Our 103rd flight on July 20, 2022, featured 13 teachers and students from our rapidly growing "Operation Education" mission that seeks to connect veterans with local schools to inspire gratitude and service among our youngest generation. This is their story.

Rodney Branch has always been a musician, even in the Army. A trumpeter and bugler, once in Vietnam Branch braved ambush and attack to fly into fire bases and perform TAPS for fallen comrades during the TET Offensive -- and he never missed a note!

Mike Osika was aboard the USS Enterprise on January 14, 1969, when — 75 miles from Pearl Harbor and in preparations to sail to Vietnam — explosions ripped across the flight deck. Mike joined the fight on the deck to save the ship from the inferno that claimed 28 lives and injured more than 300.

Lew Bottando describes himself as lucky. He has been married 50 years to his high school sweetheart, and retired from a long career in the Chicago Fire Department as a battalion chief. His luck began, however, before all of that: he came home alive from the jungles of Vietnam after earning two Bronze Stars and three Purple Hearts.

Richie Louck served as an Army medic with the 1st Cavalry during the Vietnam War — an assignment with a very short shelf life. In fact, he was the lone medic in his company to survive his tour.

Army Corporal Rich Bernier served “many months” on the front lines of the Korean War. One day, the bunker he had just left took a direct hit from a mortar, killing all inside.

Clyde Wilson’s first assignment after completing officer school was a command at Fort Leonard Wood with “McNamara’s Hundred Thousand.” He — like nearly all of them — soon found himself heading to Vietnam.

In the predawn hours of April 13, 2022, 116 senior war veterans arrived at Midway International Airport to experience a day of Honor, Thanks, and Inspiration meant as a grand gesture of gratitude from a grateful nation. The life-changing trip would not only celebrate these heroes, but the more than 9,100 who came before and the thousands still waiting for their Day of Honor.

The 30th episode of our moving and meaningful Honor. Thank. Inspire. podcast spotlights Luis Rodriguez, a Purple Heart veteran of the Vietnam War. His deeply personal descriptions of the conditions of battle bring all of the rawness of the jungle home, and make the story of his actual homecoming all the more heart wrenching.

Charles Nichols served as a United States Marine in Vietnam. When his tour of duty was complete, he returned home to Chicago and immediately found himself in another fight against rabid war protestors. Deciding it was safer to return to battle, Nichols volunteered for a second tour.

Dr. David Grauer, DDS, joined the Navy late in WWII thanks to the urging of his father. After not seeing combat, he felt his military experience was not worthy of inclusion on an Honor Flight Chicago mission.

Jon Lapo had a rough-and-tumble upbringing in the Madison and Central neighborhood on Chicago’s West Side. Looking for direction, he enlisted in the Army and soon found himself in Vietnam as a demolition man and — for a time — as a tunnel rat.