On Saturday, September 16th, Honor Flight Central Florida will be heading up to the Nation’s Capital with a group of local heroes. Our surviving WWll Veterans are a national treasure, and we are blessed to have almost 2 dozen of them traveling with us, at no cost to them, to view and reflect at the memorials built for them, in Washington DC. We are further blessed to have them joined by Veterans of the Korean War, the Cold War, and the Vietnam conflict. Each will be accompanied by an Honor Flight Guardian Donor who will be at their side for an emotional day that’s as personally rewarding as anything you could imagine. Our Flight Mission takes us to the WWll Memorial, the Korea War Memorial, the Vietnam Memorial, The Marine Memorial, the Air Force Memorial, the Navy Memorial, and Arlington National Cemetery where we will observe the changing of the Guard and laying of a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Our Honor Flight Hub’s mission is a simple one – to give back to those who have given so much, our Nation’s Veterans. Every Veteran wrote a blank check to our Country for an amount up to and including their life, and we were honored with their service, so it’s time to honor them. Not only do we want to thank each of them personally, we want them to experience a day where they will have no doubt just how much everyone appreciates them. On an Honor Flight, our Heroes will not be traveling “incognito” – they will be highly visible on the National Mall and at the other memorials in the Capital. They will be recognized and thanked by more folks on their Honor Flight then most have in their lifetime. We love that. They deserve that. At the very least, don’t you think? We hope to give them closure to their service, and that they see the honors expressed in their memorials for all those who gave, and those who gave all. You can play a role as an Honor Flight Guardian too. Applications are available for download on our website in the main menu. You can help to make a great Honor Flight for our Veterans by turning out at Orlando Airport to welcome them home after their day in the Capital. Watch for updates here. We will be arriving at 10:20PM on September 16th, so please save the date and join the masses in giving our heroes the kind of welcome home honor they should have. You can also support us with a direct donation. We are an all volunteer, 501C3 organization, so any money donated is spent on our mission. Help us keep the planes flying.

“We can’t all be heroes, someone has to stand on the curb and clap as they go by.

Your local Honor Flight “hub”, Honor Flight Central Florida, will be conducting our last flight mission of 2017 on Saturday, September 16. The public plays a large role in the effort to Honor our local heroes and we hope you can be a part of the overdue tribute to their service and sacrifices. As a Guardian donor, you can accompany one of our Honorees on their Honor Flight to Washington DC and join with them when they visit and reflect at the Memorials erected for them by our grateful nation. Honor Flight Guardians are special folks that play a critical part in the honor we provide to our hometown heroes by contributing their time to accompany one of our Honorees on their Honor Flight and covering their own cost to do so by a donation to Honor Flight Central Florida, your local hub in the national Honor Flight Network. Many of our Honored Veterans have never seen their memorial, and for many, this may be the one of the final trips of their lifetime. Guardians accompany their assigned Veterans shoulder to shoulder throughout the flight mission as their flight buddies and “pilots” of their wheelchairs, assuring they comfortably witness the sights and memorials built for them, and join in experiencing the cathartic release and closure to their service that often transpires during an Honor Flight. Being a Guardian to an Honor Flight Honoree is an experience you will never forget, and provides an opportunity to give back to those who gave so much for us. A link to Guardian applications can be found here on our main menu. We also welcome and encourage all members of the public to be a part of the “welcome home” event at Orlando airport on our return to the “City Beautiful” at the close of our Honoree’s special day. Most of our Honorees never experienced a real welcome home after their service, so we endeavor to provide the one we believe they rightly deserved, so they can witness the admiration of those who are thankful to them for their sacrifices firsthand. Welcome home events are a great time for families to share in, and we hope that you can play a role in personally thanking our Honorees for their sacrifices. That’s what Honor Flight is all about, and we cannot carry out our mission without your support. For more information on donating or being an Honor Flight Guardian call us at 407 203-7010 or write us at honor.flight.central.florida@gmail.com.

Remember, our Veterans honored us with their service, it’s our time to honor them….

We are so excited to be holding the reunion for our May 6th and June 3rd Honor Flights this weekend, and cannot wait to see our Honored Veterans and their Guardians. Reunions are a chance for us to be together again and for all of us to share our own Honor Flight experience with everyone attending, including our families and friends.

We look forward to this Saturday’s gathering and catching up with everyone. For more information call 407 203-7010.

May 21, 2017 – On the evening of Saturday, June 3rd, the public will have the privileged opportunity to welcome twenty-four local heroes who served our great Nation in WWll and Korea when they will be returning home from their Honor Flight to Washington D.C. to view and reflect at their Memorials. Our group of Honorees includes twelve members of our “greatest generation” who sacrificed to defend our freedoms at the most pivotal time in US History. We are also proud to pay tribute to twelve Honorees that defended the world from the spread of communism  during the Korean conflict.

All of our neighbors in Central Florida owe it to these humble heroes to recognize their actions and sacrifices, made for all of us to secure the liberty we enjoy today. “Freedom is not Free” and we all should acknowledge and pay tribute to those who paid and witnessed the cost.

Our youngest Veteran Honoree is 83 and our most Senior will be turning 100 years old this coming August. They proudly served our country in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard and Army Air Force throughout the world. Two of our Honorees are women, one that served as an original “WAVE”, one who suffered the brutality of the Japanese enemy as a POW in 9 different East Indies prison camps during WWll.

Seldom is such a group assembled in the same place at the same time, so we hope you will join us in an incredible opportunity to provide them the hero’s welcome and your personal thanks that they so the rightly deserve. For many, this Honor Flight is taking place during the closing chapter of their lives, for some, the during final paragraph.

The patriotic public will play a very important part in the honoring of these genuine heroes by assembling in Orlando International Airport (MCO) at 8:45PM on June 3 to greet their returning Honor Flight in Terminal A. Our welcoming group should assemble by the Starbucks in Terminal A on the departure level just behind the Southwest Airlines ticketing desk. We are scheduled to arrive at OIA at 8:40PM on Southwest Airlines flight number 5205. We recommend you check with SW after 6:30PM to confirm our on time arrival. Bring your family, bring your friends, bring a flag, and bring your home-made signs to show our Honorees their sacrifices are not forgotten. Check this site and our FB page as we get closer to June 3, for any updates we might have, and please share this post so we have a huge crowd on hand at this very, very, special event.

“Our Veterans have honored us with their service, it’s our time to honor them”

We are excited about our upcoming Honor Flight mission to our nation’s capital in three short weeks, on Saturday June 3rd. Time is running our for us to honor the members of our greatest generation as we are losing them at the rate of 366 each and every day.

Our June 3 Honor Flight will be honoring 24 Central Florida Veterans that served our Nation in WWll, the Korean War and Vietnam conflicts. We’ll be doing our best to see that each is personally honored for their sacrifices on our behalf. Over the next week we will be finalizing plans that include hosting all our Honorees and their Guardians at their Flight Mission Orientation May 20th.

Did you know that family members, friends and even total strangers of our Honorees can play a critical role on Honor Flight Missions by accompanying one of our Hero’s as their personal Honor Flight Guardian? Honor Flight Guardians are Donors who cover their own cost to travel on a Flight Mission and donate their time to meet and accompany our Honorees on their Honor Flight. Nothing could be more rewarding than to be with our Honored Vets and share the stories of their service and the closure and release that many of our Heroes experience. As a Guardian, you will have the first hand opportunity to assure your assigned Veteran has a day full of Honor and Tribute recognizing their service and sacrifice to our Country.

Watch for coming post with more details about participating in the huge welcome home event we are planning for our Heroes Saturday evening June 3 at Orlando International Airport. Everyone has an opportunity to participate in our welcome home events and we endeavor to make each a special close to our Veterans day of Honor. We hope you can be with us to give these very special Heroes the welcome and recognition they never got after their service and sacrifices for all of us. For our 12 Honored WWll Veterans in particular, that welcome home and tribute is 72 years overdue. Please mark your calendar and plan to show them all your personal appreciation by being with us Saturday evening June 3.

We don’t know them all, but we owe them all.

Our first Honor Flight Central Florida Flight Mission for this Saturday, May 6th. We hope the patriotic public of our Central Florida community can join to welcome our Heroes back home after their day of Honor in our Capital. We are scheduled to arrive at Orlando International on Jet Blue Flight # 1023 due in at 8:11 pm. Please come out to show your thanks to our Senior Veterans who served and sacrificed for all of us, and give them the welcome home they deserve and never got. Be at Orlando Airport in Terminal A on the arrivals & ticketing level by the security checkpoint entrance to gates 1-59, next to Chilis, Saturday evening May 6th at 8:30 to greet and thank our Veterans personally. We are pleased to be honoring 24 Central Florida Veterans for their service, 17 of whom served in WWll, 6 of whom served in the Korean War and 1 who served our Nation in Vietnam. The vast majority of our Honorees are in their 90s having served in the Army, Army Air Corp,, Navy, Marines and Air Force. We are also pleased to Honor two women that served in World War ll, one as a WAC and one as a WAVE. This is a family event that offers a very special end to a very long day of tribute to our Heroes. Bring signs, flags, and all your family and friends to play your own roles in this special tribute to some very special Veterans who are your neighbors right here in Central Florida! Be sure to check with Jet Blue after 6pm to verify our on time arrival. Watch for Honor Flight staff who will be on site organizing the welcome, and remember, “We can’t all be heroes, some of us have to stand on the curb and clap as they go by”
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We are always so humbled to hear the eloquence and emotion with which Veterans and their families describe the impact of their Honor Flight Central Florida journey.

The memories of our Honor Flight Guardians, staff, and volunteers are equally powerful. Those of us who had the honor of travelling alongside our Honorees, or greeting them at the airport shared in an experience we will always treasure.

On Tuesday, March 28, at 8 p.m. Eastern time, viewers of CBS-TV’s top-rated prime-time drama, NCIS, will get a glimpse into the world our Honorees experienced and Guardians and Volunteers helped to shape.

NCIS writer Gina Lucita Monreal found her inspiration for the episode in her grandfather-in-law’s Honor Flight experience, and the renewed sense of pride and purpose with which he returned home after his Honor Flight to Washington, D.C. While the episode’s story line is fictional, the deep and meaningful connections established among travelling veterans, and the passion of Honor Flight’s Guardians and volunteers, shine through true and clear.

This unprecedented nationwide exposure provides Honor Flight Central Florida and the Honor Flight Network with an invaluable opportunity to move closer to our goal of personally thanking every Central Florida area WWII, Korean and Vietnam war veteran with his or her long-overdue day of honor. We hope to use it as a catalyst for reaching local veterans who’ve yet to fly with us , while also encouraging the crucial financial and volunteer support needed to further our mission to honor Veterans now and long into the future.

We urge you to tune in to this special episode of NCIS on March 28, and encourage your friends, family, business associates and community connections to do the same.