Earlier in the week I arrived at Washington’s National airport to find a couple of things different than what I expected over on the far US Airways concourse.
First, Five Guys Burgers was closed. Lots of changes coming to the dining scene at National airport, but Five Guys was there, and it’s coming back, how important could the renovation of the Five Guys space really be?
Second though was much more significant. US Airways brought in over 100 World War II veterans to DC on a day trip.
The entire terminal stopped, stood silently, until each veteran came off the aircraft — and gave each one a massive round of applause.
Surviving World War II veterans, coming to DC to visit the World War II Memorial? That was a pretty non-partisan issue in DC this week, at least amongst travelers on the US Airways pier of National Airport.
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That’s a pretty regular occurrence in that pier. I’ve seen it a few times, and was on an honor flight with about 15 vets returning home on the DCA-SAN nonstop a month or so ago.
Good stuff. ^
I always thought this was a nice charitable program on the part of US Airways. But it’s got to be coming to an end. I mean, do the math: the war ended 69 years ago. That would pretty much put the youngest vet at 87. It will be sad to see them go. It was always interesting to talk about the war with my wife’s grandfather, who served with Patton. He lived to 92, but was an officer, so he was older.
Honor Flight is an ongoing thing – they get different sponsors for bringing WWII vets to see the memorial. I continue to try and talk my father-in-law into it, since one of his favorite stories is “Utah beach on D-Day plus 3”, but he blames his bum hip as the reason he doesn’t want to go.
Great to see, especially with the number of WWII vets dwindling. It will be a surreal day when they are gone.
We experienced this a couple times at the Southwest gates at DCA–and it is really heartwarming and fun at the same time. We noticed it isn’t only WWII, but also many Korean and also Viet Nam vets as well–which I believe to be a great equalizer in honoring all these warriors. Thank you, Vets, your service and sacrifice are important to us.
WN recognized a WWII vet (a spy!) as we touched down in FLL a few weeks ago. Awesome stuff