In the book I’ve recommended several times on this blog, The Women by Kristin Hannah, there is a scene where the main character, Frankie, an Army Nurse, rotates back to the United States in 1969 after 2 tours in Vietnam. She is wearing her uniform. The Los Angeles airport is filled with hostile protestors. She is spit upon. Taxis refuse to pick her up. Taking the bus to get home, no one offers to help her with her bags.
She gets to her parents home and her father is surprised to see her and not at all welcoming. Her mother is marginally better but doesn’t really know how to treat her. She acts as if they can just ignore the time Frankie’s been gone and slip back into the privileged social life the family had before Frankie joined the Army.
Randy and I were blessed to be born just a few years too late to have faced the terrible treatment many of our Vietnam Veterans did when they returned home after their service. If they returned home.
In 2026, an Honor Flight Welcome Home is an orchestrated community event where the public is invited and encouraged to fill the airport terminal and bring flags, banners, and applause to create the heartfelt welcome home that many Vietnam Era Veterans missed.
There are 134 Honor Flight Hubs across the United States. I don’t know how each of those hubs manage their homecoming celebrations, but the Southwest Florida Hub and the community in this area absolutely go above and beyond the call of duty to provide a Welcome Home experience for veterans that is both unbelievably emotional and utterly unforgettable.
As you can imagine, by the time the flight touched down at Punta Gorda at about 9 pm, we were all exhausted. We’d been on the go since 4 am with very little down time to get any meaningful rest.
Honor chairs came off the plane first so that put us near the front of the assembly. They held the whole group behind the doors to the baggage area until the entire flight was unloaded. One of the Honor Flight Board members walked around encouraging us to hang on just a little while longer, promising the wait would be worth it.
The public was asked to be at the airport by 8 pm. A band called Guns n Hoses Pipes n Drums entertained the hundreds of people waiting with patriotic songs and even Happy Birthday for a young girl. It’s moving to hear a red, white, and blue crowd singing along to God Bless America with bagpipes. We only got to see videos of those things happening afterwards. Still, I imagine how fired up this crowd was after waiting more than an hour for the Vets to emerge from the gate area.
Finally, probably about 9:30 pm, the honor chair veterans were allowed to exit the gate area and emerge into the room where the crowd waited. A huge cheer erupted when the first veteran and his guardian appeared.
I remember choking up about 17 seconds past the doors exiting the gate area. It was a sea of people. Our people, 24 of our friends (24 of you!! Thank you from the bottom of our hearts!) actually came out to the airport to welcome us home that night. Every one of them are ingenious and persistent. Our friend Jim was among the first people I saw. He positioned himself with a sign that said “Welcome Home Randy” in a place where he was impossible to miss.
Another large group of our friends were standing on top of the baggage claim carousel, giving them a very tall basketball player’s view of the crowd. They started shouting our names when they saw us and they, too, were easy to spot as they poked out above the crowd with the signs they brought with them. In the video clip below you can see us appearing at about the 3:10 second mark.
Almost immediately Randy’s brother Scott, who flew in from Green Bay that afternoon and who Randy did not know was coming, ran forward to embrace him and make his presence known. That’s when I started to cry openly. It was sensory overload at that point. About 95% of the other folks on the flight were behind us and we were not allowed to tarry. It would have held up the entire welcome home event.
We rode the wave through the terminal, out the front door where hundreds more people lined the exit route for another half a football field length. When the crowd finally petered out there was another group of our friends gathered to welcome us home. Most of our crowd from inside the terminal also made their way out to the end of the route where we were finally allowed to stop and spend some time with them. It was chaos. I was sobbing and a bit confused from being overwhelmed. Thankfully, almost all 24 of our sweet friends found us at the end of the route. Led by Keith’s wife, my friend Carla, they wrapped us in their love, took charge of all the things we had been handed and carried all day and freed us up to hug and cry and thank and hug, cry, and thank some more.
For me, the welcome home was pandemonium, physically and emotionally, from the moment we began walking into the baggage claim area until about 45 minutes later when Keith, our Guardian, brought our car up to the short term parking area. I was so grateful Scott was there to drive us home.
The next day (Wednesday) we were dead to the world. I was thankful not to have to deliver Randy to a doctor appointment in Sarasota until Thursday. We were still “off” for several days. I don’t think I felt emotionally stable again for an entire week. And even that was iffy. Just a couple of days ago I finished reading all the individual cards and letters to Randy that were in his mail bag. We could only read 8-10 pieces of mail a day because it emotionally drained us both so completely. Neither of us will ever forget the kind, heartfelt, surprising things written in those letters. It was so humbling.
Randy and I served in the military in relative peacetime. We’ve always been proud of our choice to join the military and never encountered negative or adverse reactions to our decision to do so. We were touched in deep places watching grown men openly sobbing. These Vietnam veterans on the flight experienced a Welcome Home that was so different than how they originally returned.
A woman veteran hat I ordered for the Honor Flight says, “Woman Veteran. My Oath Never Expires.” It’s still weird to me to hear someone say “Thank you for your service.” I’ve learned to reply honestly and with conviction, “It was MY HONOR to serve.”
It truly was. And is.
P.S. A reporter from ABC7 in Sarasota came to our house last week and interviewed us for a special program they are having on Memorial Day to honor veterans. I think the hook for their interest in us is that we are a dual military couple who’s been married 50 years and took the Honor Flight together. You can watch them live on-line, but the reporter, a sweet and handsome young man named David Suppes, said he’d provide links to the finished interview from their web site. I’ll pass those on to you when I get them.
P.P.S. Randy and I have decided not to proceed with Whole Brain Radiation Treatment for him. We are still praying for and believing in miracle healing. Please join us in that prayer. He’s tired, a bit muddled, but in no pain.
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