{"id":9505,"date":"2024-05-10T20:38:32","date_gmt":"2024-05-10T20:38:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/?p=9505"},"modified":"2024-09-04T13:27:04","modified_gmt":"2024-09-04T13:27:04","slug":"honor-flight-arizona-visits-maryland-museum-of-military-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/2024\/05\/10\/honor-flight-arizona-visits-maryland-museum-of-military-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Honor Flight Arizona visits Maryland Museum of Military History"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Article and Photos by Chazz Kibler<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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BALTIMORE<\/b> – Vietnam and Korean veterans and their guardians with Honor Flight Arizona embarked on a journey to see the war memorials in Washington and capped off the trip with a visit to the Maryland Museum of Military History at the Fifth Regiment Armory, May 10, 2024.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Honor Flight, a national non-profit organization, dedicates itself<\/span> to transporting as many United States military veterans as possible to Washington, D.C. to visit the war memorials of their combat deployment at no cost to the veteran.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Maryland Museum of Military History, the state\u2019s official museum chartered to document and preserve the military contributions of Marylanders of all military services and components, hosts Honor Flight visits regularly.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Diane Franzese, a board member of HFA, said that the national organization has flown 250,000 veterans to the nation\u2019s capital to see the memorials, including approximately 4,000 from the Arizona chapter.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe take the veterans to the memorials as a thanks and remembrance for them,\u201d said Franzese.<\/span><\/p>\n

Thanks to donations, Franzese said that HFA can fly out at least 56 people per flight and take 10 flights yearly. Among the group are guardians, organizational leaders, medics, and the veterans themselves. Jerry Bakke, an 83-year-old North Dakotan-Vietnam veteran who served as an infantryman for six years with the U.S. Marines\u2019 I-3-9 \u2013 short for I Company, 3rd Battalion, 9th Marines \u2013 was thrilled to be a part of the trip.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201c[My trip to Washington has] been unbelievable,\u201d said Bakke. \u201cMeeting the young kids, having them shake our hands, and thanking us has been a memorable experience.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Bakke emphasized the significant change in the public’s attitude towards veterans and expressed his gratitude for the public’s appreciation. The Maryland Military Department\u2019s historian team extended this gratitude, welcoming the veterans and giving them a guided tour of the <\/span>Maryland Museum of Military History<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cIt’s a pretty cool experience to connect what we do in the Maryland Guard with our role in national defense,\u201d said Maryland Army National Guard Sgt. 1st Class Aaron Heft, a historical noncommissioned officer. \u201cWe’re in the national story with a group of veterans who played a different role at a different time. It’s neat to see how they react to the artifacts we have in our collection and our story and how that intertwines with what they did a couple of decades before.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The veterans also built connections with the historian team during their visit.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>I did speak with one of the veterans who grew up near where I grew up in Philadelphia,\u201d said Heft. He talked about his transition into the military and how, after Vietnam, he stayed in the reserve component. I think seeing somebody in uniform and talking about military history made him a little more comfortable talking about his personal experience.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The Maryland Museum of Military History was the last stop for HFA veterans before returning to Arizona, but it will not be their last visit. HFA is scheduled to visit the museum five more times in 2024 with new groups of war veterans.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Article and Photos by Chazz Kibler BALTIMORE – Vietnam and Korean veterans and their guardians with Honor Flight Arizona embarked on a journey to see the war memorials in Washington and capped off the trip with a visit to the Maryland Museum of Military History at the Fifth Regiment Armory, May 10, 2024.\u00a0 Honor Flight,  Read the Rest…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":160,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[811,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/160"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9505"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9505\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9519,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9505\/revisions\/9519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}