Honor Flight
1800 people show: Homecoming Celebrations for Chicago Honor Flight
Afer a rainy day on the Mall, I got this from Mary Pettinato of Chicago Honor Flight: “…The Welcome Home Celebration was our best yet. We had over 1800 people to greet our vets/ Rolling Thunder, Guradian Angel riders and many more scary looking bikers. To contrast that, we had little JonBenet Ramsey’s wearing crowns […]
Delightful for Ducks
The only critter today not wearing a raincoat was this duck which seemed eminently comfortable despite the waves of downpours which greeted Honor Flights from Chicago, South Carolina, North Dakota and Ohio. Having seen worse, the veterans got out to the WWII Memorial, posed for pictures and had a great time. Senator Dole showed up […]
Rain, Rain….go away…
Despite a heavy rain, Michigan, Ohio and Louisiana made their way to the WWII Memorial today. When I arrived Rick Sage, his wife and Bill and Bobbi Richards were at the WWII Memorial today and were soon joined by Senators Robert and Elizabeth Dole. While the weather was clearing, the Senators climbed aboard the buses […]
The Mall
I’ve been scanning seemingly zillions of photographs I’ve taken over the past thirty years. Today, I found this picture taken in 1997. It was made on an early Fall morning for an advertising poster for Australian Radio. At that time, the big reflecting pool was practically always empty and the Memorial’s original pool was a […]
Senator Elizabeth Dole greets Honor Air Knoxville at WWII Memorial
Nice to have two Senators in one family! Senator Elizabeth Dole greeted veterans of Honor Air Knoxville in the absence of Senator Robert Dole who was in Kansas today. She is pictured here with Ed Mannis and his father. There were approximately 110 veterans and seventy guardians at the WWII Memorial. The weather was brisk […]
Oneida, New York Veterans Third Year
For the third year in a row and my first group picture of 2009, Erwin Smith of the Oneida Rotary Club made a trip by bus with a group of fifty. Each year, they decide to extend their stay and this year they are here for three full days. The weather had just cleared as […]
Promotional excellence: Honor Flight Chicago’s video
I have the opportunity to work in an advisory capacity to Honor Flight Chicago and want to congratulate them on the release of a beautiful, moving and professional video on the Honor Flight movement. Narrated by Gary Sinise and with a beautiful guitar background by Jay Farrar, the piece was cut in Chicago and Los […]
Robert Tills Returns Home
Jeff and Tam Miller escorted Mrs. Viicki Lee, former fiance of Robert Tills, the first US serviceman to be killed in combat in the Pacific Theater, to attend his burial 68 years later at Arlington Cemetery. Defense Link has a brief synopsis of the Tills incident and why he was being buried sixty-eight years later. […]
Donate, Raffle, Fly for Honor Flight
Judy Lemmons asked me to post a notice about a very exciting Raffle. This is an absolutely rare opportunity and while I don’t normally gamble, I think I’ll be buying some chances!!! Flying with a demonstration team is the stuff of photographic legend and the photographer here had a really nice photo opportunity. And you’ll […]
Honor Flight Chicago’s Poet Laureate
From Mary Pettinato: “Richard Williams, a WWII Veteran who is legally blind and recovering from a heart attack, sent us (Honor Flight Chicago) this poem.” Now Listen Up Now listen up. you Guys and Dolls of WWII, This Honor Flight Chicago program is for REAL! I mean,they bust their butts to please and honor YOU, […]
Fountains and Posted Schedule
The fountains are on and the April schedule is posted. Senator Dole normally arrives at WWII Memorial at 10:30 and while he is supposedly there only to shake hands with veterans, I’ve never seen him turn down a handshake. He may be the most shaking guy on the planet! Jeff Miller and his lovely wife Tam […]
Signs of Spring at World War II Memorial
From the front lines!!! …Emails from George Kerestes and Kari Beasley are sure signs that Spring is on its way and the flights will soon beginning. Judy Lemmons wrote that three flights will be here April 23, 24th and 25th. The fountains are still off but the World War II Memorial is still crowded with […]
Stanley Wojtusik: Battle of the Bulge
Just prior to the opening of the WWII Memorial, I worked for a month on a large advertising supplement for the Washington Post Magazine. I had the opportunity to photograph a few of the veterans who testified before Congress and influenced the legislation to finally construct the Memorial. One of them was Stan Wojtusik (upper […]
The Sinking of the S.S. Leopoldville
I was down at the FDR bookstore this Saturday chatting with my favorite bookseller Linda Brown (not a relative) when Lenore Angelo walked in and stopped us in our tracks with a tale of a ship gone down and families not notified of how their relatives passed away for fifty years. The S.S. Leopoldville was […]
WWII Memorial Honor Roll
I took a few hours to put together a twenty-six page book of 200 images selected from the 5000 taken last year at the WWII Memorial. It’s a nice selection and on this cold February day in DC makes me look forward to the first visitors to the Memorial this year. You can see the […]
World War II Talks at the Memorial
Dan Arant has been a National Park Service volunteer sine 1993 and serves at the Vietnam Memorial and the WWII Memorial. His current topics are: Pearl Harbor, Midway, and Iwo Jima. Future planned topics are: The Battle of the Atlantic, Japan’s Kamikaze Force, and the Surrener Ceremony on the USS Missouri. Each talk is […]
Registering WWII veterans with the Memorial
The WWII Memorial has become a place where people can channel their love and grief. Doing the “Jewel of the Mall” book has brought me some beautiful letters… and I thought I would share this one with you and remind you that you should make sure the veterans in your town are registered with […]
Follow up: Inaugural Views
Chuck Kennedy, a good friend and great photographer has done several feature articles on Honor Flight for McClatchy Newspapers. He came up with a totally unique view for the inauguration. You probably saw it in your local paper as it was distributed internationally and has become the “defining” picture of the day. There is an article […]
Go Navy!!
Dorothy Mary (Sudomir) Budacki passed away this Fall. I had the chance to meet her and her daughter, Denise Duke (both in Navy uniform) at the World War II Memorial in November of 2007. We exchanged some pictures and letters over the past year and this is one of my favorite images. Her daughter Denise wrote: […]
Happy New Year!
Washington, DC will soon be abuzz with inauguration activity. The town is hopping with visitors and students on Winter Break. Construction is going on from the Capitol to the White House. If the crowds are anything like predicted, it will be interesting to see how the whole event plays. DC is capable of handling some enormous crowds but […]
Congressional Gaggle at WWII Memorial
Senator Dole, Chuck Hegel (new Secretary of Health?), Jeff Fortenberry and _____(help me out here) joined together to welcome these Wisconsin, Nebraska and Albany veterans on a cold but beautifully breezy day. Unlike Summer, people were staking out those nice sunny spots from which to look around the WWII Memorial. You can just begin to […]
Winning Images
Kari Beardsley is an Honor Flight volunteer who’s been working with me on the photography and I wanted to showcase both her work yesterday and in particular this photograph of three vets on the Mall which has become one of my favorite images. It says everything about our veterans’ visits to the Mall. Kari is a financial and project manager […]
Fall on the Mall
Kansas and Georgia arrived to cloudy but tolerably comfortable weather and as the Kansas group formed up for the “most organized picture of the year”, Senator Dole arrived. After we made the group picture, Senator Dole talked about the fact that the WWII Memorial was built by private contributions and that the government had nothing […]
Veterans Day 2008
The nice thing about living in Washington, DC is the opportunity to stop by and visit the WWII Memorial and get a quick glimpse of what’s going on and post a few photos. Today, there were cavalry from Florida, WWII Veterans from Chevy Chase, Maryland, George Kerestes and some friends from Pennsylvania, 82nd Airborne troops from […]