{"id":316305,"date":"2026-05-15T00:23:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T00:23:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/316305\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T00:23:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T00:23:12","slug":"taking-flight-mariposa-gazette","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/316305\/","title":{"rendered":"TAKING FLIGHT – Mariposa Gazette"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t<\/a>\"Trent<\/a><\/p>\n

Trent Williams waves to the large crowd a Fresno Yosemite Airport as part of the Honor Flight program in which he recently participated. Also shown is his \u201cguardian\u201d and longtime friend, Gary VanMeter. Submitted photo<\/p>\n

You could see the emotions on his face.<\/p>\n

They run deep and the full gamut, from the horrors of war to the rewards of long lasting relationships that come full circle.<\/p>\n

\u201cLife\u2019s been good,\u201d said Trent Williams, 82, who is grateful for many things, including being a part of the recent Central Valley Honor Flight #34.<\/p>\n

The Honor Flight program is designed to give veterans a chance to travel \u2014 for free \u2014 to Washington, D.C., and they are catered every step of the way.<\/p>\n

Williams was drafted into the Army in 1967 and did training at Ft. Ord. He was then shipped to Vietnam as a combat medic (\u201cNot by choice.\u201d) during the height of the conflict. He spent a year and a half there.<\/p>\n

\u201cA real hellhole,\u201d is how he described his feelings when he got off the plane that first day in Vietnam.<\/p>\n

Bullets were flying over their heads and Williams was sure he would never make it back home alive.<\/p>\n

But he ended up at the VIP hospital, where he would meet celebrities and many other \u201cbig wigs\u201d who stopped by.<\/p>\n

\"Honor<\/a><\/p>\n

Honor flight participants are shown at the U.S. Capital, where they posed for a group photograph. Submitted photo<\/p>\n

That, however, did not mean he didn\u2019t see the darkest side of war.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t have to kill anybody,\u201d he said, reflecting back on his service.<\/p>\n

Quite the way to think about serving in the Army. Though he never had to kill anyone, he saw more than his share of dead bodies and people wounded severely during one of the most controversial wars in the history of America.<\/p>\n

Yet he somehow survived, coming back to Mariposa and living that good life as a longtime hairdresser, an occupation he continues to this day.<\/p>\n

Taking flight<\/p>\n

It was about a year and a half ago when Williams applied to be a part of the Honor Flight program. There will be three this year and he was on the first of those during the trip in late April.<\/p>\n

Each flight takes veterans to Washington. Each veteran has to have a guardian, he noted, and his was longtime friend Gary VanMeter.<\/p>\n

\"Even<\/a><\/p>\n

Even veterans like Williams have to use the modern techniques required to board planes at airports. Submitted photos<\/p>\n

\u201cI called him my guardian angel,\u201d said Williams.<\/p>\n

The average age of veterans on the flight was 80 and the oldest, he said, was a 101-year-old World War II veteran who was as sharp as a whip.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnbelievable,\u201d is how Williams described his experience.<\/p>\n

From the moment he entered the Fresno Yosemite Airport to the time he returned to that very place, Williams said the Honor Flight program \u201ccatered\u201d to their every need.<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody ever carried anything,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The group arrived in Washington on a Monday evening and stayed at a Hilton Hotel, including a catered BBQ dinner that first night.<\/p>\n

The next two days were a whirlwind, getting up (kind of like the military) at 5 a.m. and going all day long. They toured the U.S. Capital, went to the World War II Memorial, the Navy Memorial, the Air and Space Museum for lunch, the National Museum of the Army and then back to the hotel for a catered dinner.<\/p>\n

That was the first day.<\/p>\n

On the second day, the agenda included a trip to Arlington National Cemetery where they saw the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, an experience Williams said was quite emotional. They witnessed the Changing of the Guard ceremony, went to the Marine Memorial and then to the Korean War and Vietnam War memorials.<\/p>\n

Celebrity treatment<\/p>\n

After all of that, they boarded the flight back to Fresno, where they arrived at around 9 p.m.<\/p>\n

Even at that hour, Williams said some 1,300 people were at the airport to greet them, capping off a trip where he felt on top of the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt like I was a movie star,\u201d said Williams.<\/p>\n

He called it \u201cvery emotional\u201d in reflecting on the trip as well as his entire life.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone had a group welcoming us,\u201d he said. \u201cThey have got this down to a gnat\u2019s eye.\u201d<\/p>\n

Which is the entire point.<\/p>\n

The Honor Flight program was founded in 2005 and has been taking veterans to Washington from all over the country even since. More than 300,000 veterans have utilized the program.<\/p>\n

He said every need of each person was addressed, whether it was a wheelchair or simple directions. On the tour buses, each veteran was given a picture montage which was placed on their seat.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a far cry from when Williams came home from Vietnam. He came through San Francisco, where he and many of those returning were \u201cspat on\u201d and called names by those against the war.<\/p>\n

And then he came to Mariposa, where it was Labor Day weekend and they were asked to be in the parade. Mariposa gave them a warm welcome, he said, cementing his feelings about living here.<\/p>\n

The full circle<\/p>\n

Even with all of that, Williams has traveled back to Vietnam three times and has grown dearly fond of the Vietnamese people .<\/p>\n

He said the people have welcomed him each time; and each time has been better. The younger people, he said, don\u2019t dwell on the war and treat it more like something from their history books.<\/p>\n

As Williams said, it was the \u201cgovernment\u201d that was at the root of the war, not the people.<\/p>\n

Even though critics remain of that war, Williams believes in the end, everyone has come away in a better place.<\/p>\n

He said Vietnam is now a modern country with hard-working people.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t believe how beautiful of a country it is,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Williams also recalls, with some humor, how he met celebrities the first time he was over there at that VIP hospital.<\/p>\n

He sat next to Bob Hope and Gen. William Westmoreland during one event. He still has high praise for Hope, who he said regularly came to Vietnam to entertain the troops in USO shows.<\/p>\n

As for the famed columnist Ann Landers, Williams has a different opinion.<\/p>\n

She refused to come into the medical unit, fearing disease and other issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cI stopped reading her column after that,\u201d said Williams.<\/p>\n

Through all of it, Williams said it was his family and the people of Mariposa who got him through the war as well as guided him to be successful in life.<\/p>\n

The program<\/p>\n

For Williams, the Honor Flight program, like the war itself, had a big impact on his life.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a healing,\u201d he said, urging hesitant veterans to get into the program.<\/p>\n

One fellow veteran has been reluctant, saying he doesn\u2019t want to relive the horrors of war.<\/p>\n

But Williams told him \u201cat the very least,\u201d he could take his son and show him exactly what the soldiers went through in defense of the nation.<\/p>\n

It also makes him reflect back over his life and even though those bullets were flying over his head and he was convinced he would never come home, that has now all changed.<\/p>\n

The war experience, and the subsequent chance to get to know the Vietnam people, have changed him.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt makes me appreciate what we have,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Trent Williams waves to the large crowd a Fresno Yosemite Airport as part of the Honor Flight program…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":316306,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":["post-316305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316305","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=316305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/316306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=316305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=316305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=316305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}