Honor. Thank. Inspire. An Honor Flight Chicago Podcast

On March 6, 1944, Richard Bushong was at the controls of a B-17 Flying Fortress as part of the first daylight bombing raid to reach Berlin during WWII. The air armada that day stretched for 94 miles in the sky and inflicted heavy damage on the Nazis -- but at an alarming cost to the Allied forces as well.

As a teenager in Vietnam, Donald Talbot was involved in a firefight so intense that many of his fellow Marines were killed. Himself badly wounded, Talbot emerged from unconsciousness with the realization that his hands were being bound together. He quickly understood that to stay alive he would have to play dead -- and that was just the beginning of his fight for survival.

Long after the Korean Armistice Agreement was signed in 1953, American service members were still fighting on the peninsula -- though their weapon of choice was not a firearm or a mortar but the power of the pen. William Fireside's mission in Korea was Psychological Operations (PsyOps for short), and the adventures he had in the execution of that mission make for an entertaining episode.

John Lee's Air Force basic training testing in 1955 revealed a hidden skill: an aptitude for foreign languages. His first assignment was a yearlong intensive study of Russian at Syracuse University. He then took those skills -- and a top-secret clearance -- to the border with East Germany where he and others listened in on Soviet pilots flying overhead.

On July 14, 1966, Duane Buttell, Jr., was the "Guy in Back" of an F-4 fighter escorting F-105s to a target over North Vietnam. Suddenly, several enemy MiG-21s appeared. Buttell and his co-pilot, William Swendner, shot down the MiG in one of the first victories over that aircraft during the Vietnam War. The aerial battle made such an impact that Hanoi Hannah mentioned Duane by name on a subsequent broadcast.

From late 1956 through the summer of 1957, Army veteran Joseph Varanauski held the esteemed position of Sentinel at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Listen in as Joe details his journey to one of the most prestigious posts in the U.S. Armed Services and reveals what it means to live by the creed "my standard will remain perfection."

Honor Flight Chicago has now flown over 10,600 senior war veterans to Washington, D.C., to celebrate their service and give them the proper Welcome Home they never received. That number is big -- possibly impenetrable -- but each one of those heroes has a story. Join Paul Meincke on September's HFC111 as he learns the stories of eight different heroes and the impact their HFC experience has had on them.

Jim Parker grew up an Air Force brat. When the time came for him to join the service during the Vietnam War, he chose the same branch as his father. Despite being raised to know all things Air Force, his assigned role in the war was not one he had ever heard of. While his comrades in arms fought VC and NVA, Jim's adversaries were much smaller and more pervasive: mosquitoes.

Dante Plata grew up in the church and fell in love with music and the guitar at an early age. Later, after entering the Army, he spent two years as a corpsman in a hospital in Japan treating the wounded of the Vietnam War. Seeing the results of the horrors of war up close led Dante to turn to his music for healing -- both for himself and for the benefit of those he cared for.

The son of Jewish immigrants from Russia, Howard Cain was so eager to serve in WWII that he forged his parents' signatures to enlist at 17 toward the end of the war. Later, as a flight engineer on a B-29 Superfortress following Japan's surrender, Cain was aboard a reconnaissance flight over the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. What he saw has stuck with him to this day.

Honor Flight Chicago flew its 10,000th senior war hero to Washington D.C., on May 10, 2023. On that flight was Vietnam Veteran and Purple Heart recipient Raymond Szweda. Each of the 10,000 veterans we have honored has an individual story of service and sacrifice. Learn Ray's as you follow him throughout his much deserved Day of Honor during which he "learned that it's ok to ask for help."

Ronald Baltierra served as a sniper in Vietnam, an assignment so difficult mentally that he failed to pull the trigger the first time he was ordered to do so. He eventually came to understand that as hard as it was to knowingly take a life, he was saving countless more in that brutal war with his actions.

Navy Seabee Bob Bruzek traveled with Honor Flight Chicago in June of 2019 aboard our very first flight to include Vietnam veterans. Flying with him on a laminated card inserted into his hat were the names of two men, friends from Vietnam who did not make it home from the war. As we honored Bob that day, he continued to honor his fallen comrades-in-arms as he has done for the last half century. 

Featured in Episode 6 of our podcast, WWII Veteran Hank Roberson is back to celebrate his 100th Birthday! In this short episode, Paul Meincke joins Rev. Roberson at his West Side church on Easter Sunday as the community comes together to honor this hero. Listen in!