HONORING OUR VETERANS

It seems backwards, but for the veterans who spend a full day visiting military memorials and Washington, D.C., landmarks, the Welcome Home is where the healing really begins.

When the second mission of North Star Honor Flight touched down in Rochester on Sept. 30, the plane’s doors opened and 84 vets made their way up the jetway.

Contrary to their return from service more than 50 years ago, they were greeted with applause, cheers, flags, a band playing patriotic music – and “Welcome Home!” signs.

“When we came in there, I couldn’t believe all the cheering and hollering,” said Gerald Mexiner, of Owatonna. “I thought, what the heck is going on? There must have been 200 people waiting for us.

“I couldn’t believe it,” he said. “A lot of them were from the VFW in Owatonna – that whole airport was full.”

He was one of five Owatonna veterans who made the trip, accompanied by a guardian.

“It was so heart-warming,” said David Goodnature, another of the five. “This was the welcome home we never got when we came home from the war.”

He, Meixner, James Leonard, John Powell and James Rowe are all veterans of the Vietnam War era.

North Star Honor Flight

Based out of Adams, NSHF serves nine counties in Minnesota: Steele, Dodge, Mower, Freeborn, Waseca, Olmsted, Blue Earth, Faribault and Fillmore.

Five counties in Iowa are also covered: Cerro Gordo, Howard, Mitchell, Worth and Winnebago.

The goal of Honor Flight is to take World War II, Korean, Vietnam era and terminally ill veterans on all-expense-paid trips to Washington, D.C., where they can reflect, connect and experience the nation’s gratitude firsthand. During the visit, veterans and their guardians tour significant sites and well-known memorials.

This Honor Flight hub launched officially in August 2024, and is 100% volunteer-run.

Veterans may apply for the one-day trip – and it’s a long day. Participants are asked to arrive in Rochester by 4:30 a.m.; a short program honoring the vets and guardians begins at 4:50 a.m.

They then board a chartered Sun Country Airlines flight to Washington, D.C.

Once there, the group boards buses for a guided tour to several landmarks. Planned stops include Arlington National Cemetery, the WWII Memorial, the Korean War Veterans Memorial, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, and the Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps memorials.

Everything a vet may need for the day is supplied, from mobility assistance and transportation to meals and medical staff.

The stops

The local vets’ flight east had an unexpected glitch: Air Force One was in the area, which meant the airspace around it was cleared.

“So we had to fly around for another hour and a half,” Meixner said, before receiving clearance to land at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, five miles outside of D.C.

“They took us all over Washington,” he said. “We saw the White House, but it was off in the distance.”

Because of the delay, some of the stops were cut short or skipped entirely, Goodnature said.

They saw the war memorials for Iwo Jima, Vietnam, Korea and WWII; the Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, Navy and Air Force memorials; the FDR and Martin Luther King Jr. memorials; and Arlington National Cemetery.

The veterans had an “insider” moment at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

“One of the guys that does it is retiring, and he came out and talked to us for about 45 minutes about what you have to go through” to be chosen as a guard for the landmark, Meixner said.

Everything, from the uniform to the shoes, “has to be just so,” he said. “It’s very rigorous to get through.”

Meixner had visited most of the memorials before, but his son Mitchell, his guardian, had not.

Goodnature was also seeing them for the first time.

“I would have never gone to D.C. had it not been for this program,” he said of the Honor Flight.

War stories

“It was kind of nice to see all the other veterans there, from all the branches,” said Meixner, an Army vet who spent a year in Vietnam.

Though some on the flight were from the Korean War era, most were Vietnam vets.

Meixner looked for a specific name at that memorial.

“I got an etching of a friend of mine that was killed right in front of me when I was there,” he said, then paused.

“I had an M79 (grenade launcher) and he had an M16 (rifle), so I told him he had to go in front of me,” Meixner said. “Well, he got killed right in front of me then.”

His friend was Alan Bernstein, from New York.

“I don’t say too much” about time spent in Vietnam, Mexiner said. “I got to camp out for the whole year in the jungles, you know, so… I’ve seen a lot of people killed.”

He earned his Purple Heart after a rocket hit a tree near him, sending shrapnel into his arm and leg. He was sent to Da Nang for treatment, then for recuperation in Cam Ranh Bay for about a month.

The war seemed to follow him: The barracks nearest Meixner was bombed, prompting a firefight.

He turned 20 while overseas.

“We had one guy that was 26 years old, and we all called him Grandpa,” Meixner said. “He was the oldest; we were all 19, 20 years old.”

They were just kids, he agreed, “but that’s what they wanted out there, because we had the stamina to crawl up and down the mountains.”

He remembers the Vietnamese children the soldiers met and befriended, but sadly.

“They were probably all killed when we left, because they were with Americans,” he said.

Coming home

The memorials began closing for the evening before the Honor Flight veterans saw everything.

“We were around the Pentagon,” Meixner said, but security made it difficult to get close – then it was back to the airport for the trip back to Rochester.

“On our way home, we were so busy,” Goodnature said. “We had mail call; the vets received mail from relatives and friends to open on our way. I was surprised to receive 25 letters.”

It was much the same for Meixner.

“All four of our granddaughters got cards and wrote him,” said his wife Marilyn. “You see, they never got any of that when they came back” from Vietnam.

Even the letters Meixner received while overseas are lost to the ages – including those from Marilyn, who he married a month before being sent to Vietnam.

“I couldn’t keep mine, because I had to carry everything,” he said. “Everything I owned was on my back.”

By the time they landed in Rochester, it was approaching 11 p.m. – and that big crowd was waiting.

Goodnature’s wife Rita “saw three veterans come off the plane with tears in their eyes,” he said. “It must have been a moving experience for them.”

In addition to the cheers and hugs, each veteran received a bag with Honor Flight memorabilia, and a handmade lap quilt.

“That was something else, I’ll tell you,” Meixner said.

Both men are grateful for the “long hours and hard work to put the memorable day together,” Goodnature said.

“It was a day I will not forget,” he said. “God bless America.”

And the healing continues.