The veterans started showing up well before 6:30 a.m. Monday at Meadows Field Airport in Bakersfield.<\/p>\n
About 80 military veterans who served during the Vietnam War were there, each one dressed in a blue shirt. The guardians who watch over them wore red, and the staff volunteers who organize the flights were dressed in white.<\/p>\n
Another veteran flight organized by Honor Flight Kern County \u2014 the 54th \u2014 was about to take off.<\/p>\n
No one who had a seat on that plane could have known that it would never get off the ground. Who could have guessed that the wrong connector to a tow bar could stop a flight for which planning had begun nearly a year before?<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve never had this issue,\u201d said Lili Marsh, founder of Honor Flight Kern County.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were slightly delayed to begin with, and then, for whatever reason, they get ready to connect the tow bar to pull the plane away from the gate, and it doesn\u2019t fit.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAllegiant Air is saying that there\u2019s a connector and the connector was wrong. I\u2019m no mechanic,\u201d Marsh said, \u201cbut apparently the tow bar was right, but the connector was wrong \u2014 or something to that effect.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe tow bar did not fit correctly.\u201d<\/p>\n
A call went up to Fresno to have the correct connector driven down to Bakersfield.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the three-day itinerary for an Honor Flight tour is like a jigsaw puzzle. Everything fits together precisely, but it\u2019s all on a timetable, and the timetable was slipping away.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt 1 o\u2019clock, they still could not tell us when that piece of equipment would be on the road, so they said, \u2018Well, maybe we can leave by 5 p.m.,\u2019 but if we left at 5, their pilots were going to time out, so they were going to fly more pilots in to Burbank (who) were going to rent a car and drive to Bakersfield.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese guys, older crowd, have been sitting since 7 o\u2019clock in the morning. If we left at 5, we\u2019d have gotten there at 10:30, driven an hour to the hotel, and then you add the three hours of the time change, and then they have to be up at 5:30 in the morning, which just didn\u2019t make sense, and I didn\u2019t think it was healthy for a good number of these veterans.<\/p>\n
Marsh said she was unable to reach Kern County Airports Director Bill LaManque. The Californian also had no luck in reaching the director.<\/p>\n
However, at about 6 p.m., the following statement from Meadows Field Airport arrived:<\/p>\n
\u201cKern County and Meadows Field Airport honor our veterans and have long been proud to support them as they embark on their meaningful Honor Flight journey,\u201d the statement said. \u201cWe are disappointed that today\u2019s Honor Flight was canceled due to unforeseen aircraft issues.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know how much this experience means to the veterans who have served our country,\u201d the statement continued. \u201cWe look forward to welcoming them back to Meadows Field for the next scheduled Honor Flight and giving them the sendoff and warm welcome home they deserve.\u201d<\/p>\n
As it turned out, the vets apparently made the best of a less-than-ideal situation.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll in all,\u201d Marsh said, \u201cthe veterans were in far better humor than our team was. We were all crying and sad \u2026 We were very unhappy. I mean, unhappy for them for the vets because they couldn\u2019t go.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think they were handling it better than we were,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Dennis Durbin, 78, a Vietnam combat veteran who served as a Huey helicopter pilot in 1970 and 1971 was supposed to be on Honor Flight No. 54.<\/p>\n
The recipient of a National Defense Medal, a Vietnam Service Medal, an Army Aviators Badge, a Bronze Star, 42 Air Medals and more, gave much credit to the Honor Flight team.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey did a great job,\u201d he said. \u201cThey had everything rolling smoothly. We were on the plane for about an hour and a half or so before they still could get a tool bar there to get us out of the parking area.\u201d<\/p>\n
Once the vets were off the plane, pizza was brought in for them, \u201cwhich was very nice,\u201d the former chopper pilot said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd we waited patiently and we all, of course, were sure that we were going to get to go.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut, along about 2 o\u2019clock \u2026 there was just no way they could guarantee our getting there at any reasonable time.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe idea that we couldn\u2019t get out of the parking gate because they didn\u2019t have the right tow bar for the aircraft \u2026\u201d Durbin let whatever was coming remain unsaid.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnyway, not my agenda,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone there was well-mannered, all the veterans.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think they were disappointed, but at the same time, there was a lot of camaraderie going on, even while we were waiting to get on the plane, and then when we got off, people talking and sharing stories and meeting new people. And that was, I think, a good part of the purpose of the flight. So, we did get to enjoy it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey did tell us that they\u2019ve got the next flight scheduled for April next year. And all of us will be first in line,\u201d he said. \u201cI think most of the soldiers will certainly make the effort to try to do that.<\/p>\n
\u201cI also want to thank the people of Kern County for supporting the Honor Flights, because they\u2019re the ones that will be raising funds to pay for all this,\u201d Durbin said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd of course, the guardians who are paying $1,500 apiece to go with us and help us. They also deserve kudos for all they are doing.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt really is impressive because we know much they\u2019ve given to get us there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The veterans started showing up well before 6:30 a.m. Monday at Meadows Field Airport in Bakersfield. About 80…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":471916,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[151,153,152],"class_list":["post-471915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield-headlines","tag-bakersfield-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471915","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=471915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471915\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/471916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}