The Cook County contingent of the October 9, 2012 Northland Honor Flight at the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C. (L-R) Rolf Skrien, Leonard Sobanja, Ken Rusk, Lyle Gerard.
The four Cook County men who participated in the October 9, 2012 Northland Honor Flight to Washington, D.C. didn’t get a chance to visit much on the trip. The veterans were too busy seeing the sights. So it was fun for them to see one another back home in Grand Marais where this reporter had the honor of speaking with them about the Honor Flight.
They were all still a bit tired from the trip. Ken Rusk was recovering from a cold he caught on the flight. But he had a great time despite that. “It was a nice birthday present for me,” he said. His birthday was October 11.
Rusk was one of the first to hear about the Honor Flight program. He winters in Arizona and a friend there told him he should sign up for a flight. “I was hesitant about it. I didn’t serve overseas, so I didn’t think I should. But the more I thought about it, the more interested I was,” said Rusk. Rusk entered the Army Air Corps in 1941 and served for 2½ years overseeing an armament shop.
He didn’t want to fly all the way from Arizona though, so he waited until he was back on the Gunflint Trail to ask for information. And when he did, he encouraged his longtime friend, another “canoe man,” Rolf Skrien to join him.
Skrien served in the Coast Guard, which in wartime becomes part of the Navy. He ended up in Adack, Alaska, which he saw little of as he was more often on the water than land.
Rusk was glad they made the trip. “I’m so proud and happy to be involved. I’m so proud of the people who promote this,” he said, including the young woman named Melanie who served as his guardian, assisting him along the way.
Each guardian accompanies two veterans, so Melanie was the guardian for Rusk and another Cook County veteran Lyle Gerard. Gerard agreed Melanie was a dear, dear, young woman.
Gerard joined the Army right out of high school. He scored high enough on his entry tests to go to college and was sent to attend college in South Dakota. However, his time there was cut short and he was shipped overseas to Africa.
Local veteran and American Legion member Orvis Lunke was the guardian for Leonard Sobanja. Sobanja said he really appreciated Lunke’s assistance because he has difficulty walking. “He pushed me all around in a wheelchair. I wouldn’t have been able to see all I did without his help,” said Sobanja.
Sobanja was drafted in 1943, but he didn’t pass the physical because he had a hernia. He had a successful surgery and enlisted in the Army a year later. He ended up passing through Pearl Harbor on his way to the Philippines, a 40-some day trip on a troop transport. “One thing about the service,” said Sobanja. “It taught you to get along whatever the situation.”
Skrien had another guardian, a young man who works as a helicopter paramedic when he is not volunteering for an Honor Flight. “There were a lot of medical people on the trip,” Skrien said.
They were quite well taken care of, the men say. “They fed us all the way there,” said Gerard.
“Every time you turned around there was food,” said Skrien.
And they received a well-deserved hero’s welcome when they landed at the Washington, D.C. airport., starting before they were even off the plane. At Reagan National Airport they were greeted by fire trucks on either side of the plane, spraying a water salute.
Sobanja said, “There were police, firemen, military guys. There was one guy—a Legionnaire—with long hair and a beard like mine. He grabbed me and said ‘greetings, my friend!’ That was pretty funny.”
Sobanja said the trip through Washington, D.C. was also impressive, as the tour buses full of veterans were led by police squad cars, lights and sirens blaring to stop traffic. “I was sitting up front and I could see the traffic pulling over for us. That was exciting,” said Sobanja.
The men and their guardians shared a lot of laughs in between the solemn moments at the World War II Memorial, the Iwo Jima statue and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. They made many other stops, including the Lincoln Memorial, which Rusk said was “just magical.”
Gerard said the tour guide who talked about the sights was fabulous and answered every question thrown at him, including poignant information about the grave of a fallen friend.
After the hectic day of sightseeing, there was a short delay boarding the plane on the way home. That also ended up being part of the adventure. About 10 women came—dressed in 1940s-era dresses—and jitterbugged to swing music in the airport, getting some of the veterans up and dancing. “That was a nice little extra,” said Gerard.
Asked what they would say to a veteran who is thinking about signing up for a future Honor Flight, there was a unanimous answer, “Go!”
The Honor Flight program began in 2005. In that first year, 137 World War II veterans were flown to see their memorial. The Honor Flight program has continued to grow and at the end of 2011, the Honor Flight Network had transported more than 81,000 veterans of World War II, Korea and Vietnam to see the memorials built to honor them.
The Honor Flight is free for veterans, thanks to many community partners and donors.
To learn more about the Northland Honor Flights, visit www.honorflightnorthland.org or call (218) 409-6110.
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