Dream Flights<\/a>, an organization that provides free flights for veterans. The group has provided more than 8,000 flights for veterans.<\/p>\nAmong the veterans taking part was Bill Gloss, a 102-year-old World War II veteran who served in the European Theater in Germany. Gloss said he recently returned from Belgium in December and marked a milestone birthday overseas.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we were over there in 1944 I spent my 20th birthday, December, last December, the 14th, I spent my 102 birthday in Belgium\u201d Gloss said.<\/p>\n
Gloss said he was looking forward to the experience, calling it \u201csomething different.\u201d<\/p>\n
KBFX DVR_WINDOW<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’re gonna fly in a toy plane, such a small little plane,\u201d he said, adding that he had met the pilot and liked him.<\/p>\n
Asked about the secret to longevity, Gloss credited his faith and his mother\u2019s prayers during the war.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe only thing I can say is, God has got his hand on me. He just keeps me going day and day,\u201d Gloss said. \u201cAnd I was in during the war, I spent 17 months over there, and they were times when things got pretty warm, but I had a praying mama, and I knew that she was praying, and I really believe that’s the main reason I’m sitting here talking to you today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kurt Bohlken, who is also a veteran and is the pilot for the day, said the flights can be transformative for older veterans.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we see every flight with our veterans, they go to the airplane and they’re 80 or 90, years old, and they come back and they’re 25 years old again”, says Bohlken. \u201cIt’s amazing, this airplane is a time machine to be able to provide them with that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bohlken said he has been flying since he was 16, served 21 years in the Navy, flew Alaska flights and now flies for American Airlines. He also said the style of aircraft the senior vets will be flying on today, has appeared in \u201cMission Impossible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kern County Fire Department crews were at the airport assisting veterans onto the aircraft. Bakersfield Mayor Karen Goh was also there cheering on participants.<\/p>\n
Bohlken said veterans interested in participating in the future can apply through the organization\u2019s website.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Veterans in Bakersfield got a chance to take to the skies Friday morning, climbing aboard a historic World…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":261985,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[151,153,152],"class_list":{"0":"post-261984","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bakersfield","8":"tag-bakersfield","9":"tag-bakersfield-headlines","10":"tag-bakersfield-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=261984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261984\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/261985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}