Essential Liberty

Heritage founder Ed Feulner: “It’s one thing to say, ‘Thank a veteran.’ It’s another to actually do something to show that gratitude. Take the World War II veterans that made headlines last month during the government shutdown. Largely overlooked in the furor that erupted when they were barricaded from their own memorial is how they got to Washington, D.C., in the first place: through a nonprofit group known as the Honor Flight Network (HFN). The seed that would create the HFN [Honor Flight Network] was planted shortly after the World War II Memorial opened in 2004. Earl Morse, a retired Air Force captain working in a Department of Veterans Affairs clinic in Springfield, Ohio, knew from talking to patients who were veterans that most wanted to see it. But then, he said, ‘I would see my World War II veterans some three, six months later, and I’d ask them if they’d gone to see it. Three hundred of them, and not one of them had been to it. Reality set in. They were never going.’ Not without the help of the good-hearted individuals who would come to constitute the network of volunteers that make the honor flights possible. … With an estimated 640 World War II veterans dying each day, ‘our time to express our thanks to these brave men and women is running out,’ the HFN website notes. Let’s hope that this Veterans Day will prompt more Americans to emulate that spirit, which has so nobly carried us through good times and bad.”