They started showing up well before 7 a.m. Tuesday at the William M. Thomas Terminal at Meadows Field Airport in Bakersfield.
The veterans wore blue shirts, the guardians, red, and the staff volunteers wore white.
It was obvious to anyone who happened upon the colorful crowd of more than 180 that Honor Flight Kern County was sending yet another large group of vets to the nation’s capital.
U.S. Navy veteran David Tolliver served his country from 1969 to 1972. As the packed airliner carried Tolliver and the other retired servicemen and women to the East Coast, Tolliver talked about what was on his mind.
“Let me put it this way,” he said, grinning. “I haven’t been this excited since my 13th Christmas.”
Tolliver said he had already met a lot of good people, even though the adventure was just beginning.
“I’m just grateful to be here,” he said.
HFKC is one of 136 hubs across the nation that are part of the Honor Flight Network. The local all-volunteer nonprofit was founded to honor veterans of Kern County and surrounding areas, including veterans as far away as the San Fernando Valley.
Its mission is simple, yet powerful: Send America’s veterans to Washington D.C. to see and experience the memorials built in their honor — at no cost to the veterans.
Dennis Vanderwerff, a 78-year-old Navy veteran, was one of those vets. He wasn’t through the first day Tuesday when he started thinking about how he could help, by volunteering with Honor Flight, after his first trip is complete.
“I’m seriously considering becoming a guardian,” Vanderwerff told this reporter during the nearly five-hour flight east.
“It’s a wonderful way to give back,” he said.
Vanderwerff, who served aboard the USS Constellation, a huge aircraft carrier, had already been moved by the Honor Flight experience, and he hadn’t even landed in the D.C. area.
“The people who organized this trip are amazing,” he said.
The level of organization is no doubt complex and can change quickly when someone gets sick or cancels at the last minute.
“With that many people, and if situations change on the ground, they often have to make last-minute changes on the fly,” said Cheree Linford, an HFKC volunteer.
“I’ve watched it so many times,” she said, “but I’m always amazed at the logistics of getting almost 200 people, some with health issues, across the country and back in three days.
No one suggests it’s always perfect. On Tuesday night, tour leaders were scrambling to respond to some mix-ups in assigning rooms at the Marriott Hotel in Arlington, Va.
There’s an expectation of excellence, and when they slip, they’re straight with their honored guests.
But it’s clear that organizers have learned much since the first flight organized by the local nonprofit in 2012.
Debra Kessinger-Verdugo was there Tuesday for her 92-year-old Army veteran father, Kenneth Kessinger, who once served at Fort Knox, Ky.
She had been trying to get her dad on a flight for a couple of years, but she had been unable to locate her father’s discharge documents, or any documents that could prove that he had indeed served.
Apparently, a fire in the early 1970s had destroyed large numbers of military records, but with help from Honor Flight and others, she finally was able to obtain suitable documents.
She knew, at 92, her father could not wait any longer.
On Tuesday, her face beamed as daughter and father flew together into the nation’s history.
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