This past week I was asked to make 22 Thank You cards for the gentlemen heading from Naples to Washington D.C. on the Collier County Honor Flight, Mission 11. If you are not familiar with the Honor Flight Network I urge you to visit their website:
The Honor Flight Network is "a non-profit organization dedicated to providing veterans with honor and closure".
Honor Flight Network is a non-profit organization created solely to honor America’s veterans for all their sacrifices. We transport our heroes to Washington, D.C. to visit and reflect at their memorials. Top priority is given to the senior veterans – World War II survivors, along with those other veterans who may be terminally ill.
Of all of the wars in recent memory, it was World War II that truly threatened our very existence as a nation—and as a culturally diverse, free society. According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, an estimated 640 WWII veterans die each day. Our time to express our thanks to these brave men and women is running out.
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I was truly honored to be able to provide cards for this group but I am severely lacking in the ownership of military or patriotic stamps, something I plan to remedy very soon. A huge thanks goes out to two of my club members, Diana and Susan, for generously allowing us to use the stamps you will see shortly. I also need to thank some of my Holiday Kick Off participants for helping me get the job done. Thank you Lynn, Kari, Sandi and Patricia for your help! Today I want to share some of the cards we had the honor of sending along on Mission 11:
To the brave men and women who were aboard that flight, I want to personally thank you. I don't think we will ever fully appreciate all they went through and the sacrifices they made to allow us the freedoms we enjoy today. Even with the current political debacle we are calling a Presidential election and the unrest and unease that is making daily headlines, we are so much more fortunate than most. Although you have the right and the FREEDOM to voice your opinion, show some respect to the men and woman who gave their lives to give it to you. So, I will continue to STAND FOR THE NATIONAL ANTHEM with my hand over my heart in their honor and in thanks for the country we are so very Blessed to live in, even with our faults. Because they deserve at least that much. I will leave you today with a quote from Will Rogers:
"We can't all be heroes. Some of us have to stand on the curb and clap as they walk by".
Well done gentlemen, well done.
Collier County Honor Flight Mission 11: Frank Bailey, August Brune, Richard Cantania, Francis Ciminelli, Henry Colon, Robert Daly, John DeCaro, Olin Downing, Carl Gallagher, Charles Herbst, Harlan Hummel, Richard Knur, Robert Leeks, Patsy Maiorano, Melvin Maxey, Walter Redden, Norman Regnaud, Delmont Renneke, Robert Rice, Milton Rosenberg, Frederick Schultz, Raymond Urfer
