Perry Rotary and local veterans to participate in Honor Air Flight

A few members of the Perry Rotary Club and 16 veterans from Houston County left Monday afternoon to take the Honor Air Flight, a program hosted through the Roswell Rotary Club.

Many of the men and women who fought and sacrificed by serving their country in the military, have not had the opportunity nor the financial ability to visit their own memorials in Washington D.C. World War II heroes are passing away at the rate of more than 600 per day and the story is much the same for Korean War veterans. Roswell Rotary also created this program to give the Vietnam War veterans the “Welcome Home” they never received, honoring their service, sacrifice, and commitment to our country.

The program grew over the years inviting Rotary Clubs throughout Georgia to be a part of the Honor Air Flight. The flight is approximately seventy World War II, Korean, and Vietnam War veterans plus guardians, who are Rotary members. It is a free one day trip to Washington, D.C.

The veterans and guardians meet at the Roswell Community Center in the early morning hours and travel by motorcoach to the Atlanta airport. They will fly on a chartered plane to Washington, D.C. Tuesday where they will be escorted on buses from the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport to the World War II Memorial. Then they will visit the Vietnam and Korean Memorials and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington Cemetery. That same day they will return to the Reagan airport, fly back to Atlanta.

On Monday Perry Rotary members and their veterans left in the afternoon for the trip and spent the night in Roswell. But just before they left the club held a “special send-off” for them. The Perry Fire Department provided the American Flag displayed hanging from their ladder truck as local student Victoria Day, sang the National Anthem, and the Houston County Sheriff’s Office and Perry Police Department escorted them to the Houston County line.