15TH Year of Honor Flights

Starts with Mission #69 out of Quincy

The Great River Honor Flight Board of Directors announced that the initial mission of 2024, #69, will take place on Thursday, April 11th out of John Wood Community College in Quincy. A total of 32 veterans will take part on this trip. Of them, 29 served during the Vietnam era and the remaining 3 served before or after Vietnam. They represent Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines.

This will be the 69th mission overall for local veterans since the program started serving the Tri State region in 2010. Since then, 2,195 local veterans who served in WWII, Korea, Vietnam and between those conflicts have previously participated in this program. The 32 veterans come from Illinois (Adams, Monroe, Henry, Brown, and Madison counties), Missouri (Marion, Lewis, and Adair), plus Iowa (Lee). The group includes 5 veterans whose assigned guardian is either their son or daughter. A complete list of the veterans and their hometowns is included at the end of this News Release.

The departure and return on April 11th will be from the campus of John Wood Community College in Quincy. The trip will follow the itinerary that has been so successful over the past 15 years. It includes a 2:00AM departure for a bus ride to Lambert Field in St. Louis where they will board their flight to Baltimore and then on to DC where they will visit the Vietnam Wall, Korea Memorial, WWII Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, Iwo Jima Memorial, Air Force Memorial, Navy Memorial and see the Changing of the Guard at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery. The veterans will then head to Reagan International Airport for their return flight back to St. Louis. A charter bus will bring them back to the JWCC Basketball Arena for a rousing homecoming. The expected arrival time back in Quincy will be around 10:30PM.

Great River Honor Flight was chartered on Veterans Day 2009 with its first flight scheduled on April 13, 2010. Back then all the veterans were from World War II. That is the way it continued for several years until it was decided to expand to those veterans who had served during the Korean War. Since then we have also expanded to include veterans during the Vietnam War as well as those who served between WWII, Korea and Vietnam and veterans serving thru 1985. Our goal remains to honor the total number of local veterans who served our country with a FREE trip to Washington DC.

To date Great River Honor Flight, the Tri-States’ hub of the Honor Flight program has flown 2,195 local Veterans to Washington D.C. since it was established in 2009. This trip will increase that total to 2,227. Great River Honor Flight, a Missouri Nonprofit Corporation established in October of 2009, was created solely to honor America’s veterans that live in our area for all they have sacrificed by providing, free of charge, transportation to Washington D.C. to visit the memorials dedicated to honor their service and sacrifices.

For additional information, contact Carlos Fernandez at csfernandez1951@gmail.com or

Great River Honor Flight

PO Box 3723, Quincy IL 62301