(bright music) (bright music continues) - Honor Flight is a nonprofit organization that transports veterans to Washington, D.C. to visit the memorials dedicated to their service and sacrifices.

There are 128 hubs in the US, including a very busy one in Peoria serving central Illinois.

Luke Rosenbohm is the Greater Peoria Honor Flight president and Mike Brenkman is a volunteer.

Good to see you both.

Thanks for coming in.

- Good to see you, Mark.

- Thanks for having us.

- Thank you.

- Appreciate it.

- Well, we know you just had another successful Honor Flight, the 35th.

- [Luke] Yep.

- Total Honor Flight.

Let's start by figuring out how you got involved and how you got to be the president of this great organization.

- Well, there's a saying that says "if you screw up, you move up," right?

So you screw up enough as a volunteer, they just put you as the president as the way it goes.

We have this position as a bus captain, when we go out to DC and I left the news once, I left a medical person once and then turned around, they're like, "We'll just make you the president so you can't leave anybody else" but no, that happened in 2023 and ever since then, my wife and I have been working real hard to try and make sure we're getting all our vets to DC.

- [Mark] And Mike, how did you become a volunteer?

- I became a volunteer because I never served in the military and I had a lot of friends that did and I found out how Honor Flight does so much to honor the veterans and I wanúted to, this is the way I serve.

It's the only way I can serve.

It's to help get the veterans on the plane and get 'em to Washington, D.C. for their day of honor and it's so important.

- And what branch of the military did you serve in?

- So I was in the 182nd out here in your National Guard and so I did that.

So in 2014, I got back from training and Honor Flight was going on and so as a military member, we received the veterans up at the JetBridge and first flight there, I was like, we're gonna be involved as much as we can and then, so when I was retired from the military, obviously I had a little more time on my hands and that's how I got to be a little more involved.

- Well, thank you for your service.

- [Luke] I appreciate that.

- And what was the feeling you had the first time that you were involved in this?

- Oh, man, so being able to see those veterans come off and when I started, I started seeing the first few Vietnam veterans coming home and we all know how their welcome homes weren't something to be excited about, right?

And, you know, it doesn't matter where you're landing on the side of politics or whatever, when it comes to service members, they should always be welcomed home and I was always welcomed home, every deployment I came home and a lot of that has to do with the Vietnam veterans, making sure they got a welcome home.

So I still remember the first Vietnam veteran coming off the flight and seeing the tears welling up and seeing that impact and I'm like, this is gonna mean so... And I specifically remember looking at my wife and saying, "it's gonna mean so much more when we get into the Vietnam era to make sure this welcome home is everything it can be."

- [Mark] Mike, what got you hooked as a volunteer?

- What got me hooked, I started to volunteer and then I got to go to Washington, D.C. as a guardian, taking veterans and this is what got me hooked because you're on that plane and you're flying down to Washington, D.C., the veterans are all there together.

One of the most remembering, the thing I remember the most is my wife and I were both guardians on one flight and we had two veterans, and they're brother-in-laws, and they'd been together for years and they never knew what the other one did when they were in Vietnam because they don't talk about it.

Veterans don't talk about it and this is a way for them to open up, talk about what happened, talk about what they're going through.

I've had veterans actually check back with me and tell me, "you know what, after the Honor Flight, on that flight, I'm able to sleep at night now.

I couldn't sleep at night.

Now I can sleep."

And it really is so important to get those veterans on the plane.

- Yeah, especially with the Vietnam veterans.

I mean, you have the fact that they didn't get a great welcome home.

Maybe have PTSD.

- [Luke] For sure.

- You know, say what you want about the war, debate that all day, but I'm sure this is kind of a cathartic cleansing, if you can say that for some of these vets.

- So we call it a day of honor, but we see a lot of healing on that day and a lot of it comes down to these veterans finally get to open that chapter and when they're opening that chapter of their life, we're allowing it in a safer environment, we're allowing it in an environment where they feel honored, where they feel respected, so they can open up that chapter and say, "you know what, yes, this happened."

So many times, like Mike was saying, they don't talk about it and now they're opening up.

I've watched grandfathers tell grandsons stories and you know, shortly after that, you know, they passed.

Like, we really encourage our veterans, tell your story because you don't know how impactful that can be for your kids to understand where you're coming from now, knowing your past.

- [Mark] I'm gonna talk a little bit about what a typical day looks like and if you're not familiar with the Honor Flight, our local media does a pretty good job of covering it, but it is a production.

- It is.

- [Mark] I mean, you guys squeeze a a lot into one day.

- [Luke] We do.

- [Mark] Mike, let's start with you.

Where do we start off in the morning?

What happens?

- [Mike] We start off in the morning at sign in.

Veterans come in, they come in very early in the morning, four o'clock in the morning, they line up their, they line up, they sign a board, they come in, they get checked in and they go and have their photos taken and then they go behind the lines, they go back and there's coffee and donuts, and we have packages for them to take, bags with them to take.

We provide everything.

The veteran pays for nothing.

They get on that plane, they go, they get their breakfast, they get lunch, and it's just a whole day of honoring them, going to see everything Washington, D.C. has for them.

Most thing you hear the most of is from the Vietnam veteran, they wanna see the wall, that's what they want to see and that's, I get goosebumps, right, and I'm even talking about that, I've seen that multiple times with veterans and they go to the wall and gentleman, I worked with a veteran for years, never talked about it.

He went to the wall and he almost was on his knees.

It's very important.

It's a whole day of, it's all about the veteran and that's what Honor Flight's all about.

It's all about the veteran.

It's not about me.

It's not about me being in volunteering like that, it's all about the veteran, what we can do to give them their day of honor.

That's what it's all about, Mark - [Mark] And Luke, before we even get to DC, there's a lot of coordination that takes place.

- Yeah.

- Let's talk about, you know, getting the vets on the plane and who was with them.

- Right, so we start about six weeks before a flight, getting everybody coordinated, calling the veterans that are on the list.

We've got a nice long list of over a thousand veterans still needing to get out to DC.

Most of those are Vietnam vets that I'm considering.

So six weeks out, we're getting them coordinated.

They're either selecting a guardian or we're providing a guardian and that guardian is usually a family member.

So somebody, sometimes it's an argument in the family of who gets to take grandpa or dad out to DC and sometimes it's a sure thing, a sure choice and then sometimes we have veterans that don't have anybody that could take 'em out or that can take 'em out to DC, you know, sometimes, it's not that they don't have anyone that could, it's just no one that's capable.

So sometimes it's, "hey, I need to be pushed around in a wheelchair all day."

Okay, so we need to get somebody, an able body.

So we're pretty, pretty strict about making sure we're getting the best person filling that position because, you're with them all day.

So the Veteran's Day, it really matters to make sure you're pairing 'em with the right person, because you're gonna have some intimate moments of, you know, at the wall, there's probably gonna be tears.

You're gonna start here having stories, so it really matters to get that right.

- So what time do we typically take off from Peoria and how long does it take to get to DC?

- So take off at 06:30.

So, I mean, my day starts, I think I'm usually, the alarm's going off just before 3:00 AM but that's, you know, just to get everybody going and 06:30 take off, we're in DC, it's an hour and a half flight, so we're landing there 09:30 local, there and hopefully on the buses.

So far, we made a lot of changes for this year going into Dulles International instead of Reagan.

So they have an amazing ground crew there with Honor Flight.

- [Mike] Yeah.

- Helping us get the wheelchairs going, helping us get the veterans on the buses and then, so from 09:30 local there, until we're departing there at 20:30 at night.

So, and then filling in several stops with it, we just went to the Air and Space Museum over by Dulles International, huge success.

We thought that was just gonna be a filler for this one flight, after having everybody review it, they said, "We need to make this a must stop."

So we're adding it too, we're not taking the Air Force... We couldn't stop at the Air Force Memorial this time.

They were closed due to some renovations and everybody's like, "so we're just not gonna go to the Air Force anymore?"

And me being an Air Force guy, I'm like, "oh no, we're still gonna go to the Air Force.

We're just gonna add more to it," but with the staff we take, adding that, adding that extra layer, you know, one more stop, we've got the capability, so we're gonna try and maximize our time out in DC for the veterans.

- And typically, how many events go at a time?

- So we always shoot for 75, obviously getting closer up to the day, one or two might fall off for whatever reasons.

Sometimes logistics doesn't work out for all of 'em.

So this last fight we had 72 veterans and then we're taking 12 medical staff and then fill in all the other seats with admin staff, trying to make sure we have enough help out there while we're out in DC.

- Mike, have you gotten to go on a flight?

- [Mike] I've been on I think six or seven of them.

- That's it.

- Yeah, I go as a guardian at large, like if a vet doesn't have a guardian or we needed someone at the last minute to go and I'm fortunate enough to get to do that.

I love doing that and it is just an experience.

If anybody wanted to volunteer, become a guardian and if you wanna just change your life, you're gonna change your life by seeing how the life's changed for the veteran, it's the most emotional thing for everyone involved and you'll never spend a better day in your life than if you go on these flights or if you even come out to the airport, whatever our functions are, and just volunteer.

When you see the veterans and you see the family and you see people coming in, it's like, that's life changing.

It really is, Mark.

- I bet.

What's the atmosphere like on the plane going out there?

(Luke chuckles) - So we've got 'em sugared up with donuts and coffee, so everybody's a little, fairly lively.

There's a few, few people that are a little nervous, you know, they haven't flown in years or, I've had several veterans say, the last time I was on a flight, it was coming outta Vietnam.

- Wow.

- And I'm like, wow, that's been a long time.

So we always request Air Force or prior Air Force pilots with the airlines because they do the smoother landings, the Navy pilots tend to, you know, land them a little harder.

So anytime I can make fun of the Navy pilots, I try.

(Mark and Mike laughs) But- - We love you Navy.

- We love you Navy, just not when we're flying, but we end up making sure that they're comfortable.

Even the seating assignments are specific to the needs of the veterans.

Everybody's fairly lively on the way out.

We get 'em some breakfast on the flight and then once we hit boots on the ground in Dulles, they're ready to rock and roll.

We usually have quite a reception at the airport.

Like I said, Dulles has done an amazing job.

They allow a lot of civilians to come in and welcome 'em home or welcome them to Dulles and so that really gets the veterans amp up.

They don't expect that and it really gets 'em excited.

- Alright, so we've landed at the airport and where's typically our first stop?

- So it used to be Navy Memorial.

So now, like I said, we're making some changes just for this, even the October flight coming up.

So we will go to the Airspace Museum, we'll spend about an hour there, let 'em see, you know, the SR-71s out there.

Several, several airplanes that are notable and so we'll, then we'll take the nice trip from Dulles into DC proper and that's about a 35, 40 minute drive and that's where we're feeding them lunch.

So that's one of the things we've done.

We feed on the bus now and that really helps get us a lot more time to stop at all the places, but then we're heading to the Navy Memorial.

That's usually a good stop.

It's small, it's quiet.

Spend about 30 minutes there and that allows us to go in DC kind of see, you know, the capitol, the White House.

We pass all those on the way out and then we're heading over to World War II Memorial and that memorial allows us to, a lot of our Vietnam vets, their dads, their uncles, they have a lot of family members that serve there and that's one of the reasons they either served or when they were drafted, you know, said, "Nope, we're gonna do this 'cause our country" because I mean, the greatest generation was the ones that raised these veterans, so they were proud to try and follow in their, you know, their family's footsteps.

So making sure we still keep that stop.

Actually we did just had a World War II, we've just about every other flight, we're still having a World War II veteran show up and that it's kind of cool to see how even in their, you know, a hundred years old, 103 years old, they're still, I mean, they probably walk more than I do in a day.

(Mike chuckles) But then from World War II, depending on our schedule for Arlington, that's a specific time you have to hit to make sure they schedule that out because with all the funerals and everything, they need to make sure they have an allotted time for us.

So depending on where that lands on the day, we're either heading over to Arlington from there, or we're going to the Vietnam and Korea memorial and then whichever one's from there go to Arlington.

So Arlington is one that, if anyone's thinking your schedule looks a little different this year, it's because Arlington was a little more difficult to schedule and I am never the one to think that I have all the right ideas.

So I threw it out on the sound board and asked a bunch of my veteran buddies.

I was like, "Hey, if we had to, you know, remove Arlington, would that be a big deal?"

And they said, "absolutely, we gotta make it happen."

So Arlington will always be on the schedule and then from there we've got Iwo Jima Air Force Memorial, and then it's the dinner ride back on the bus to the airport.

I mean, it sounds really easy, like just, you know, just run it out on the schedule, but I mean, that's a full day.

- Well, and you're talking about folks that are older?

Some, - Yes.

Some in wheelchairs, I would imagine.

- We haven't had wheelchair races yet, but I see it coming with a few of them, yeah.

- [Mark] All right, hey, you never know.

- Yep.

- Mike, I'll ask you on the times you've been out there, do you have a one memorial that really stands out to you?

- Well, the Vietnam memorial really does, the wall, you see all the names on the wall, you can ask for a piece of paper, you can etch names on the wall, all kinds of things, gifts, things like that at the base of the wall, like old pictures or maybe, it's just a sad situation when you hit that wall, Mark, but you know what, it's a lot of healing for the veterans and you see veterans go up and they'll touch that wall and that's so important to see that, that's probably one of my favorites right there to go see.

I mean that like, in a very respectful way.

- [Mark] Sure, sure.

- I sure do.

- Well I remember the wall opened when I was a teenager and my dad took me to DC and you know, you watch the news, you watch movies, whatever, but until you see those names up there, - Yeah, - It really, probably hasn't sunk in.

- Yeah.

- It's a pretty amazing experience.

What about you?

Do you have a specific one?

- So, I see a lot of value with the Vietnam wall, but the one thing that every, every branch, every, every era, that sir, Arlington.

So Arlington is my perspective place.

It doesn't matter what's going on with the schedule, it doesn't matter what's going on in my personal life, work life, whatever.

When I hit Arlington, the world slows down and you just realize like, this is what matters and like I said, I've heard that other hubs don't make it to Arlington and I think it's a shame because that is, if you ask any veteran, their heroes are in Arlington.

Those are where our heroes rest and I think that is the place where we always get our perspective, at least I do.

- Yeah, I asked you about the atmosphere on the way out there, on the way back.

What is it like?

Is it a lot of reflection, talking, silence?

- Yeah, well, it's pretty, it's pretty quiet at first, Mark.

- At first, - But then, oh, the lights come on, on the plane and we have, what we call mail call and this is where the guardians get letters and for the veterans that are on that plane and we have these bags that Honor Flight puts together.

We have bags, all the letters in the bags, so lights all come on on the plane and then it's announced mail call, 'cause a lot of the veterans didn't get mail in Vietnam, for example.

They did not get mail and this is their chance.

They're gonna get mail and a lot, 'em get a lot and everybody wakes up, everybody's good to go again, everybody's fired up again because you're reading the letters and you're gonna see a lot of tears with that.

You're gonna see a lot of smiles, tears, it's a very emotional, it's a very emotional time when that happens.

It really is on mail call and the volunteers that we have that do the mail call and getting this all coordinated, it's a big job.

It really, really is, 'cause you cannot believe there's thousands of letters that come in on this and then you get everybody separated, bags all filled.

It's pretty cool, Mark.

It really is.

- Yeah, mail call is definitely one of those, you know, you think nice, quiet, dark airplane, time to take a nap and then they don't put their mailbags down.

They read 'em all the way to, all the way into the approach into Peoria, because you've got service member, you know, people, they served with, grandkids, just friends.

We've had letter shipped from Hawaii, all over the country and it allows family to have that personal time with the veteran even though they're not with them.

- You mentioned a pretty big waiting list.

How do you determine who's flying out and when?

Is it first come, first serve or is it by age?

- Yeah, so there's a handful of things we're dealing with.

So National Hub prioritizes World War II, Korea, then Vietnam.

So obviously, we have done a pretty good job getting through our World War II in Korea, but like I said, there's always a few out there.

Sometimes it's just, you know, they live in a town kind of further out from Peoria and until they catch it on the news or something, a friend says, "hey, didn't you know, your uncle or something serve in Korea?"

And then we get 'em signed up and so usually if you're signing up and you're a Korea vet, you're going on the next flight if it works out for you, but like I said, most of our flight is Vietnam era.

So now what we start looking at is when did you sign up?

So right now we're working on veterans that signed up in 2018 and you're like, oh wow, why so late?

Well, you gotta remember we lost two years, right?

World got paused for a period and so that backlog is still there.

So we've actually had to put it out, like if your medical has changed since you've signed up, please reach out, let us know because It's cold, hard truth, we've called and veterans passed already and that's hard.

I mean that's, you want to talk about what keeps you up at night?

That's what keeps me up at night, when I realize we called 200 veterans and some either couldn't go or a few of them had passed.

I know one flight, there was five people that had just passed and it's hard, but it's the reality we live in.

So going through that, last year, anytime I could, I told people if we can get more funding, we can get more flights.

We usually did three flights a year.

We're up to five flights this year.

Why?

Because that's, you know, the community just shows up, like this area does, Peoria area always shows up, the outlying communities, if they've got a good cause, they're showing up.

So if medical is a situation, we're having our medical director look at it and then not everybody serves in the era that allows them to be in.

So we're also looking at age.

So right now if your birthday lands in like the 1940 or earlier, we're giving you a call and seeing how you are and seeing if we can get you on the flight.

- How old is the oldest passenger you've had?

Do you know?

- On this last flight, 103 and a half, I think somebody said.

- I know.

- Yeah, so 103.

Yeah.

- And she was nonstop.

She managed, couldn't keep up with her.

- She was pretty resistant to the wheelchair.

She's like, "no, I can walk" and she did end up taking it, because we told her, well you do get preferred, you know, seating or preferred spot at Arlington.

So she was like, okay, I'll take a wheelchair, but, - Wow.

- She had no problem walking.

- So you mentioned the veterans don't pay anything, so explain to us a little bit about how this is all funded.

- The community.

So we have had, we have a great community that if you put the need out, they show up and like I said, last year we said we need to be able to afford more flights.

And that's what happened.

The funding came in.

So we've done, a lot of times it's organizations wanting to fundraise for us.

So we don't host a lot of our own fundraisers, which is good because then we can use our volunteer, you know, teams to do what we need to do for our flight day, but it's not to say we don't try and help out.

I know Full Metal Valor hosted a golf outing last year and we were the recipient, $20,000, which was amazing and they said, "Hey, would you mind sending a few volunteers to help, you know, help out at the event?

Absolutely, like, that really makes it worth it when we're able to help out, but then receive a check like that.

- Give us an idea of how much a typical plane ride or an event, a one day event would cost.

- Yeah, so looking at the numbers, when we started scheduling everything, we were looking at 95,000 a flight this year, per flight.

So you're talking food, you're talking transportation, you know, we're renting buses out in DC and getting everything and that's gifts for the veterans.

So we've been able to work it out down to 95,000.

We were up to 112 when I took over and that was just using a certain airline and you know, just looking at a few different things and seeing if we could squeeze the pennies just a little tighter.

- [Mark] Sure.

- And I'm happy to say we've partnered with Allegiant and they have been in a great partnership for our veterans.

They've really taken care of us, getting us out to Dulles and letting our veterans feel comfortable on their way out.

- I know not everyone is mobile.

So you have Operation Penguin.

- Yes.

- Explain what that is.

- So again, going through those call list and having veterans say can't go on this flight, you know, can't travel anymore.

and some of them, "I'm not traveling to DC, I don't wanna fly on an airplane, I don't want to go to DC" you know, our mission is to honor our veterans, so how can we do that locally?

So we figured well would, it would be a flightless flight and ostriches aren't really that appealing, so we came up with another flightless bird and the penguins seemed a little more, you know, palatable as far as being able to put it on a T-shirt and sell it.

So Operation Penguin came from making sure that our veterans still get a day of honor, just might not be out in DC, so we were hoping to do one this year, but our list for DC vets is longer than our Penguin one.

So we're gonna start our 2026 season with a penguin flight, but that just allows the community to be a little more involved.

You know, starting to make the calls to say, "Hey, who wants to be involved?"

And everybody's like, "put me on the list, put me on the list."

So again, it just, it's fun to do an event like that in Peoria.

- I bet it is and I know you're always looking for money, volunteers.

Mike, what's your pitch for getting more volunteers?

- Well, I'll tell you what my pitch is, it's what'd you wanna do with your life?

That's my pitch and it's, if you wanna help and get a veteran to Washington, D.C. for their day of honor, we always have open spots for anybody that wants to volunteer doing anything, whether it's doing wheelchairs or if it's meeting the veterans at the door, if it's working behind the scenes, that's what I do a lot of, like it that way, you know, 'cause everybody can get involved that way, but it is just important to volunteer, Mark, that's a good question.

Another thing is, at the welcome home, get your kids out there if you can, get the young people involved.

A lot of people, a lot of young people, they don't even have an idea what we're all about.

They don't have an idea what these veterans have gone through in their war with World War II, Korea, Vietnam.

They don't have a clue and get them involved, get them to the welcome home and that's what's important.

Volunteering is what it's all about, Mark.

It really is.

- Yeah, I was thinking, you know, even young kids, even teenagers and 20 somethings, probably don't have a clue as to what the greatest generation went through.

So it's probably a good idea to get them out there and they may appreciate what they have a little bit more.

- Yeah.

- Well and another thing I like to do is when I am out and I see a veteran with a veteran cap on and I see a lot of Vietnam veterans and what you wanna do is, you wanna walk up to them and you wanna say welcome home and thank you for your service, because they never got a welcome home.

I know we talked about that earlier.

I've done that and I've had veterans stand right there in the street and start crying, because they told me they never had a welcome home and that's important to do, it truly is and the thing is too, then you can also engage this veteran and you say, "Hey, have you been on the Honor flight?

Would you wanna go on the Honor flight?"

And I've had veterans tell me, "Well I really, I wasn't really in country" and so I said, what did you do?

Well I had a veteran tell me, "Well I stayed back here and I coordinated things, the guys in country on the bombing missions and things like that."

I said, "well then you're pretty important, you did a pretty important job then."

"Yeah, but I don't think I'm qualified to go on the Honor flight."

I said, yeah, "I think you're more than qualified to go on the Honor flight," but that's the thing that some of 'em think about is if they feel, if they weren't in country actually at the war, in country, they feel that they're not worthy to go.

Well, they are worthy to go because they serve their country and that's the part that really bothers me is, I want them all to go.

That's all there is to it, Mark.

- Unfortunately we're about out time.

Where can people find out more about the Greater Peoria Honor Flight?

- Greaterpeoriahonorflight.org.

- Simple enough.

Gentlemen, we appreciate what you do and the Honor Flight Nationwide's been around for, gosh, 20 years, 46 states and there's 128 different hubs around the country, including your fine hub here and seven others I believe in Illinois.

- Yeah.

- Right.

- So thanks for what you do and, - Appreciate it, thank you.

- [Mark] We look forward to seeing another flight take off.

- Sounds good.

- Well thanks for having us, Mark.

Appreciate you doing this.

- [Mark] My pleasure.

Alright, and thank you for watching.

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Have a good night.

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