Honor. Thank. Inspire. An Honor Flight Chicago Podcast

By Honor Flight Chicago

What's Honor. Thank. Inspire. An Honor Flight Chicago Podcast about?

Join us as long-time ABC 7 reporter Paul Meincke sits down with our senior war heroes from WWII, the Korean War and the Vietnam War to explore their stories and memories of serving their nation.

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Honor. Thank. Inspire. An Honor Flight Chicago Podcast episodes:

05.23.2024
Episode 69: Vietnam Purple Heart Veteran Tom Brown
Tom Brown served as an infantryman in Vietnam, where he faced frequent and ferocious firefights as a member of the Big Red One. About six months into his tour, his unit was ambushed near the Cambodian border and Tom was...
04.25.2024
Episode 68: The Music of the Vietnam War
The Vietnam War had a soundtrack. For the men and women in-country, music -- and often one specific song -- provided an escape and a connection to "the world." Join Paul Meincke as he listens in to a recent talk...
04.08.2024
Episode 67: Master of the Air Richard Bushong
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...
03.27.2024
Episode 66: The 2 Sides Project
On December 7, 1966, Air Force Captain John W. Carlson was shot down near Bien Hoa. To this day, he remains listed as Missing in Action. He left behind a wife and two young daughters, Margot and Kim, who struggled...
03.01.2024
Episode 65: Donald Talbot's Fight to Live in Vietnam
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...
02.21.2024
Episode 64: A Son's Career of Service Honors His Father
Russel McClintock served over three decades in the Navy, beginning during the Vietnam War and continuing through and beyond the first Gulf War. That service was -- in part -- meant to honor the father whose name he shares. Russel...
02.08.2024
Episode 63: William Fireside, Korean War Psychological Warrior
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...
01.26.2024
Episode 62: Cold War Spy John Lee
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...
01.12.2024
Episode 61: Duane Buttell and the MiG-21 Victory
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...
12.11.2023
Episode 60: Vietnam Veteran Jim Davidson, A Survivor
Army Sergeant Jim Davidson arrived in Vietnam in March of 1968 with the intensity of the Tet Offensive still at a fever pitch. Jim stepped into the 101st Airborne as a replacement troop and soon found out why that unit's...
11.06.2023
Episode 59: Tomb Guard Joe Varanauski and the Standard of Perfection
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...
10.25.2023
Episode 58: Every Hero Has a Story
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...
09.29.2023
Episode 57: David Mann, Vietnam War Gold Star Son
David Mann's father was in Vietnam for only a short time when he was killed in a rocket attack months before his namesake son would be born stateside. The younger Mann has spent his life getting to know his dad,...
09.13.2023
Episode 56: Norm Bowens, Mike Masello and the Brotherhood of Vietnam Veterans
Norm Bowens and Mike Masello served in Vietnam at different times and at different places. Still, they each brought something home so common to veterans who served in combat: PTSD. Many years later, a chance encounter around a specific chair...
09.05.2023
Episode 55: Vietnam Veteran Jim Parker’s Unique MOS as the ”Bug Man”
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...
08.08.2023
Episode 54: Vietnam Veteran Dante Plata and the Power of Music
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...
07.20.2023
Episode 53: WWII Aviator Howard Cain and the Aftermath of Little Boy
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...
06.30.2023
Episode 52: Celebrating 10K Heroes Flown with Purple Heart Veteran Ray Szweda
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...
06.16.2023
Episode 51: Vietnam War Sniper Ronald Baltierra
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...
05.22.2023
Episode 50: Bob Bruzek and the Seabees in Vietnam
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...
04.20.2023
Episode 49: Celebrating 100 With Rev. Hank Roberson
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...
03.23.2023
Episode 48: Ed Helrigel’s Two Tours of Vietnam
Ed Helrigel returned from Vietnam to a world he no longer recognized. From the heat of battle one day to arriving home the next, it was a reality that plagued many of his comrades-in-arms. For Ed, the toll of his...
02.23.2023
Episode 47: Sonny Djancewicz’s Leadership In The Jungles of Vietnam
Sonny Djancewicz saw constant action in the Vietnamese jungles as a Sergeant in the 7th Cavalry Regiment. The physical and emotional scars of battle, though many, were not enough to dim his singular focus: keeping the men in his command...
02.07.2023
Episode 46: WWII B-24 Pilot Howard Levinson’s Dream To Fly
Howard Levinson grew up in extreme poverty in Chicago and from a very young age experienced rampant anti-Semitism. He dreamed to fly, pushing through the obstacles of resources and ignorance to become a B-24 pilot in the Pacific at the...
01.18.2023
Episode 45: Vietnam Veteran Dee Simmons and the Impact of Agent Orange
Army SPC/5 Richard "Dee" Simmons saw and experienced a lot during his time in Vietnam, but nothing stuck with him more -- literally -- than the Agent Orange defoliant that would cake on his skin to the point that it...
01.09.2023
Episode 44: Purple Heart Veteran Jerry Warren and Race in the Vietnam War
Jerry Warren is a born leader, a trait that was instantly recognized in his Army training prior to being sent to Vietnam. Jerry, who is Black, quickly made Sergeant and was placed in charge of a unit comprising all white...
12.19.2022
Episode 43: Korean War Veteran Elaine Ansbro and NORAD
Elaine Ansbro has had a fascination with flying and aviation since she was a young girl. With that in mind, she joined the Air Force during the Korean War in the hopes of taking wing. She soon found out she...
12.03.2022
Episode 42: Jerry Sperry, One of the Korean War’s Chosin Few
Marine Corps Veteran Jerry Sperry received two Purple Heart medals for his service in the Korean War. The first came in South Korea, while the second came during the frozen Battle of Chosin Reservoir in the North. Now in his...
11.11.2022
Episode 41: Vietnam Veteran Jim Weinstein’s Mission To Find Himself
Marine Corps Lance Corporal Jim Weinstein enlisted in the Marines to escape a troubled youth full of drink and drugs. Jim endured many close calls on the battlefields of Vietnam including one that resulted in his family receiving an erroneous...
11.07.2022
Episode 40: WWII Veteran Howard Hill And the Aftermath of Nagasaki
Howard Hill joined the Navy at 17-years-old toward the tail end of WWII. At war's end, he was on a ship bound for Japan to pick up POWs who had been housed in prison camps near Nagasaki. With camera in...
10.07.2022
Episode 39: Small Town America and the Vietnam War
Honor Flight Chicago alum Danny Anderson hails from Gardner, Illinois. A town of 1,400 that sits 60 miles southwest of Chicago in Grundy county, Gardner saw five of its young men not return home from Vietnam. Danny himself was wounded...
09.13.2022
Episode 38: WWII Veteran Bill Shoop, Witness to the Nuremberg Trials
Bill Shoop served as a teletype operator during the latter stages of World War II in Europe, first during the Battle of Bulge and later from the International Military Tribunal known as the Nuremburg Trials. Though he claims no special...
08.26.2022
Episode 37: A Recap of Flight 103, Our Operation Education Mission
Our 103rd flight on July 20, 2022, featured 111 senior war veterans receiving their long-awaited and much-deserved Day of Honor, Thanks, and Inspiration. It also featured 13 teachers and students from our rapidly growing "Operation Education" mission that seeks to...
08.09.2022
Episode 36: Rodney Branch Plays TAPS In Combat
Rodney Branch has always been a musician. When he joined the Army in 1966, his first duty station was with the 55th Army Band in Alabama as a trumpeter and a bugler. Soon, though, he got his orders for Vietnam....
07.28.2022
Episode 35: Mike Osika and the USS Enterprise Explosion
Mike Osika was aboard the USS Enterprise on January 14, 1969, when -- 75 miles from Pearl Harbor and in preparations to sail to Vietnam -- explosions ripped across the flight deck. Mike joined the fight on the deck to...
06.30.2022
Episode 34: Lew Bottando, ”Lucky” Vietnam Veteran With Three Purple Hearts
Lew Bottando describes himself as lucky. He has been married 50 years to his high school sweetheart, and retired from a long career in the Chicago Fire Department as a battalion chief. His luck began, however, before all of that:...
06.01.2022
Episode 33: Richie Louck, Vietnam Medic
Richie Louck served as an Army medic with the 1st Cavalry during the Vietnam War -- an assignment with a very short shelf life. In fact, he was the lone medic in his company to survive his tour. Richie also...
05.18.2022
Episode 32: Korean War Purple Heart Veteran Rich Bernier
Army Corporal Rich Bernier served "many months" on the front lines of the Korean War. One day, the bunker he had just left took a direct hit from a mortar, killing all inside. Rich received serious shrapnel wounds, recovered and...
04.18.2022
Episode 31: Honor Flight Chicago Celebrates Its 100th Flight
In the predawn hours of April 13, 2022, 116 senior war veterans arrived at Midway International Airport to experience a day of Honor, Thanks, and Inspiration meant as a grand gesture of gratitude from a grateful nation. The life-changing trip...
03.10.2022
Episode 30: Purple Heart Vietnam Veteran Luis Rodriguez
The 30th episode of our moving and meaningful Honor. Thank. Inspire. podcast spotlights Luis Rodriguez, a Purple Heart veteran of the Vietnam War. His deeply personal descriptions of the conditions of battle bring all of the rawness of the jungle...
02.25.2022
Episode 29: Silver Star Vietnam Veteran Clyde Wilson
Clyde Wilson's first assignment after completing officer school was a command at Fort Leonard Wood with "McNamara’s Hundred Thousand." He -- like nearly all of them -- soon found himself heading to Vietnam where his eye-opening arrival foreshadowed an encounter...
01.31.2022
Episode 28: Two-Tour Vietnam Veteran Charles Nichols
Charles Nichols believes in his country's mission in Vietnam to this day. Fulfilling a life-long desire to be a United States Marine, Nichols signed up and served. When his tour of duty was complete, he returned home to Chicago and...
12.28.2021
Episode XXVII: WWII Navy Veteran David Grauer
Dr. David Grauer, DDS, joined the Navy late in WWII thanks to the urging of his father. After not seeing combat, he felt his military experience was not worthy of inclusion on an Honor Flight Chicago mission. For a man...
12.02.2021
Episode XXVI: Purple Heart Vietnam Veteran Jon Lapo
Jon Lapo had a rough-and-tumble upbringing in the Madison and Central neighborhood on Chicago's West Side. Looking for direction, he enlisted in the Army and soon found himself in Vietnam as a demolition man and -- for a time --...
11.22.2021
Episode XXV: Omaha Beach D-Day Veteran Ray Wagner
In the absolute chaos that was Omaha Beach on D-Day, 20-year-old Ray Wagner found himself twice thrown into the water before scrambling onto the sand, death and destruction all around. He himself was wounded on that beach, but less than...
11.02.2021
Episode XXIV: Ride Along as Operation HerStory Takes Flight on HFC98!
On October 6, 2021, our long-awaited Operation HerStory All-Female Veteran Flight took off bound for Washington, D.C., with 93 senior heroes aboard. Come along for the ride as Paul Meincke shares the sounds and experiences of the day through the...
10.14.2021
Episode XXIII: WWII B-24 Bomber Pilot Alvin Goodman
WWII Army Air Corps First Lieutenant Alvin Goodman, Jr., flew 11 successful missions as a B-24 Bomber pilot before, while serving as co-pilot on his 12th, he was hit by flak and knocked out cold in the cockpit. In this...
09.26.2021
Episode XXII: Vietnam Army Nurse Constance Edwards
Retired Army Colonel Constance Love Edwards was a nurse in Vietnam during the Vietnam War, where she treated casualties coming in from the field while facing challenges related not only to gender, but race as well. In the decades afterwards,...
09.09.2021
Episode XXI: Korean War Infantry Veteran and Hall Of Famer Kenny Hirata
Kenny Hirata spent many of his teenage years in an Japanese-American internment camp in Arizona during WWII. After resettling in the Midwest, Hirata served his country in the infantry during the Korean War. This powerful episode explores the effect of...
08.27.2021
Episode XX: Inside HFC96, The Nation's First Honor Flight To Return To D.C.
On August 18, 2021, Honor Flight Chicago returned to Washington, D.C., with a plane full of 112 senior war veterans. It was the first honor flight nationwide since the start of the pandemic and the first for HFC in 22...

What's Honor. Thank. Inspire. An Honor Flight Chicago Podcast about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Honor. Thank. Inspire. An Honor Flight Chicago Podcast episodes:

Episode 69: Vietnam Purple Heart Veteran Tom Brown

Episode 68: The Music of the Vietnam War

Episode 67: Master of the Air Richard Bushong

Episode 66: The 2 Sides Project

Episode 65: Donald Talbot's Fight to Live in Vietnam

Episode 64: A Son's Career of Service Honors His Father

Episode 63: William Fireside, Korean War Psychological Warrior

Episode 62: Cold War Spy John Lee

Episode 61: Duane Buttell and the MiG-21 Victory

Episode 60: Vietnam Veteran Jim Davidson, A Survivor

Episode 59: Tomb Guard Joe Varanauski and the Standard of Perfection

Episode 58: Every Hero Has a Story

Episode 57: David Mann, Vietnam War Gold Star Son

Episode 56: Norm Bowens, Mike Masello and the Brotherhood of Vietnam Veterans

Episode 55: Vietnam Veteran Jim Parker’s Unique MOS as the ”Bug Man”

Episode 54: Vietnam Veteran Dante Plata and the Power of Music

Episode 53: WWII Aviator Howard Cain and the Aftermath of Little Boy

Episode 52: Celebrating 10K Heroes Flown with Purple Heart Veteran Ray Szweda

Episode 51: Vietnam War Sniper Ronald Baltierra

Episode 50: Bob Bruzek and the Seabees in Vietnam

Episode 49: Celebrating 100 With Rev. Hank Roberson

Episode 48: Ed Helrigel’s Two Tours of Vietnam

Episode 47: Sonny Djancewicz’s Leadership In The Jungles of Vietnam

Episode 46: WWII B-24 Pilot Howard Levinson’s Dream To Fly

Episode 45: Vietnam Veteran Dee Simmons and the Impact of Agent Orange

Episode 44: Purple Heart Veteran Jerry Warren and Race in the Vietnam War

Episode 43: Korean War Veteran Elaine Ansbro and NORAD

Episode 42: Jerry Sperry, One of the Korean War’s Chosin Few

Episode 41: Vietnam Veteran Jim Weinstein’s Mission To Find Himself

Episode 40: WWII Veteran Howard Hill And the Aftermath of Nagasaki

Episode 39: Small Town America and the Vietnam War

Episode 38: WWII Veteran Bill Shoop, Witness to the Nuremberg Trials

Episode 37: A Recap of Flight 103, Our Operation Education Mission

Episode 36: Rodney Branch Plays TAPS In Combat

Episode 35: Mike Osika and the USS Enterprise Explosion

Episode 34: Lew Bottando, ”Lucky” Vietnam Veteran With Three Purple Hearts

Episode 33: Richie Louck, Vietnam Medic

Episode 32: Korean War Purple Heart Veteran Rich Bernier

Episode 31: Honor Flight Chicago Celebrates Its 100th Flight

Episode 30: Purple Heart Vietnam Veteran Luis Rodriguez

Episode 29: Silver Star Vietnam Veteran Clyde Wilson

Episode 28: Two-Tour Vietnam Veteran Charles Nichols

Episode XXVII: WWII Navy Veteran David Grauer

Episode XXVI: Purple Heart Vietnam Veteran Jon Lapo

Episode XXV: Omaha Beach D-Day Veteran Ray Wagner

Episode XXIV: Ride Along as Operation HerStory Takes Flight on HFC98!

Episode XXIII: WWII B-24 Bomber Pilot Alvin Goodman

Episode XXII: Vietnam Army Nurse Constance Edwards

Episode XXI: Korean War Infantry Veteran and Hall Of Famer Kenny Hirata

Episode XX: Inside HFC96, The Nation's First Honor Flight To Return To D.C.

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