Central Missouri Honor Flight (CMHF) will be flying its final flight on Monday, September 15. After sixteen years, the mission for CMHF will come to an end with Honor Flight #71. No more flights will be scheduled through this Missouri honor flight hub.
Seventy veterans will be the last area heroes flown by CMHF to Washington, D.C. to see the memorials dedicated to their military service. Since 2009, nearly five thousand six hundred veterans have made this life-changing flight from the Columbia chapter. Honor Flight #71 will be comprised of sixty-six men and four women. On board will be sixty-nine Viet Nam veterans and one Korean War veteran, as well as three husband and wife veteran couples.
Attend the homecoming and give these veterans a loud “welcome home” with banners, posters, and flags! We celebrate our freedom every day because of the burdens veterans carry with untold strength. Seeing the public waiting to greet them is unfortunately the opposite homecoming too many of our veterans faced when returning from combat decades ago.
CMHF’s 71st final mission departs Columbia 1:45 a.m. Monday, September 15, and returns to a rousing homecoming at 9:30 p.m. that same night at the Columbia Courtyard by Marriott. As always, traveling with them will be a medical team as well as guardians who assist veterans with wheelchairs, walkers, oxygen, and companionship on the flight.
Since the very first honor flight in May 2009, CMHF has been supported through more than six million dollars of generous business, organizational, and individual donations. Our honor flights are provided at no cost to the veterans.
An honor flight allows these men and women the opportunity to travel together, support one another, collectively remember, and emotionally revisit their personal histories of their service to our nation. An honor flight allows our veterans to experience closure after many years removed from their military service and is life changing for the men and women who so many years ago put on a uniform and protected the freedoms we all enjoy today.
After the buses leave the St. Louis airport Monday evening, September 15, they are escorted along I-70 from Kingdom City by motorcyclists as part of the Central Missouri Honor Flight Riders. Homecoming at the Courtyard by Marriott, 3301 Lemone Industrial Drive, Columbia is a highlight! The public is encouraged to arrive at 8:30 p.m., Monday, September 15 to get a good view of the returning veterans whose buses arrive under the stars and stripes of a large American flag provided by the Columbia Fire Department. Area law enforcement agencies, including the Missouri State Highway Patrol, facilitate the honor flight buses’ return to Columbia.
For the final Central Missouri Honor Flight, join us in letting the veterans on board know their service is not forgotten. Just as our goal was sixteen years ago for our first honor flight, it remains the mission that each veteran comes away with new-found respect and remembrance that they are thanked and applauded for their service to our country. An honor flight has never been about the travel. It has always been about the journey.
