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.
David Yost was born in 1953 in the Jackson Park area of Chicago. His family had an extensive military background, with his father being awarded a Purple Heart while serving in the Korean War, and two uncles also serving in the military, one in Korea and one in Vietnam.
“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.
Don 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.
Jack 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.
Nineteen-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 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.
At 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.
As 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.
On 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.