Highlights from our 124th flight
marc.zarefsky2025-08-27T22:09:53-05:00“Fifty-Five years later, but so much greater!” That’s the tagline Vietnam War veteran Joe Widlarz “made up” to describe his experience aboard HFC124 on August 20, 2025.
Donald Asher: B-52s, the Eye of a Hurricane and Johnny Depp
marc.zarefsky2025-08-22T10:17:36-05:00Don Asher's life has been filled with front-row views of history—a major plane crash, flying into the eye of a hurricane, taking pictures of the President of the United States, running local newspapers, and even acting in a movie with Johnny Depp.
John Imburgia: Coming to grips with ‘The Walking Dead’
marc.zarefsky2025-08-22T10:13:12-05:00Jack Imburgia saw a lot of bloodshed while in The First Battalion Ninth Marines, but he wasn’t able to fully understand the magnitude of the carnage until nearly two decades later, when he finally started to come to grips with what he had endured there.
Carl Adams: Patrolling with the dogs
marc.zarefsky2025-08-22T10:04:37-05:00Nineteen-year-olds are invincible. Give them a gun, send them out into the dark of night in a foreign country with only a dog as companion, tell them to look for the enemy, and they’ll do it. No questions asked.
Glen Heinold: ‘The Good Lord looked after me’
marc.zarefsky2025-08-22T10:01:12-05:00Glen Heinold spent a year in Cu Chi, Vietnam, without being fired at by the enemy. He was an ambulance driver on the Army base, and when asked, drove the medics to the local villages.
Robert Ahern: ‘The rest is gravy’
marc.zarefsky2025-08-22T06:03:46-05:00At the age of 21, Robert boarded a plane and headed off to Vietnam. His plane stopped in Japan, where he saw an episode of the Lone Ranger in Japanese and thought it was pretty funny. But the fun would soon end.
William John McLaughlin: Flying under the radar
marc.zarefsky2025-08-22T10:08:13-05:00As a child, William “Bill” McLaughlin took his first flight in a float plane and thought little of it. Yet, two decades later, Bill found himself flying again, this time as a Naval aviator in Vietnam, helping save lives during the final chapters of the war.
Highlights from our 123rd flight
marc.zarefsky2025-08-01T13:48:51-05:00On a beautifully mild mid-July day, HFC123 arrived in Washington, D.C., carrying three Korean War and 112 Vietnam War veterans on their long-awaited day of honor, thanks, and inspiration.