The 2025 season is complete! Thanks to the selfless efforts of our more than one thousand volunteers, Honor Flight Chicago successfully brought 779 senior war heroes to Washington, D.C., across seven flights this year.
Walter “Bud” Guest was born in Philadelphia. After graduation from high school Bud was encouraged by one of his teachers to apply to the US Coast Guard Academy. He was accepted in 1968, right out of high school, with a full scholarship to attend the Academy.
William Maxie Blair, who goes by Max, grew up on the south side of Chicago in the Englewood neighborhood. He has a younger brother who also served in the Army during Vietnam. Both brothers will be traveling together with Honor Flight Chicago in October.
Some experiences leave a lasting mark. For Mike DeSmedt, his tour of duty in Vietnam is one of them. Still, he wouldn’t hesitate to do it all over again. “I had to do something I wouldn’t have volunteered for,” he says.
Andrew C. “Andy” Reitz witnessed the “fireworks” of the 1968 Tet Offensive from his Seabee barracks at Da Nang. He personified the Seabee “Can Do” attitude as a journeyman carpenter, equipment operator and construction foreman.
Chris Argianas was born in Cicero, Illinois on April 3, 1934. Both of Chris’ parents were immigrants from Greece. Chris and his family stayed in Cicero for twelve years before moving to Brookfield, Illinois, where his parents had their own little family store.
Growing up, Gilbert High dreamed of being a journalist or perhaps a teacher, and while he didn’t envision the Army being the key to achieving those goals, that’s exactly what happened.
He’s a vagabond, a nomad, a traveler. He has lived in Costa Rica, in Thailand, in Cuba, on a sailboat in the Caribbean, even in the Cayman Islands. But he has never owned a house. He is a pilot, a scuba diver, a motorcycle rider, a ham radio operator with friends all over the world.
Daniel Burress still remembers the icy snow and the sting of the gusty wind. He was among hundreds of Marine recruits stuck high on a mountain in Southern California. Their two-week, cold weather war games were over but they weren’t going anywhere.
Our penultimate mission of 2025 was both our 125th flight and marked the 12,000th senior war hero we have transported to Washington, D.C., in honor of their service and sacrifice for our nation.
John Stajic was the only child of immigrant parents. John‘s mother immigrated from Borning, Germany and his father from Yugoslavia. The Stajics immigrated to the United States after John was born in Germany. While John was not a citizen, he was able to join the United States Navy in 1967
For a long time, Frank Trout didn’t know the whole story of how he was shot in the head and left for dead on a riverbed in a thick, black, steaming Vietnamese jungle. Or how he was later sealed and zipped into a body bag—yet managed to make it out alive.
As an Air Traffic Controller, Emery spent his Air Force career staring at a radar screen in a dark, windowless room. Being an Air Traffic Controller is a stressful job anywhere but in Da Nang, Vietnam, with mortars targeting his building, it was not just stressful but also dangerous.
Dennis, or Denny as he prefers to be called, grew up in Hammond, IN. He signed up for the Navy 2-3 days after he turned 18. His older brother, who had been in the Army, tried to talk him out of it, but he signed up anyway.
The desire to fly has been at the heart of nearly everything Rodney Franklin has done in his life, including graduating college, becoming an Air Force fighter pilot, a pilot instructor, and even air taxi operator in Hawaii.
Even a decade before Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome got its official name, PFC Arnie Oskin was immersed in evaluating and helping traumatized soldiers coming home from Vietnam.
U.S. military history is rich with unsung heroes – individuals whose behind-the-scenes contributions have quietly shaped the course of events. Take Bill Haines, for example, a Korean War veteran, who will be honored for his service this month.
Joseph (Joe) Inserro was born and raised in Providence, Rhode Island until the age of 10. From there, his family moved to Cicero, Illinois and he settled in Elmhurst, Illinois which he considers his home town.
For some, service is a choice; for Doug Vines, it was a calling woven into the fabric of his family. Guided by an unwavering sense of duty, he followed in the footsteps of his father and uncle, trading a college campus for the jungles of Vietnam in 1969.
William A. Trader (“Bill”) was born on July 17, 1943, in Louisville, KY. He grew up in Philadelphia, attended and graduated from Philadelphia’s Central High School in 1961. Bill was a three-sport athlete competing in football, basketball, and baseball.