A group of Honor Flight students stood outside the south door of the Parsons High School cafeteria Saturday, and as an older gentleman approached one of the students immediately extended a hand and a smile to greet him, and the other students followed suit.
The man was guided inside by one of the students, whose sweatshirt bore the words: “Thank A Veteran By Living A Life Worth Defending.” Once inside he was escorted to a table where his student guardian awaited his arrival, and the introductions began. Every veteran participating in the USD 503-USD 505 Honor Flight is accompanied to Washington., D.C. by a student guardian. Guardians are there to escort the veterans and help ensure they have a safe, memorable, and rewarding trip to visit the Capitol and war memorials. Parsons USD 503 Honor Flight is one of the few that allows high school students to serve as guardians to the veterans.
The founder of the program at USD 503, Mike Kastle, said that is one of several reasons veterans from outside the area request to participate in the Parsons Honor Flight- the chance to tell their stories to generations coming up, so they hear firsthand veterans’ life experiences.
“I think it’s great,” Vietnam veteran Lonie Addis said of having student guardians. “People don’t realize we are losing our veteran population - you know, the number of veterans we have today versus 20 years ago. That’s a part of (students’) lives they need to know, because they may never experience it, but they need to know what it was all about.”
Kastle said some Honor Flight programs elsewhere also have longer waiting lists. Those with adult guardians charge them $500 to $1,500 to accompany a veteran on the trip. Parsons Honor Flight charges the students nothing to accompany the veterans to D.C., yet every year they take 24 veterans, and 24 student guardians, plus the travel team.
“They help raise the money and that’s it,” Kastle said of the students. That is done mostly through biscuit and gravy breakfasts on Saturday mornings at the high school throughout the year. There is one more scheduled before the trip to D.C.
Before leaving for the trip, students attend a training session, and then get the chance to meet their veteran. The Meet & Greet luncheon provides students and veterans the opportunity to get to know a little about one another before their upcoming trip May 20-22. As veterans arrived Saturday, students gave their veterans gifts from the Parsons Honor Flight Program and then discussed the schedule for the three-day trip –another reason veterans choose the Parsons Honor Flight.
A lot of the programs do a whirlwind round trip to Washington D.C. and back in one day. Kastle said it is difficult for many of the veterans, especially those from World War II. For that reason, Parsons started out doing a two-day trip, but last year extended the trip to three days thanks to donors’ generous support.
Word of mouth has spread about the Parsons program. Veterans this trip are from southeast Kansas all the way to northeast Kansas and into Missouri.
Vietnam veteran Carl Johnson said some years back he planned to be a guardian through another group for a veteran who was living in a nursing home, but when the man heard the one-day schedule, he said he could not keep up with that pace and passed on the trip. Now, these many years later, Johnson is the veteran going.
“I’m the old guy now,” he said, adding how much he appreciated the more relaxed schedule Parsons Honor Flight affords.
Johnson’s student guardian, Noah McIntosh, a junior at PHS, said this is his first year to be in Honor Flight. He was inspired to participate in the program when he was in eighth grade and his history teacher Debbie Shaffer first told him about Honor Flight. He said he is very excited to finally get to be a part of it and is happy for the longer trip, given the schedule is still busy for three days.
“I couldn’t imagine trying to do this all-in-one day,” McIntosh said.
This is the third year for PHS senior Tate Phillips. He had not really planned to be a part of Honor Flight, but his sophomore year someone backed out last minute. He was approached to fill in. He agreed and has done it every year since.
“I think it is great,” Phillips said. His favorite part of the trips are the stories and listening to the veterans share about their lives.
“You can learn a lot of things,” he said.
Veterans will depart from the school at 12:45 a.m. May 20. All the way to Kansas City they will stop and pick up veterans along the way. Twenty-four in all will be going. Once in D.C., the group will get to visit the Naval Memorial, Iwo Jima Memorial, and Arlington National Cemetery. Day two they will tour Fort McHenry, tour the Capitol, and visit the Air Force Memorial.
Their last day, they take in the World War II Memorial, Korea/Vietnam Memorial, MLK/FDR Memorial, Eisenhower Memorial and the Pentagon Memorial before flying home.
Veteran Thad Osgood traveled to D.C. about 30 years ago when he was president of Farm Bureau. He didn’t have the opportunity to visit most of the war memorials, then. The one he managed to visit was the Vietnam Memorial, which brought a flurry of mixed emotions as he stared at the hundreds of thousands of names, etched side by side, covering the wall. He anticipates this time will be no easier, but he will be there with many other veterans, and will have his guardian, Miracle Adams, by his side. He is looking forward to going, and he and Adams learning more about one another as they tour. While Adams is there for him, he is glad to be there for her, too, for things like helping her through her first airplane flight.
“She gets to sit by the window,” Osgood said smiling.
“This is the best Honor Flight because you want the students involved,” Addis said.