Veterans, family members get experience of a lifetime flying in restored WWII plane
There she goes... into the wild blue yonder.
Ninety-five year old Eloise Marler, a resident at Naomi Heights Nursing & Rehab, got the experience of a lifetime Friday morning when she got to ride in a restored, open-cockpit Stearman biplane, the same kind used to train aviators during World War II.
“How old do I have to be go to again?,” she asked Dream Flights pilot Molly Littlefield.
Nine veterans and their family members from local nursing homes were given the opportunity to take a 15-minute flight each aboard the Stearman biplane courtesy of Central Management Company, which partnered with Dream Flights. CMC owns Naomi Heights Nursing & Rehab and Hilltop Nursing & Rehab but veterans of other nursing homes like Matthews Memorial Nursing & Rehab and The Summit Retirement Center.
Being up that high and looking down reminded Marler of the mountain views in Oregon, where she was born. Up in the mountains, she could see all the farms below.
She didn't remember if she was supposed to talk to Littlefield while she was up there.
“I was so interested in everything,” she said. “It was great.”
Marler, whose late husband, Joe Marler Sr., was a World War II veteran, didn’t make up her mind to go until the day before when she was thinking about it.“I ought to go. It’ll be my last chance,” she said.
Eloise added that her husband taught her how to ride a horse and use a bulldozer, so she was comforted knowing that he would be with her on the flight.
“My husband is up there with God to help me,” she said.
Marler’s son, Joe Marler Jr., and daughter Janie Melder were there to see her fly off. Their mother was determined to go up, said Joe Jr., a retired Army and Desert Storm veteran.
“It’s a once in a lifetime event if you are physically able,” he said.
After Eloise and Littlefield returned, Joe Jr. joked around with his mother about her hair. All flyers wore a classic leather flying helmet.
"Don't worry about your hair. We made an appointment," he joked.
“I used to see these airplanes go over my house in 1941,” Eloise said of the Stearman biplanes. “That was right after Pearl Harbor was bombed.”
She recalls that they’d hear them flying overhead and everyone up and down the street would run outside to look at them.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve flown in an open-air cockpit,” said Donnie Lindsay, 91, a Matthews Memorial Nursing & Rehab resident and World War II veteran. “Thank you very much!”
“It was beautiful,” Grady Gravel, a resident at Hilltop Nursing & Rehab and a Vietnam War veteran, said of the view. “I flew in helicopters a lot when I was in the service, but I never got to fly one.”
“It was superb,” he said. As the plane was taxiing down the runway, Gravel said he told Littlefield, “Let’s get out of here” in Vietnamese.
As the plane made it’s way back, Gravel raised both his arms giving a thumbs up to the people on the ground.
Afterwards, in Vietnamese, he told Littlefield that he loved her.
Even though it was chilly on the ground, all three said the weather was warm up in the sky.
Dream Flights mission is to give back to those who served and their families as well, Littlefield said. She and her husband, Keith, have been on tour with Dream Flights for the past several years.
“We’ve been so impressed with the residential living communities. The stories we’ve heard that are inspired by a flight in that airplane have been life changing for us,” she said.
Littlefield’s father was a World War II instructor pilot in Stearman airplanes who taught her to how to fly one. Keith’s father was also a World War II pilot, she added, so the Stearman is an important plane to them as are veterans.
Marler’s husband Joe Marler, Sr. was a Navy Seaman 1st Class who served aboard the U.S.S. Casson and then U.S.S. Arctic, a supply ship, that took food and medical supplies all over the Pacific Ocean during World War II.
The U.S.S. Casson was bombed at Pearl Harbor, but her husband was on medical leave when it happened, so he wasn’t there, Joe Jr. said.
Eloise said her husband was drafted and gone for 4 ½ years. He was a gunner, she said, but her husband didn’t shoot at planes but at depth charges so they wouldn’t hit other ships. The last two years of his service, they never received the letters that they wrote each other. He returned home in January 1946.
Jamie Shelton, chief operating officer for Central Management Company, said this is their way to thank the veterans for making the U.S. what it is today. Through the veterans and families, the staff also get to enjoy the experience along with them. CMC’s owner Teddy Price thought it was a great program to get behind, said Shelton.
“Dream Flights is dedicated to honoring seniors and veterans with the adventure of a lifetime,” said Will Glass, a retired Air Force master sergeant. “Dream Flights encourages them to share their stories. We collect, preserve and share those stories on how they survived through times of great strife and remind us of our shared humanity, our connection to each other, and the value of listening.”
This article originally appeared on Alexandria Town Talk: Veterans, family members get experience of a lifetime flying in restored WWII plane
