofit Honor Flight Network in 2005, he has taken more than 1,000 veterans from around the country to the memorial—and it hasn’t cost any of them one red cent. “I’ve had a lot of veterans tell me this trip was the greatest day of their life,” Morse says. A grassroots effort “So far, we’re in 11 states,” says Honor Flight’s director of operations, Al Bailey, 60. “Setting up Honor Flight hubs will help us reach our goal.” That goal is to ensure that all living World War II veterans get a chance to see the memorial that was erected to honor their service and sacrifice. Morse remembers a call going out in the late 1990s for World War I veterans in the central Ohio area to give them special-recognition medals. Only two were located, and the thought of “too little, too late” stays with Morse to this day. “I didn’t want World War II vets to not be able to see America’s thank-you to their service,” he says. Honor Flight is volunteer-staffed and donation-funded. Morse gave up his Veterans Affairs job and now works part-time at a medical clinic in Enon, Ohio. He devotes at least four days a week to Honor Flight and is the program’s only paid employee. His wife, Clarice, as well as his mother, father, brother, sister and sister-in-law, are among the 15 volunteers who help operate the national network, based in Dayton. Honor Flight coordinates dozens of flights each year from Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, New York, North Dakota (which also represents South Dakota and Minnesota), North Carolina, Ohio and Utah. “We have 30 to 50 applicants per day from veterans as far away as Alaska,” Bailey says. An unforgettable experience Natalie Kindt, 34, of Atlanta, volunteered on a flight and it was an experience she’ll never forget. “Now I’ll never pass another veteran without saying thank you,” she says. Morse steadfastly refuses all offers from veterans who ask if they can help pay their way, which typically costs several hundred dollars. “They’ve done enough already,” he says. “When we arrived at the airport, we didn’t even have to buy our breakfast,” says Dayton resident Jim Eby, 85, a World War II pilot who took a flight with his brother Harold, 92, also a veteran, this spring. “They gave us a sack of food.” Before each flight from Dayton, Morse meets departing veterans at the airport, greeting each one personally. When the airplane lands in Baltimore, Md., typically meeting up with Honor Flights from other cities, he assembles the group into waiting chartered buses and heads into nearby Washington, D.C. At the memorial, located between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial, veterans gravitate into the large circular pavilion ringed with elegant columns representing each state. Many are moved to tears. Dozens of other visitors are anxious to meet the veterans, shake their hands and express their thanks. “A young female sailor came up to me and asked what branch of the military I was in,” says Fern Metcalf, 84, a U.S. Navy WAVES veteran from Troy, Ohio. “When I told her the Navy, she grabbed my arm and asked another sailor to take a picture of us. Then she stayed with me as I walked all around the memorial.” “Here I am, 84 years old, with a smile I can’t wipe off,” Metcalf adds. “It gives me goose bumps when I think about how special we were made to feel.” George Cordrey, 85, who fought in the Battle of Iwo Jima, traveled from Cincinnati to Columbus to connect with his Honor Flight trip. “A couple approached me from out of the blue,” he says. “They hugged me and thanked me. I don’t know who they were or where they were from, but we all sobbed. It was so touching.” “They’ll have a whole day of people coming up to them, shaking their hands, thanking them,” Morse says. “At the end of the day, they’ll have a tremendous understanding of how much this country admires their service and their sacrifice.” A rejuvenating effect “I call it the fountain of youth,” he says. “There’s a transformation that takes place. They get on the plane in the morning, they’re in their 80s. They get on that evening to come back home, it’s like they’re in their 60s.” Some 1,500 World War II veterans are on a waiting list of upcoming Honor Flights and Morse vows to keep working until they all get to see the memorial that honors them. And even then, he has no plans to stop. “Once we get all the World War II vets, we’ll get the Korean vets,” he says. “And then we’ll help the Vietnam vets . . . and the vets of Iraq and Afghanistan, if there’s a memorial for that. This is going to continue.” “This is the most honorable, noble thing I’ve ever done in my life,” he adds. “It’s so much further-reaching and meaningful than I ever thought it was going to be.”
MSNBC.com - November 10, 2005
Vets visit war memorials for free
Honor Flight takes veterans, limited by money or physical
condition, to D.C.
The Associated Press
updated 2:23 p.m. ET,
Thurs., Nov. 10, 2005
DAYTON, Ohio - Frostbite damage to his feet during World War II and a limp from a stroke prevented 81-year-old William Taylor from taking a commercial flight or driving to Washington see the nation’s new memorial to veterans of the war. But Taylor managed to get there anyway. He flew via Honor Flight — a program of free flights for World War II veterans, started by a former Air Force pilot. Once a month, a caravan of small planes filled with veterans and flown by volunteer pilots makes its way from Springfield to the nation’s capital and returns the same day. If not for Honor Flight, Taylor probably would have never seen the memorial. “I just sat there and looked at it. You just couldn’t believe that you were there,” he recalled. “It was really breathtaking.” The program was set up by 46-year-old Earl Morse of Ohio, who worried that physical or financial limits were keeping World War II veterans from making it to Washington. He saw that many were dying before they got a chance to see the memorial.
Pilots use their own planes or sometimes rent them. The program relies entirely on donations, with veterans groups contributing toward some expenses. Over 200 veterans on waiting
list “You get bitten by this, and you can’t think of anything else,” Morse said. “The window itself is good for another five to 10 years. After that, it’s going to be a moot point because they’re all going to be gone. This is their last hurrah.” Taylor, who got frostbite when he spent six months in a prison camp after being captured during the Battle of the Bulge in 1944-45, thought that being able to walk only short distances would exclude him from flights. But Morse made sure he was on the first flight in May, and even found wooden boxes for him to step on to get in the plane. “I was overwhelmed,” Taylor said. Leonard Loy, who enlisted at 17 and served in the Navy in the Mediterranean and at Okinawa in the Pacific during the war, said he was overjoyed when Morse asked him if he wanted to go with him to see the memorial. “I’m too old to travel, and the other thing is I can’t afford it,” said the 80-year-old Springfield man. “There were tears in my eyes when he asked me.” He said the memorial was beautiful. “I finally realized that we were finally honored,” he said. Only 3.5 million of the 16 million Americans who served during World War II are still alive. About 1,000 die each day. An estimated 7 million people have visited the memorial — a circle of 50 granite pillars flanked by arches around a pool and fountains — since it opened in 2004. Many World War II veterans visit in wheelchairs, or with walkers, canes or crutches. “We really think they should see that memorial before they pass on,” said George Chekan, national president of the Veterans of the Battle of the Bulge Association. “It’s a must-see.” A way of thanking veterans “The intent of the flight is to thank them,” said pilot Chris Sullivan, 36, of suburban Beavercreek. “It seems a little weird that they’re so thankful.” Morse has suspended the flights until April because the cold weather can be a hazard for the small planes and there is less daylight for the flights. Demand has been so great that Morse began buying seats on jetliners flying out the Dayton airport. He calls those Guardian Honor Flights, since he sends guardians to help the veterans tour the memorial.
© 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This
material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or
redistributed.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9992713/
Avweb - June 1, 2005 -
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When the World War II
Memorial in Washington,
D.C., was dedicated last
year, most veterans were
already over 75 years old.
Some of them were patients
at the V.A. hospital in Ohio
where Earl Morse works as a
physician's assistant, and
Morse realized many of the
aging vets would never make
it to D.C. to see their
monument. Some couldn't
afford the plane ticket to
Washington, or were too
infirm to make the 10-hour
car ride. So Morse, a
retired Air Force captain,
came up with a better idea
-- he and his fellow pilots
from the
Morse has christened the
effort
