Answer Man: Do you have to be a veteran to go on Blue Ridge Honor Flights?
Today's question is about the Blue Ridge Honor Flight, which flies veterans to Washington, D.C., twice a year to see the war memorials. Blue Ridge Honor Flight is part of the Honor Flight Network, started by Hendersonville's Jeff Miller in 2005 and now has 122 hubs around the world.
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Question: A reader recently asked, "Do you have to be a veteran to go on one of the Blue Ridge Honor Flights?"
Answer: No.
Besides the medical staff and the Blue Ridge Honor Flight staff, including Miller, not all flight passengers are veterans, some are guardians. Miller said when the program first began, he and his team realized staff needed help during the trip to make sure all the veterans were taken care of.
They decided to have a guardian accompany each veteran. While veterans always fly for free, guardians pay a $500 fee, and the applications can be found online at https://www.blueridgehonorflight.com/.
"I don't believe we could even consider doing this without the guardians," Miller said.
He said when the flights first started with World War II veterans, one of the guardians got attached to his veteran.
"The veteran and his wife had a child very late in their lives, and the child was severely handicapped. They were concerned about who would take care of their child when they were no longer here," he said.
Miller said the guardian of the veteran on the flight became a legal guardian of the veteran's handicapped child after he and his wife passed away, when the child was then an adult.
"That's an extreme case, but that's a beautiful case," Miller said.
The plane is already booked solid for the next flight, which will take off on April 27 from the Asheville Regional Airport. There will be 59 guardians on this flight – 22 of these are veterans, having served in Vietnam, Desert Storm, and Iraq and Afghanistan. This will be my fourth flight and my first as a guardian.
Guardians go through an orientation before each flight. I was at the April 13 orientation for veterans and guardians at Groce United Methodist Church in Asheville, where I met my veteran, Ronnie Robinson, a Marine who was a cook during the Vietnam War, he said.
There were so many veterans there, at first I was afraid I'd never find him. But when he came through the doors with his wife, I thought I needed to get a photo of them. Little did I know when I took the photo that he was my veteran. He and his wife were dressed head to toe in American flag clothing ... and when I say toe, I'm not joking.
When I sat at the table and introduced myself and told him I was his guardian, I told him how much I loved their clothes. He smiled, lifted up his pant leg, and said, "Like my socks?" They were covered in stars and stripes.
During the orientation, Blue Ridge Honor Flight staff members gave a presentation about the flight and explained that each flight costs approximately $100,000. They said major sponsorships provide the bulk of that money, and the rest comes through fundraisers in the community.
We owe so much to our veterans, and I know we'll never be able to repay them. Miller has definitely done his part. Since his program began in 2005, Honor Flight Network has taken more than 300,000 veterans to see the war memorials, and there have been over 220,000 guardians aboard.
Dean Hensley is the news editor for the Hendersonville Times-News. Email him with tips, questions and comments at DHensley@gannett.com. Please help support this kind of local journalism with a subscription to the Hendersonville Times-News.
This article originally appeared on Hendersonville Times-News: Answer Man: Do you have to be a veteran to be on the Honor Flights?
