Vietnam veterans get special Honor Flight

Vietnam veterans get special Honor Flight
Journal Sentinel
By Meg Jones
July 20, 2013

The first thing Jim Schertz will do is find four names etched into the black granite.

They're not simply names to the retired Milwaukee firefighter and Vietnam veteran. They were his buddies and comrades. They did not come home from the war.

"Just the fact they're still missing in action is unbelievable," said Schertz, 62.

Schertz will head straight to one of the last sections of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, known as 2W, and his eyes will scan to Lines 128 and 129. That's where Douglas L. O'Neil, Larry A. Zich, Allen D. Christensen and Edward W. Williams are listed among the more than 52,000 other Americans killed in Vietnam.

Schertz has never been to the Wall or Washington. But he's flying to the nation's capital on Aug. 2 with 110 other Vietnam veterans in the first Honor Flight for Wisconsin veterans of that war.

Appleton-based Old Glory Honor Flight, whose motto is "It's never too late to say thank you," has organized numerous one-day trips to Washington for World War II veterans to visit memorials. To commemorate the 40th anniversary of the end of hostilities in Vietnam, organizers decided to arrange a one-time-only trip for Vietnam veterans.

Old Glory Honor Flight's goal is to continue the free trips for World War II and Korean War veterans. With a waiting list of more than 500 names, it will be a few more years until the group can turn its attention to Vietnam veterans.

"Vietnam veterans as a group have been so incredibly supportive of our organization and really helped us get off the ground for our first flight in '09, so we thought this was a perfect way to give back to them," Old Glory Honor Flight President Drew MacDonald said.

The flight will leave Oshkosh early Aug. 2 with stops at the Wall, Smithsonian American History Museum and Arlington National Cemetery to see the changing of the guard ceremony. Veterans will wear special shirts and receive small tote bags filled with snacks, tissues, and pencils and tracing paper if they want to make an etching of a name on the Wall. The group will return that evening to EAA AirVenture to a hero's welcome and concert by actor Gary Sinise's Lt. Dan Band.
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