Cary Welcomes Home Vets From Honor Flight

One of the veterans rested the picture in his lap. It had been taken just a few days before–at an airport sendoff to a weekend trip–but he said it already held so much meaning.

"Thank you," he said, looking up at the crowd gathered around him Oct. 3. "I treasure this."

"No," one man replied from the crowd. "We treasure you."

It was a quiet moment at a powerful celebration, a welcome-home ceremony for four World War II veterans who had returned from an Honor Flight to visit their memorial in Washington D.C.

The trip was the project of Randy Granath, president of the Veterans Network Committee of Northern Illinois. Traditionally, veterans who want to take part in an Honor Flight are placed on a national waiting list. But Granath wanted to see the funds raised in his community directly impact local veterans.

So he and his volunteers went to work, "shaking the can and getting money," he said.

In a few months, they raised $6,000. The weekend of Sept. 25, they sent four veterans and their families to Washington for a three-day trip. After returning from the capital, the veterans attended a celebration outside Tinman's Sports Pub in Fox River Grove.

Seeing the memorial in Washington was a moment he will never forget, veteran John Kligis said.

"It was sort of an end to something, an end to the war," the 90-year-old Huntley-resident said. "Korean veterans have a memorial. Vietnam [veterans] have a memorial. So we World War II veterans have one now."

The other veterans who took part in the Honor Flight were Henry Behrens, 87, of Lake Villa; Julius Biro, 88, of Huntley; and Robert Schmidt, 85, of Rockford. The World War II memorial opened in April 2004.

The Veteran's Network Committee is already planning another Honor Flight for next year. At the Oct. 3 event, the committee celebrated the community that made the trip possible as well as the veterans who it was all done for.

The veterans entered the celebration by motorcycle and police escort, where they were greeted by a cheering crowd. As they exited the bus, some raised their arms while others simply covered their faces and wiped away tears.

"I saw more than 38, 40 motorcycles leading the parade, police, fire trucks and when we pulled up to Tinman's I thought there were a thousand people there at least," Biro said. "I was overwhelmed."

The event was attended by U.S. Rep. Don Manzullo, U.S. Sen. Pam Althoff, state Rep. Mike Tryon and Fox River Grove Village President Robert Nunamaker.

Many in the crowd were veterans themselves. They said the fact that many World War II veterans didn't live to see their memorial makes it all the more important to support the Honor Flight program.

"At the time they started building [the memorial], I was living in Florida," Biro said. "They had my name, and they asked for a donation, and I very happily gave it to them. And I was waiting and waiting and waiting for it to be built."

When he and the other veterans finally saw their memorial last weekend, there were lots of pictures and lots of reflection, Kligis said. One section of the memorial holds rows of gold stars, each representing 100 soldiers who lost their lives in the war. 

"This one wall was all gold stars," he said. "That was really moving because I lost a lot of friends. It was a moving thing to see that WWII memorial and something that I'm not ever going to forget."