<img src="http://www.joplinglobeonline.com/images/zope/extra.gif" border=0>Joplin WWII vet selected for Ozarks Honor Flight<font color="#ff0000"> w/ memorial info and photo gallery</font>

By Scott Meeker

smeeker@joplinglobe.com

On Monday morning, Jim Price was trying to recall all of the paperwork he had to fill out before being accepted for the Ozarks Honor Flight’s inaugural trip out of Springfield.

His daughter had sent in an application on his behalf, but Price said it had been several months, and he had forgotten about it until he was contacted recently and informed that he had been selected.

“I had to fill out a form that asked several questions about my medical information, and it asked all kinds of questions about the military branch I served in, and all that happy stuff,” he said. “Then, three days later, they called me back and wanted me to come over to get instructions. That’s how it happened.”

In less than 24 hours, Price was scheduled to board a 7 a.m. flight out of Springfield to Washington, D.C., to see the National World War II Memorial. He had visited the nation’s capital several times during his 82 years, but he hadn’t been back to see the memorial that was dedicated in 2004 despite being an early financial contributor to the project.

“I’ve seen pictures of it, but I think it will really be something to see,” Price said Monday. “It’s something I would never get to see otherwise. I wouldn’t be going back there unless this happened.”

‘A narrow window’

Price was among 75 World War II veterans from the region who were selected to take part in the flight.

Price’s daughter, Marsha Rudd, learned of the program from her husband, a retired Air Force veteran. The program offers veterans a free trip to see the memorial.

Rudd, who lives in Springfield, said she immediately thought of her father when she heard about the Honor Flight program.

Price — known by his crew mates as “Jimbo” — spent 30 of his 36 months in the Navy on board cruisers, including the USS Atlanta during fighting at Okinawa in 1945.

“We bombarded that island for several days, and I didn’t think there would be anybody left on it,” he said. “But they were all underground in tunnels.”

Japanese suicide bombers were a constant threat.

“I was scared to death all the time,” Price said. “The sky was full of them, and I saw ships get ripped apart by them.”

After leaving the service in 1948, he moved to Kansas City and then to Joplin in 1953. He worked at EaglePicher, retiring in 1990.

“It means a lot to me because he served in the greatest generation there was,” Rudd said of Tuesday’s trip. “He contributed money to that monument for two years. It’s wonderful that somebody thought to put together a program for all these older folks to be able to go see their memorial. It’s an honor.”

The national Honor Flight Network first took to the skies in May 2005, said Earle Morse, president and co-founder of the organization. Morse, a retired Air Force captain, said he was seeing about 1,200 patients while working as a physician’s assistant for the Department of Veterans Affairs in Springfield, Ohio. About 300 of those, he said, were World War II veterans.

“When the (World War II) memorial was dedicated in May of 2004, I was slapping high-fives with these guys and telling them how wonderful it was that this nation was finally recognizing their accomplishments,” Morse said.

But when he realized that many of the veterans were not going to be able to visit the memorial, Morse — a private pilot — wanted to help.

“My dad is a Vietnam veteran, and he had never seen the Wall,” he said. “So we rented a plane, put a couple of seats in the back and flew out there.”

Morse soon pitched the idea to a group of aviation enthusiasts.

“There were two rules,” he said. “First, World War II veterans don’t pay a penny. Rule two, we can’t fly them to Andrews (Air Force Base) and then go hang out with our military buddies. We have to spend all day with them.”

Having celebrated the fourth anniversary of that flight earlier this year, the Honor Flight Network has spread to 34 states and has taken more than 36,000 veterans to see the memorial.

The program “exploded,” Morse said, but there’s no back-slapping going on now. There’s simply not time.

“We have over 9,000 veterans on our waiting list,” he said. “Over 700 of them have died while waiting patiently for us to get to them. There’s such a narrow window of opportunity. In another five or 10 years, it will be a moot point.

“It’s their memorial, and they’ve earned it. They waited 60 years for it, and we get the privilege of taking them.”

Tuesday’s flight marked the first for the newly formed Ozarks Honor Flight program.

Bill Kristek, one of the Ozarks Honor Flight board members, said the program was put together in just six weeks.

“We expect, if contributions both corporate and individual keep coming in, we’ll be able to have five flights next year,” Kristek said. “That’s shooting pretty tall, but Columbia had six flights in 2009.”

A hero’s welcome

On Thursday, having returned from Washington, Price said he was amazed at the experience.

From the honor guard and a cheering crowd that greeted their plane at Dulles International Airport and upon their return home, to firefighters crisscrossing streams of water from their hoses over their plane before takeoff, the veterans received a hero’s welcome.

“You’d think that we had just won the war,” Price said, smiling. “It was something else.”

Price, who enlisted in the Navy at the age of 17, said he was one of the youngest veterans on Tuesday’s trip. Each veteran was joined by a guardian to serve as a personal escort during the day. Many of those guardians were volunteers who paid their own way.

Upon their arrival, the veterans were split into three groups and rode buses to the World War II Memorial.

“It just makes you think back and realize why it’s there,” said Price. “You saw tears in a lot of guys’ eyes.”

The Honor Flight group also made stops at the Vietnam and Korean war memorials, and saw the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery.

“That was unbelievable,” Price said of the guards’ precision. “They’re like robots.”

On the flight back, the veterans were given stacks of letters from area children.

Looking through them, Price couldn’t help but smile as he read one from a young boy who thanked “Jimbo” for his service, then wrote about his love for playing kickball.

“They sure came up with some doozies,” he said.

Price said he isn’t sure why it took so many years to create the memorial to those who fought and died during World War II, but he is happy to have been a part of the Honor Flight program.

“I can’t believe all we went through in one day,” he said.





Waiting list

Bill Kristek, an Ozarks Honor Flight board member, said there are applications from more than 200 area veterans who would like to participate in the program.

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