Chicago’s Mary Pettinato….first visit
I’ve been talking to Mary Pettinato of Chicago and watching her success in promoting Honor Flight. It was delightful to finally meet her with her group. She is seen here with Robert ____who she claimed was her “favorite veteran”….but I think she says that to all the guys!! Chicago for some reason always has a huge naval presence and today had the biggest contingent of submariners that we’ve seen in one group.
Interestingly enough, Dan Arant and Donna Prince were doing a lecture on the Battle of Midway. They are both National Park Service Volunteers. Dan is a military historian and does lectures on military history at the Vietnam Memorial and the WWII Memorial. In a later post, I plan to see if I can get a schedule for his lectures. The submariners were delighted and I don’t think they left that part of the Memorial for a while.
Congressman Bill Foster was on hand to greet his constituents as was Senator Dole. It’s nice to see Congressmen and Senators get out to see the guys and gals and State Senator Chris Lauzen not only got out but he flew out from Chicago with the group. He gets a big salute for his efforts on behalf of the vets.