Larry Dziengel said one of the “significant facts” of his life was when he was drafted, was sent to Vietnam and “thanks to God, I came back.”
Coming back from Vietnam wasn’t as pleasant an event as it should have been, though. Like many veterans returning home from that war, Dziengel met with people who took their antiwar feelings out on those who had done their duty in Vietnam.
The Honor Flight, Dziengel said, “to me, gave meaning to that.”
Half a dozen Kewanee-area veterans took the one-day Honor Flight trip to Washington, D.C. on Tuesday. Andrew Dwyer, director of the Kewanee Park District, helped some of them fill out their applications to make the trip, and accompanied the group as a guardian for the veterans.
While he enjoyed the visits to military memorial sites in the nation’s capital, Dziengel said, “The thing that touched me the most was when we came back home.”
As is the custom when the participants in the Honor Flight of the Quad Cities return to the Quad-Cities International Airport, hundreds of people of all ages were waiting for them in the terminal.
As the veterans and guardians walked from the gate to the front exits of the terminal, the people lined their route and clapped, cheered, smiled, shook their hands and thanked them for their service.
“It was touching,” Dziengel said. “It’s an experience I’ll never in my life forget.”
After being discharged from the Army, Dziengel enlisted in the Air Force, where he served for another 25 years.
“He deserved the proper ending to that story,” Dwyer said.
Dziengel’s sentiment was echoed by Lou Guthrie, a 29-year Army veteran who also flew to Washington, D.C., who said, “Ditto for me.” after Dziengel expressed his views.
“All those people took time out of their lives to be at that airport,” Guthrie said.
“It was magical,” Guthrie said of the Honor Flight experience. “It was like, ‘Are we really here?’”
The day was memorable for Guthrie for another reason. Unknown to him, Dwyer had contacted three of Guthrie’s children to let them know their father was going to be in Washington.
Two of the children live in Virginia and didn’t have a long trip to Washington. But the third lives in Oregon and made the cross-country flight to be there.
The three surprised Guthrie at the Lincoln Memorial. The reunion “broke me to tears,” Guthrie said. “I never expected them to be there.”
Tuesday’s was the 59th Honor Flight from the Quad Cities to Washington, D.C. On the trip, the veterans and guardians took in the National Air and Space Museum and went to the Lincoln Memorial, which is a short walk from Vietnam Memorial Wall and the Korean War Memorial.
They also visited the World War II Memorial, Arlington National Cemetery (where they watched the Changing of the Guard Ceremony) and went to the Air Force Memorial and the Military Women’s Memorial.
The veterans’ enjoyment of the trip, and the reception they got when they returned to the airport, prompted Dwyer to say, “You can see that there’s a lot of good in this world, and sometimes it’s overlooked.”
It wasn’t overlooked Tuesday.
