Oklahoma veterans plan to make honor flights

Oklahoma veterans plan to make honor flights

Charleston and Heatley, both 87, will be making the trip thanks to Oklahoma Honor Flights, a privately funded effort to fly World War II service members and other veterans to Washington, D.C., to visit national monuments and memorials dedicated to their service.

Efforts are under way to raise money to pay for a third flight. Each flight costs about $100,000 to send about 100 veterans and 60 volunteer assistants on the one-day, round-trip flight.

“You don’t realize how many pent-up tensions you still have from serious stuff a long time ago,” Vezey said. “That day brings them all back. I lost a lot of shipmates. I lost my roommate at Pearl Harbor. You keep all those things away — there’s no closure on some of those things. You kind of submerge them.”