Providing Emergency Travel for Loved ones of Wounded, ill, and Injured Service Members, Veterans, and Fallen Officers | Luke's Wings Ep 86
Nov 08, 2023
Jamie Truman
When a service member is seriously wounded and hospitalized, their journey to recovery can be hard, lonely, and filled with challenges that test their body, mind and spirit. Having a loved one there to support them can have a huge impact on their healing process, but most families cannot afford to fly back and forth during their long recovery. This is where organizations like Luke's Wings come in, providing flights to family members to ensure that wounded, ill, and injured service members are not alone and surrounded by their loved ones.
Fletcher Gill, co-founder of Luke’s Wings, is joining host Jamie Truman on the show to talk about the profound impact the organization has had on service members and their families. Luke’s Wings has provided a total of over 16,000 flights, but they’re hoping to do so much more for veterans with cancer, substance abuse issues, sexual trauma and more. They’re not just buying plane tickets, but uniting families and tackling issues like suicide and divorce.
As Fletcher shares moving stories of the service members and families Luke’s Wings has supported, you might feel inspired to join their mission. So tune in to find out how you can help!
For emergency assistance, use phone number 512-971-9848 to contact Luke’s Wings. If you’d like to request a flight, start the application process by filling out this form. https://lukeswings.org/request-a-flight/
When a service member is seriously wounded and hospitalized, their journey to recovery can be hard, lonely, and filled with challenges that test their body, mind and spirit. Having a loved one there to support them can have a huge impact on their healing process, but most families cannot afford to fly back and forth during their long recovery. This is where organizations like Luke's Wings come in, providing flights to family members to ensure that wounded, ill, and injured service members are not alone and surrounded by their loved ones.
Fletcher Gill, co-founder of Luke’s Wings, is joining host Jamie Truman on the show to talk about the profound impact the organization has had on service members and their families. Luke’s Wings has provided a total of over 16,000 flights, but they’re hoping to do so much more for veterans with cancer, substance abuse issues, sexual trauma and more. They’re not just buying plane tickets, but uniting families and tackling issues like suicide and divorce.
As Fletcher shares moving stories of the service members and families Luke’s Wings has supported, you might feel inspired to join their mission. So tune in to find out how you can help!
For emergency assistance, use phone number 512-971-9848 to contact Luke’s Wings. If you’d like to request a flight, start the application process by filling out this form. https://lukeswings.org/request-a-flight/
Welcome to the Truman Charities podcast. I am Jamie Truman, your host. Imagine if your husband, who serves in the military, was catastrophically injured and the government only was able to issue one, maybe two, tickets to go see him during his long recovery process. How would you manage raising your children while your husband was recovering for months at Walter Reed Clinic that's located hundreds or even thousands of miles away from you and your children? I spoke with the co-founder of Luke Swings, fletcher Gill.
Speaker 1:
Luke Swings provides emergency travel planning services and airplane tickets for the families and loved ones of wounded, ill and injured service members, veterans and fallen officers during hospital recovery and rehabilitation. We speak about a young man named Luke Shirley who was recovering from combat injuries at Walter Reed and that is to open their eyes to the importance of having close family members with soldiers during their recovery process, stories of the positive impact having family members by their side throughout their recoveries, how you can get involved within the organization and how you can help with their holiday campaign of no service member spends the holidays alone. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. I'd like to thank you so much for coming in to talk to us today about Luke Swing.
Speaker 2:
Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here with you.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I actually was introduced to your organization, gosh, probably like 10 years ago, through my husband, Jerry Truman. We went to one of your events in DC and it was on a rooftop and it's beautiful. My husband really loved your organization, so I'm really glad that we're finally able to meet via Zoom, but to meet and talk about why you decided to create Luke Swing, the story behind it. Let's get a little bit into that. What you co-founded this organization in 2008,. You guys have done some amazing things since then and I want to know the story behind it. What made you co-founded and create this wonderful organization? What exactly is it?
Speaker 2:
Yes, thank you. Luke's Wings was founded back in 2008. Back in 2007, we were at war and everybody was trying to find something meaningful to do in terms of supporting our troops and being patriotic, and so was I. I had a very serendipitous, fateful lunch with my friend, sarah Wingfield in December of 2007. Sarah was a Redskins cheerleader ambassador at the time and she would do a lot of appearance work for the Washington Redskins and now it's called the Commander's Force. Back then it was the Redskins and one of the appearances was in the spring of 2007 where she met the troops at Walter Reed. That was a pivotal moment in Sarah's life because, like most people, she had never been inside the Walter Reed Hospital campus up there, and once she got inside of it, it was eye-opening in terms of how many wounded warriors were there, how many caregivers were there, how many families were living at Walter Reed. It's an enormous kind of microcosm bubble inside of there and it was eye-opening for her. And she met a young man named Luke Shirley. He was recovering from combat injuries, catastrophic injuries.
Speaker 2:
He had lost an arm and a leg and he was going through surgeries and he was heavily medicated and he was in a wheelchair sitting in the corner in a Miami Dolphins jersey. And so Sarah Wittenfield thought well, this is my job and I'm an ambassador for the Redskins, so I'm going to walk up and talk to him and maybe I'll joke with him about his Miami Dolphins jersey. And she tried to have a conversation with him and he was completely detached. He wasn't talking to her, he wasn't engaging, he was just off in his own world and he was obviously heavily medicated and he was going through a lot of trauma, et cetera. But that was something that she really observed. And then something happened His mother showed up and when his mother showed up, his mood changed and he kind of woke up, if you will. That's when he started to engage with Sarah and they had a very nice long conversation.
Speaker 2:
He told Sarah his whole story and Sarah told me all of this at lunch in December of 2007. And I sat there at lunch with Sarah and I said tell me more about how his mom was there. What was that about? Sarah said well, his mom lives at Walter Reed and I thought that's impossible. You have visiting hours in a hospital and you take somebody at milkshake and you sneak in a candy bar and you tell them get well soon and then you leave. That's what visiting a hospital is. And I tried to have that conversation with Sarah and she said no, the moms and the wives live at Walter Reed.
Speaker 2:
And it turns out this is the long story short, hopefully not too late turns out that back then the government would reach out to the family and inform them that they had a son or daughter who was catastrophically injured and was now being transported Medevac back to Walter Reed and they would provide one airplane ticket and cover the cost of one airplane ticket for a loved one to come to Walter Reed to greet and to take care of the wounded warrior. Now the trick to this, or the string that was attached, was that once the person left Walter Reed and took the return flight home, the coverage ended and the per diem was gone and the place to stay was gone and the support from the government was gone. Now they've since changed that to three airplane tickets, but still only one person can stay, and that was inevitably a mother or a wife or a very close loved one who would quit their jobs at home. The other kids with grandma just drop everything and come to Bethesda, maryland, to take care of their wounded warrior and then refuse to leave. They would refuse to go home because they were so scared that when the coverage ended they wouldn't be able to afford a second flight back. And so they just dropped everything and they came to Walter Reed and refused to leave. And this was a huge problem. So number one, it was about realizing that the moms and wives were there as non-medical attendants, changing bandages and helping the wounded warriors recover and learn how to walk on prosthetics and be there when they woke up from surgeries and all of those things and, by the way, also be in the dark hospital room when the wounded warrior was contemplating suicide or divorce. Right, we can get to that in a moment. But that was the first thing, and the second thing was just the sheer economics of trying to get back and forth to Walter Reed.
Speaker 2:
And so anyway, I told Sarah look, why don't we raise some money? We'll throw a party at the City Tavern Club in Washington DC, we'll raise some money, we'll go to Walter Reed and we'll find Loops Mom and we'll offer to send her home and she can sleep in her own bed and check her mail and check in on the other kids, and then she can come back again and maybe we can set up a rotation plan for her. Maybe we can offer more plane tickets on an ongoing basis. And Sarah looked at me and said can you do that? Can you offer people plane tickets? And I said you know something? If somebody tries to stop me from flying a mom into Walter Reed to be by the bedside of a wounded warrior, they can go pound sand. And by the way, I didn't say pound sand, I said something else. Sarah said OK, well, if you think we can do this, go for it.
Speaker 2:
And so we set up a 501C3 nonprofit, loops Wains. We named it Loops Wains after Luke Shirley and Sarah Wingfield. We went to Walter Reed and we said hey, we're going to start raising money and we're going to start providing flights for all of your caregivers to come in and out. And they said can you do that? Can we trust that you're going to do that? Because a lot of people come here and offer a lot of stuff and they don't follow through. And I said well, you haven't met me yet and I tell you, I'm going to do something. I'm going to do it, and so in 2008, we delivered 19 airplane tickets in and out of Walter Reed, and now we do that every three or four days, and in total, over 16 years, we've provided more than 16,000 airplane tickets.
Speaker 1:
So what was the response of Luke's mom when you told her you were going to be able to provide it with more airplane tickets back and forth?
Speaker 2:
Well, I think that the response from all of the service members and their families was relief, because you have three or four years of hospital recovery in some situations and that is what leads to the divorce rates, because fiancees and wives just say I can't do that, I just can't afford it and it's just too much. And it also leads to divorce on the other side because the wood warrior says I'm dragging you down financially, mentally, spiritually, and let's just, you know you can do better than me. And it also leads to suicide. Because, you know, back in the day, if you thought of a, if you ever remember watching the movie Forrest Gump Forrest Gump this is a great, my great analogy for this for example, he's in this hospital bed and he looks to his left and he goes Captain Dan, is that you, captain Dan? And they were right next to each other in these hospital beds, right In an infirmary situation. And, captain, actually in that movie Captain Dan tried to kill himself and Forrest Gump stopped him. You know, he saw him in the hospital bed next to him, whatever, and he stopped him.
Speaker 2:
And if I remember correctly, you know, I asked what I remember and now you don't have that. Okay, yes, it's, there's no privacy, sure, but you're there with your comrades and you're in the same room with them, you have human interaction. And now what they do is they take a wounded warrior and put them into a private room, which is great because it's private and you get your own space, but it's also dark and it's lonely, and that's where you know those thoughts creep into your head, and so our mission is to make sure that the wounded, ill or injured service member always has somebody there, always, and that's, that's just all there is to it. And you'll be amazed at how many of these guys over the years would grab us and say, dude, can you send my mom home Because, like, she's been here for like six months and she's driving me freaking crazy, just send her home for like a weekend, let her chill out at home, right, and we would say, no problem, of course we'll send your mom home, I get it, but let's send in your best friend from high school or a battle button, you know, or whoever. Lets you send somebody else Because, you know, in a lot alone in a dark room for five or six days, and so that's.
Speaker 2:
You know, it's always been a response, has been relief and, I think gratitude, and it's a population of people that deserve our support as much as any population of people, and it's also a population you know, meaning service members, who often try to turn down the services, and that's something that I've always admired and been astonished by. They'll say you know, there's someone else in this hospital who needs the airplane ticket more, so you should give it to them. And I hear that, you know, it just reinstills my faith in humanity and reinstills my respect for, for all service members out there, you know.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, you know. Let's see if I'm thinking. This has to be a godsend for why some of these were the warriors that have children to be able to go back and forth.
Speaker 2:
There were service members who had children at Walter Reed, that were literally born at Walter Reed and for the first couple years of their life do nothing other than the Walter Reed campus, if you can believe that. So you would go up there, we would go up there to visit the troops and there'd be kids running around. That's what they knew. That was their world. It was unbelievable, really was unbelievable.
Speaker 1:
So I was looking on your website and I saw the story of Franklin there and just the impact that Luke Swings had on his entire family. Are there some service members and veterans that their stories really stand out to you during all this time that you had this old nation up then?
Speaker 2:
There are. Some of the stories that really have impacted me over the years are actually pretty hard to talk about, but I will. I'll share some of them. We had a call just before Memorial weekend once and it was an 11 year old boy who called us directly. He found us. I don't know how he found us, but his father was shot by a sniper in Afghanistan and the snipers back then they knew that the service members were wearing body armor and sometimes the Kevlar, you know the helmets that were reinforced, and so the snipers would go for the head and neck. That's the shot that they took and this service members shot in the head and he was in a coma. And his 11 year old boy asked to go to his bedside. For Memorial weekend he had a day off from school, so we flew him down to James A Haley Medical Center in Florida. He sat by his dad's bedside for three days.
Speaker 2:
We had a service member out in Fort Carson, colorado, who was a wounded warrior, himself recovering, and it was actually a Red Cross volunteer who called us and said I have a wounded warrior out here and he just got alerted that his father is in Boston, massachusetts, in a hospital and on his deathbed and I don't know what we can do, but his dad is dying and his dad, incidentally, if I remember this story correctly, his dad was also a service member veteran, and so it was a snowstorm out there in Colorado at that moment. But we had a volunteer who, michelle Yeh, I remember her name vividly. She had volunteered in Washington DC and, as luck would have it, moved out to Colorado. And so I called her up and I said hey, is there any chance that you could get to Fort Carson and drive this service member to the airport? And she's like well, yeah, of course I mean, there's a snowstorm, but I'll do what I can.
Speaker 2:
So we called back to the Red Cross volunteer and we said tell the service member to pack a bag and get ready, because there's an airplane ticket waiting for him in Denver and we have a volunteer who's going to drive to the airport. And what's even better about that story is that the doctors in Boston found out that our father and father held on. We did struggle and he held on and we had that service member on a flight around 11 am and he was in Boston around three o'clock in the afternoon and he had I don't know three or four hours by his dad's bedside and he was there when his dad passed away.
Speaker 1:
You're tearing up, I'm tearing up. It's hard to solicit these stories and not get really emotional. You know, mentioning in your talk about these stories we said people were kind of falling in and contacting you guys. How does it actually work? How do you find these service members that need your help and how are they able to escape it?
Speaker 2:
That's a great question. Thank you for asking that, and I really hope that the audience, whoever listens to this, not only takes note of it but then shares it, because we are not a household name like Coca-Cola or Pepsi or Tylenol, right? The whole world should know that we exist, but a lot of people still don't, and so I need the audience to remember that we're here, because I bet you that your audience knows a service member family, a military family or a police officer their local police officer that protects their neighborhood, kind of thing and I need the audience to share our information. So what people do is they go to our website and at the very top of the website, red, is an emergency phone number, and all you have to do is call that emergency phone number. If you need an X-Flight out, if you need to get on an airplane within a couple of hours, then you call that phone number. I would encourage people to just call that number, no matter what. You can also fill out an application form if you have a little more time. There's an application form on our flight. It says request a flight and the application is then processed into our internal system at Luke's Wings and then emailed to our family communications and logistics team. That's just our programs team.
Speaker 2:
What's really fun about it is that at this moment, and hopefully for a very long time, the person who runs our programs team is herself a wounded warrior, wife, caregiver and former beneficiary of Luke's Wings. Her name is Melissa Meadows. I'm actually on my way up to Atlantic City for the National State Troopers Coalition Conference and Melissa and I are going to go up there together and beat the drum a little bit for our services and offer it to our fallen officers. But she's a wonderful human being. She takes care of her husband, john, who has traumatic brain injury.
Speaker 2:
Tbi suffered during active duty deployment and for many years Luke's Wings was providing her and her family plane tickets. And recently she reached out and said I just want to be part of this. So I said great, you can book all of the flights and we put her in charge of programs. So she's the woman who will answer the phone when somebody calls the emergency number and you'll get Melissa Meadows. But that's how people apply for flights and once a family has applied one time, we really take them into the fold under our wing. No pun intended there, and we set up rotation plans. We just need to validate the nature of the injury, make sure it checks all the boxes to qualify for our service, and whenever that family needs a plane ticket, they just call Melissa and we should be able to focus on it.
Speaker 1:
I really love how you have Melissa working for you, because it's such an emotional phone call and there's so much going on with these families and she really can understand and empathize with their going through. That is such a great addition to reorganization and so I want this is going to come out a few days before Veterans Day and do you have any events coming up or how can people get involved and or volunteer with them?
Speaker 2:
Yes, thank you. We have a heroes walk on November 5th and that will be at Walter Reed. We actually started the high school next door to Walter Reed. Just for logistics, it's easier for everybody. We get about 300 people there and then we invite everyone out of Walter Reed the families and, you know, the caregivers, the medical staff, everybody and we walk through Bethesda and we end at Euro Motor Cars Bethesda. It's the Mercedes-Benz dealership there and we have a block party and we have a lot of food trucks and a lot of fun stuff and it's kid friendly and pet friendly and that's a really fun event that we do every year around Veterans Day and it's it's, you know, local kind of community style event to walk.
Speaker 2:
Then we'll have our no service member spends the holidays alone campaign, kicking off on Veterans Day and through the holidays. It used to be called no soldier spends Christmas alone and I still like that, but we wanted to be technically accurate and call it no service member spends the holidays alone and the idea there is that between Veterans Day and the end of the year we will try to raise half a million, provide folks to unite 500 families. And what I like to say is, if I'm under my Christmas tree with my kids on Christmas morning. By God, you know, our service members and our wounded, ill and injured service members should be under their trees with their kids on Christmas morning, and that's what we set out to accomplish.
Speaker 1:
So how do you see it looks like for the future?
Speaker 2:
Well, an excellent question. We will continue to provide flights for our core program lines, which is one did hill numbers and, as a side note, a lot of the numbers are actually stage four cancer patients because we're exposed to uranium deposits, burn pits and jet fuel and things like that during active due to deployment, and so we are trying to support them as well. So we'll continue to do all of those flights and then, indeed, that support special operations command with flights for special operators. We support our fallen officers through our fallen officers transportation assistance program, veterans and hospice cares and other program lines. So think of a World War II veteran is passing away. We want to make sure they're never alone when they pass away. And then we have several defined program lines now and we are trying to explore, or we are exploring and trying to develop new program lines. So we support flights for wounded, ill and injured service members, veterans in hospice care, like World War II veterans, for example, or stage four cancer patients, for example, fallen officers and also special operations command. So we are a partner of the care coalition down at Socom and we will provide flights for special operators. We don't get to ask a lot of questions about those flights. We just trust that when they ask for a flight you know that it's obviously for a good reason and we support it.
Speaker 2:
In the future we also want to develop new program lines if funding will allow it. You know it's all about how much money we can raise, but the three new program lines that we are currently exploring are providing flights for service members for drug and alcohol rehabilitation. So if we can send them to a specific clinic or a specific you know destination that supports drug and alcohol rehabilitation, we'd like to try to do that. The second would be for retreats, you know for married couples or for families, or destination retreats. You know there's a lot of great organizations out there that do fly fishing or pheasant hunting, like, for example, a partner organization of ours, wings of Val around South Dakota, but you know they have a hard time getting people to them. So we'd like to be able to provide those flights and out of those destination locations.
Speaker 2:
And the third is military sexual trauma and that is a bit of a lightning rod issue, but certainly you know you have thousands of cases every year of service members who report military sexual trauma, sexual assault, rape, etc. And what if? And this is what you know the concept. We're exploring what if Luke's wings could provide flights for those moms and dads and those family members to mobilize within that first 24 hours after an attack and get to their son or daughter to provide, you know, every level of support up and we're exploring all of that. But it's all about funding and so we're out there every day trying to raise that money. Plain tickets are not cheap. They're more expensive than ever and every year we're delivering some 2,000 airplane tickets. It is an ongoing challenge, you know, just like any organization, any nonprofit. You know we're in it to win it.
Speaker 1:
And um, yeah, I'm running on your site that the average cost in flight is $3.50.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and that actually needs to be updated because, through the inflation and everything, and if anyone's tried to buy a plane ticket, you know, in the last I don't know year, and certainly into the holidays right, you're looking at $800 to $1,000 probably so it is getting very expensive to deliver our mission. We do have a wonderful partnerships with the airlines and we do collect miles, so if somebody doesn't want to donate cash, they can go on Delta's website and find us and donate their miles directly to Luke's Wings and, of course, that really helps us bridge the gap when it comes to, uh, demand for flights, especially around the holidays.
Speaker 1:
Absolutely. That's fantastic. And where can you donate? Just directly onto your site.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, you can come to our website, luke's Wings dot org and donate money. There's also links there to go to Delta's website or you can just go to Delta and log in and I think it's called the Skywish program and you know, if you look around on their website you'll find it pretty quickly and I think they highlight 30 different nonprofits and we're honored to be one of them and you can just click on us and then transfer your unused miles or if you have miles that are going to be expiring, if you can't use them, send them to us. We'll use them. You know we'll send reunite some families on Christmas morning Fantastic.
Speaker 1:
Now, before I let you go, is there anything that we haven't covered that you think someone should know?
Speaker 2:
Well, over my 16 years of being in charge of Luke's Wings, I can tell you that I am extremely committed to making sure that we pass through as much of our donation dollars as we can in an almost regimented and disciplined way, which is why we have a nimble small team of people and, even though we've had huge fundraising moments throughout our history, we've never overextended, we've never gotten ahead of our skis, we've never taken, you know, too much office space or hired too many people or done any of those kinds of things. We've always stayed very true to our mission, very mission driven, and we have been very careful with people's donations. And, you know, it's something that I just really hope people appreciate out there that we take full responsibility for, for our charity and what we're trying to accomplish, and I think we're going to do a darn good job.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, if your organization is amazing, my husband absolutely loves it and I just wanted to say, like listening to you and your story I mean I don't know anybody that could be able to listen to that Like crying, at least cheering up, it's really emotional. What you guys have been able to do for families is quite amazing. So, you know, thank you so much for coming on here and I learned so much and I love everything that you're doing. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2:
Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it. It was great chatting with you and we look forward to your support in the future, and I encourage all of your audience to come check us out and be part of our Loops Wings family if they'd like.
Speaker 1:
Thank you again so much, and thank you for everyone too, and we'll be tuning in for another episode of the Truman Charities Podcast. Until next time, go to our website, trumancharitiescom.