Honor Flight needs you, North Idaho

Each spring and fall, local war veterans are transported to Washington, D.C., to visit the American memorials that honor their service and sacrifice.

The Inland Northwest Honor Flight, a nonprofit, has taken 1,250 veterans to the nation’s capital since the program’s inception in 2009. The annual Inland Northwest Honor Flight Benefit Dinner and Auction helps support the Honor Flight so veterans can continue to receive that honor. It costs about $1,000 per veteran per trip.

Barb Nelson, a volunteer for the Northwest Honor Flight and committee member for the INW Honor Flight fundraiser, said the event historically has “been put on by Spokane people and attended by Spokane people,” but now she’s calling for the people of North Idaho to step up and show their support.

“We have spread the word really well to veterans here, but we’re not getting the financial support and rally from the citizens of our community that I would like to see,” Nelson said. “I want my Idaho friends to be early with their enthusiasm so they can sign up.”

Cheryl Chongaway, who is also a volunteer with the Honor Flight and fundraiser, wholeheartedly agrees with Nelson because she got to witness

firsthand what these journeys mean to the veterans. She accompanied her father, Korean War veteran Charles Millspaugh, as his guardian in April.

“It was something that was very important to him,” Chongaway said. “He felt very privileged that it was his turn to be able to go and to do this trip.”

Chongaway said her dad was impressed by the heroes’ welcome they received when they landed in D.C. A crowd of people, emergency vehicles and fire trucks greeted them on the tarmac, and the fire trucks sprayed water over the plane.

“There were cheers when we came off the plane,” she said. “There were people there that greeted and thanked all the way to the buses, people directing, people saying, ‘Thank you for your service.’ I mean, I think my dad said ‘thank you’ that day more than he has ever said.”

She said their arrival back to the Northwest was just as touching.

“There were banners, bands, balloons, cheers, clapping, and it didn’t stop, even when the last veteran came down, it was still going on,” she said. “The pride, the respect and the gratitude that filled the airport at that time is nothing like I have ever experienced. Dad turned and looked at me with tears in his eyes and said with a question, ‘This is all for us?’”

Chongaway’s father died in July. She cherishes their Honor Flight trip and what it meant to both of them.

“My fondest memory of my dad will forever be of our Honor Flight to Washington, D.C., where I saw my dad as my true hero,” she said. “It wasn’t until I went on this trip that I really heard how proud he was as a veteran.”

Vietnam-era Air Force veteran Terry McClintick was a guardian for his father-in-law, Korean War veteran Otis Burge, on the same trip.

“I was honored,” McClintick said. “Not just to be with my father-in-law, but with all the other vets. It was just great to see the looks on their faces. A number of them had never been to D.C. to see the memorials and I had been there before and had a chance to see them. I knew what was waiting for them and I thought, ‘This is going to be so great.'”

Burge, who worked in communications in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1948-1952, said he was impressed by the organization of the whole trip, and that if it wasn’t for his daughter, Catherine McClintick, and the Honor Flight, he probably would never have had the opportunity to return to D.C. The last time he was there was 1949.

“The most important thing there in D.C. to see was the Marine Corps Iwo Jima memorial, as a Marine,” Burge said. “All of it was great, it was really something. I’ll never forget it.”

The fifth annual Inland Northwest Honor Flight Benefit Dinner and Auction is Oct. 8 at the Mirabeau Park Hotel and Convention Center, 1100 N. Sullivan Road in Spokane. Doors open at 5:30 p.m.

Tickets are $60 per person and can be purchased by contacting Nelson at 930-1661 or [email protected].