From WNC to DC: Jeff Miller and the Blue Ridge Honor Flight

The Blue Ridge Honor Flight didn't start as a national movement. It began as a local effort to do something simple, and honestly, long overdue. The mission: Give Veterans the opportunity to visit the memorials built in their honor.

Jeff Miller, a former Hendersonville dry cleaner, was at the center of that effort two decades ago, and he helped launch what started in Western North Carolina and quickly grew into something much, much bigger. Today, Honor Flight chapters across the country continue the mission, but the roots can be traced back to an idea that took hold right here.

This interview explores how it all started, what it took to build it, and why these flights mean so much to the veterans who take them ... and to the communities that send them off.

The Henderson County Chamber of Commerce is a proud presenting partner of the Apple Festival Races which will be held on Saturday, September 5, 2026. The event is presented by Hunter Subaru, with support from Lassonde Pappas, Cummins, and Mountain Credit Union. This event has something for runners of every level with an 8K, 5K, and Chick-fil-A Mini Moo Mile. To register, visit https://raceroster.com/events/2026/111853/apple-festival-races. 

The Kudzu Project is powered by the Lucey Agency, a full-service marketing firm based in Hendersonville, NC.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:19

Well, Jeff Miller, thank you for coming on the podcast today. I'm excited to just sit around talking with you. Yeah, I I can't wait to hear more about how it all started and more of your background. I know that you were in the dry cleaning business before you started Honor Air, which was the precursor to the Blue Ridge Honor flight. Correct. Your father was a World War II veteran. Your uncle was a B-24 pilot, correct? Who was killed in action. You felt obviously a calling to honor veterans. It started with World War II veterans, but now it's expanded to all wars and all theaters that have memorials in DC, correct?

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Yeah, we're inching our way towards all of them. Um right now, the uh most contemporary memorial that's been built, being built, is the Desert Storm Desert Shield. And next year, 2007, the national organization, which is Arn Flight Network, will um step into that and include everything from World War II through the Desert Storm Desert Shield defined era.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

Very cool.

SPEAKER_00 1:26

And what's the era?

SPEAKER_01 1:27

What's the ETA on that memorial?

SPEAKER_00 1:29

Um October, I believe, is the one they're gonna dedicate it. October of 26. 26, yeah. Okay, great. It's um, and a guy right over Haywood County, a guy named Scott Stump, is the guy that he he was in Desert Storm. I met him 15 years ago, I guess. And he was he's a Marine, was a Marine, once a Marine, always a Marine. Always a Marine. And he he and I had gotten to be friends, and I took him on one of our flights with Honor Air. He was a guardian on it, and he experienced, saw what the veterans were experiencing that were getting a visit, the memorial dedicated to their service. And he came back and he called me. I can't remember how long after the flight did he call me and said, I want to build a memorial in DC for Desert Storm. And I told him, I said, Do you know what you're gonna get into? Because Bob Dole, I'd gotten to be pretty good friends with him, Senator Dole. And he told me the battle they had, uh, building the World War II memorial. And you go back and look at the fight that they had to build the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, and I just know how bureaucratically paralyzed that whole system is. And but I'll be darned if he didn't do it. I mean, it took him 14 years, I guess, and a lot of blood, sweat, and tears, threats against his life. I mean, people get very emotional about everything from taking grass anywhere near the mall on the mall to you're not building it right. You know, it's you need to do this and this, and if you don't, I'm gonna come after you. Yeah. It's been something. So we'll be doing that. Uh it's and we started out World War II, as you said, and then we went into the Korean War Veterans, Korean War era, and very excitedly went into the Vietnam War era. Um, because we all know how how the Vietnam veterans were treated when they came back, many of them. So I was excited to give them uh you can't make all the bad memories go away, but you can add some good ones. Yeah. And they'll be fresher and hopefully push the bad ones down, and we've seen that happen a lot.

SPEAKER_01 3:55

Yeah. It seems that the generation that was involved with World War II, they're not looking for anything. And and they don't even, they don't want the they don't want the attention. Um, not saying that the Vietnam War era veterans want that attention, but they they so unfortunately were without it and devoid of it. In fact, they were spit on and cursed and swore at when they when they arrived back in the country. It was just a completely different reaction on a national level to their return.

SPEAKER_00 4:29

Yeah, World War II veterans. You know, they were doing reunions and you know, they weren't looking for credit and all of that, but they loved getting together and and just keeping friendships. And when we would take them up to DC and we'd have a thousand of them up there at once, they had the best time. You know, it was like a reunion. They had their moments at the Wall of Stars. You know, the stars represent all those killed in World War II. And when we'd go to Arlington for the changing of the guard, you know, emotional moments for the most part. It was another big reunion for them, and they had a good time.

SPEAKER_03 5:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:11

The Korean War veterans were just thankful they hadn't been forgotten. It's been called the Forgotten War. You didn't win it. You know, unless you go ask the South Koreans if the war was won, and they'll tell you absolutely it was won. And then you got to the Vietnam veterans, and you know, the sec we we kind of were crazy at first when we started honoring her. The first day we flew was September 23rd, 2006. The second day we flew was the next day. I mean, we did back-to-back flights. Wow. I thought, I've got a jet here, I've got crew here. At that time, everything was done a little differently. And I said, we've got enough people wanting to go, let's just do back-to-back. We've never done that again. I don't see that. But the first day we were kind of getting our legs under us, and we had had people up there uh scouting and deciding what to do. And uh, so we stayed at the World War II Memorial for several hours, had lunch, catered, and then we went straight up to Arlington and watched changing of the guard and walked around the cemetery up the top. And we got home that night and we got together a little while and said, What can we do differently? And we decided we're going to go over to the Korean War Memorial because we had a lot of crossover veterans that fought both. And we had a lot of guardians that were Vietnam War veterans. They had uh jumped up to escort. So we decided we'd go over Park at Lincoln, go see Korean War Memorial and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. More thinking about the Korean War. And so we went over there, and I remember I got off the bus, got everything put together from making sure everybody was off. I grabbed some things, and then I went down, I walked down to the World War, I mean to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. And there were there was a uh Vietnam War veteran that had lost quite a few friends there, and he had been escorting the two World War II veterans. And he I'd watched them walk all over the memorial. They were having a good time. And I got down to the wall and I saw the Vietnam veteran touching the wall, touching the names, and the two World War II veterans were holding him up. I mean, they were literally under his arms holding him up, and he was sobbing. And I thought, damn, you know, we gotta make sure we get to the Vietnam War veterans. Yeah. And I hadn't really thought that far out at that point for the second trip we'd done. And I mean, I was focused on World War II because the Korean War Veterans Memorial had been there, Vietnam Veterans Memorial had been there. World War II was the last one. And I was focused on that, and I thought, wow, I haven't seen this reaction at the World War II Memorial. Not that there weren't some emotional moments, but you don't have the names. Those names just scream in silence.

SPEAKER_03 8:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:38

I mean, it I'll never forget that. I knew I was in trouble.

SPEAKER_01 8:45

And every name has a story on that wall. And you know, there's something about the Vietnam War that um it it kind of made our nation rethink wars, I think. Um World War II classic good versus evil. You know, it could have been a script for a movie. Um there was there was the quintessential bad guy with with the black uniforms and the you know, the whole nine yards. It was almost like Star Wars.

SPEAKER_00 9:11

Tyranny.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

Yeah. And then the Vietnam War kind of clouded our judgment a little bit. You know, was it was it justified? Was it, you know, this and that? And it's created so more more questions than answers, it seems.

SPEAKER_00 9:24

And they took so much of a hit coming home that in time, thankfully, people saw how wrong that was. And no other group had to experience that.

SPEAKER_03 9:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:37

At least not up to now. And and I don't see that happening again because you know they saw the wrong in it. Yeah. And that you know, those people, most of them were drafted into that service and following orders and and I guess the statement, war as hell, is is very applicable there.

SPEAKER_01 10:04

Yeah. So what was the inspiration for this organization? For the beginning.

SPEAKER_00 10:12

As you said, you you touched on my dad, he was a World War II veteran. He was in the Pacific. He didn't get into really nasty stuff. He was he said he was always very lucky. He could hear it, but he didn't always get there. And he was in the Navy, in the Pacific, and I loved his story. He told me they were sailing, they thought, and heading towards Tokyo. Everybody was moving, island hopping, heading into going after Japan. And he he felt the uh ship just take off. I remember he said a hard right, and everybody thought it was doing evasive maneuvers for submarine. And then the captain came on and said, Man, we're going home. The war's over.

SPEAKER_03 10:58

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 10:59

And you know, because they all thought, good chance they were gonna die. Do you know you probably do? The purple hearts that were made back in World War II in anticipation of the invasion of Japan are still being used today.

SPEAKER_03 11:15

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 11:15

Because they made so many and they didn't have to use them.

SPEAKER_03 11:19

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 11:19

And that's it's not one of those things that shows up on the internet, and you don't know if it's true. I've researched it and they're still using them. But, you know, having a father that did it, my mother's brother, Harold B. Drake, grew up right here. Uh he was a B-24 pilot. He was in the Air Force before uh everything hit. And uh he was killed June 16th, uh, 1944, on a bombing run in the Bratislava, Czechoslovakia, a ball-bearing factory or something like that. And uh he was killed there, and four of them were buried in one casket in Bratislava and brought back and are at Jefferson's Barracks in St. Louis buried there. And mom was, you know, in high school when all this was happening, and it was I would do uh reunions for World War II uh groups coming in to Hendersonville. I'd just do them for free. I'd help them set up everything, and I just the only thing I got to do was listen. And my neighborhood I grew up in, there were probably it was almost all World War II veterans, except for two World War I veterans back then when I was a kid. And I just listened to their stories all the time. I loved them and I loved how they all took care of each other. If somebody got sick, was in the hospital, everybody made sure they had what they needed, and uh it was neat to watch. And when my father got sick, he finally opened up to me. I said, Tell me about what you did. And I found out more about what he did. And uh then he passed away. My mother had had Alzheimer's at that point, and she died almost three years to the day after dad died. And she had this trunk at the end of her bed her whole life, and I was forbidden to even, I couldn't even really look at it. Just leave it alone, stay away from it. And her brother that was killed had made it for her. And so the minute my mother died, I was at the house in that trunk. I had to know what was in it. And I was a charter member of the World War II Memorial, as was my parents, as were my parents, and I didn't know that. And I found all this stuff where they had been sending money, and they had, I guess, all these different things that they would send. They were given more money than I was. I didn't get anything but a thank you note, and they had sent more money in and they got some nice things. Uh and I had no idea that they were that. And I started looking, I found my mother's uh diary in high school, and I found my uncle's flight log. And I could look at what each of them were doing on a certain day. And it was really interesting right up till mom found, you know, mom got the their the family got the telegram, the old horrible telegram that they would talk about in World War II, that your son is missing in action. Then they got the confirmation he was killed in action. And I found his purple heart, the flag that was on his casket, on their casket, four people. Um, all the letters back and forth because they had returned his the letters he had in his trunk. And I'm just doing all this, soaking all this up. And I remember leaning up against the trunk, and that was in 2006, the very beginning of that was January 4th, 2006, and thinking, well, you know, they did all this service, they did all these things, and neither one of them ever got to see the memorial. And they still had back then, there were still quite a few World War II veterans alive because it it got opened at the end of 2005, I think, and there were 16 million that served in World War II, and only about five million were alive at that point, as well as I remember. And but I knew a bunch of mom and dad's friends that were World War II veterans. And I remember leaning up against that trunk and going, you know, I remember reading a story about this guy named Earl Morris. We were down in Charleston, and he was a um a physician's assistant at a VA. He himself was an Air Force veteran. And he, when the memorial opened up, he started flying veterans out of Manassas, um, no, into Manassas from Ohio, and you know, two veterans at a time, six veterans with you know, three planes, he'd get pilots together. And he was doing that, and I remember reading at the time thinking that's cool, but I'm not a pilot. And all that kind of just jumbled up together, and I said, like charter a plane. And I literally thought of that leaning up against that trunk. And I just left the house there, went home, told my wife. I told Tam, this crazy idea, but this is what I want to do, and I'm gonna check into it. And that's when I started. This guy named David Adams, uh, my closest friend here. Uh I ran, always ran everything by him. Uh he's a treasurer, he's he's a financial guy for Fazio golf course designs. He and Tom Fazio have been friends forever. And he's just real good with numbers and everything. And I put it to him and he said, Yeah, we can figure this out. Brought together some what I think at the time were the smartest, most capable people in the city, Hendersonville, County Henderson, and bounced it off of them. Nobody ever balked at it. Yeah, it it was I had so much fun watching all those people come together and uh and create this thing because it wasn't me. Okay, I brought the idea, but the creation of Honor Air, which is now the driving force of the Honor Flight Network, because almost everybody charters. And we're approaching 400,000 veterans flowing now in the 20-year period. And you know, for me just to get to watch that whole thing get birthed, and uh trying to get an airplane was comical. I mean, I'm a dry cleaner, all I've ever done is laundry, and I'd call somebody wanting to charter a 737, and they'd think I was in the travel business or something, and I'd say no. And it'd just be dead silence. But the one thing I'd say to them is, was your mom and dad were they involved in World War II? I never had anybody tell me no. And I'd go, well, do they deserve to see their memorial? And it worked every time. It was it was flawless. That first call must have been difficult. Yeah, it was there were probably 10 phone calls before I got before I got a plane. Found a really good guy named uh Chuck Allen, Senator Apadaka, used to be a state senator here. I was he was one of the guys I talked to originally, and I said, I ain't not having any luck. And he gave me the I guess this uh legislative liaison uh at the time it was U.S. Airways and uh in the state. And it was real funny because he he was like, so you're uh you know uh a charter person or in the travel industry, and I told him no, I'm in the laundry business, and it's dead silence. And I asked him, I said, Did your dad um your dad or mom involved in World War II? And he goes, Yeah. And I asked him that question, he goes, I'll call you back. And he did, and uh we just started chartering jets as fast. And I just I didn't never ask for a free one, I think that was a big deal. I never asked for free anything. I s I asked him, I said, You find out when you have jets sitting around not making money, and that's when I want them. And Saturdays and Tuesdays, Saturdays initially, which was perfect for us. And we were, you know. Bill Geist with CBS Sunday Morning News covered our first flight, and he understood it. He came here, spent four or five days interviewing veterans, and he was a combat reporter in Vietnam himself. He's he had to retire because he has Parkinson's, and that's Agent Orange. And but he got it right, he did such an incredible story on the veterans, because you can talk all day about Jeff, even talk all day about the hop we do, whatever. And it's not gonna touch near the people that the stories that veterans have. And he picked some really good ones to talk to, and they told it, they told their story, which you know linked up real well with what we were doing, and it just blew up. It was a great episode. It was beautiful. I urge people to watch it, just go to Blue Ridge Honorflight.com and I think it's under history, yeah, and uh and watch the stories. All of those veterans are gone now. But you know, the story they told from their heart and reliving it and the way he ended up the show. Yeah, he he has a big part of the success of Honor Air and on our flight. Yeah. Bill Geis does. And because he let the veterans tell a story.

SPEAKER_03 21:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:53

So for people who don't know exactly what we're talking about, um, Blue Ridge on our flight formal. Honor air. It's a 501c3 organization. You transport veterans to Washington, D.C. twice a year on a flight that you charter. You raise the money to pay for this chartered flight. And you know, I I think it's important to get into some of the mechanics of this because people can kind of figure out how they can fit into this. It costs about a hundred thousand to charter an airplane, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_00 22:31

Not just for the plane. The plane's around 65, something in there, but then you have four buses, you have meals, you have uh we give them shirts and all kinds of things so they can take home with them and have plus wear while we're up there. A lot of incidentals, two meals, three meals really. So the whole ball of wax about 105, something like that.

SPEAKER_01 22:56

$105,000 for one flight. And that's every six months you do one flight.

SPEAKER_00 23:02

Well, we do one in the spring and one in the fall. I think this one's April um 18th. Yep. And September 26th is the schedule of the next one. And you know, so it comes out about like that. But you know, we go up and back in one day. There's no one spending the night. It's a long day. It's a long day, it's amazing uh how tough these guys can be. Yeah. Because I mean, we're we go wheels up around um 8:30, and we leave there at 8, touchdown here about 9.15. Yeah. Ideally that works out. So, you know, and they have to get up, they have to get here. Some come from pretty far places. If they're you know more than an hour away from this area, we put them, you know, there's a hotel that gives us great rates, and they're right there, and they spend that the night before and the night after if they want to.

SPEAKER_01 24:02

It's a long day, but it goes by fast.

SPEAKER_00 24:04

Yeah, it's honest to God, it's a blur. Um, I would get back, and my role is a flight director, I'm all over. Just playing whack-a-mole. Anything that is is not working just right, you have to address it. Um which I like that. I mean, I like, I don't want bad challenges, but if like we were flying up there one day, and this guy that's been one of my key people forever, guy named Bob Haggard. He and I were sitting together prepping everything, and this little man asked us, he goes, you know, I'd really, my brother's buried there at Arlington, and this will be the last chance I have to go see him. And I'd really like to go see him at Arlington. And Bob and I looked at each other, it was like, why didn't you tell us several weeks ago? But darn if we didn't pull it together, and we had uh one of the Arlington Sheriff's Department SWAT team members meet us in his vehicle at the at the base entrance into Arlington, and we got this man out, put him in the uh into the this big black suburban, just like you can visualize a SWAT team rolling in on. Got his uh wheelchair in the back because he he wasn't mobile, and we the he we had told him where we needed to go, and he'd scouted out where the grave was and everything, and we he and I got him over there. Bob had to go up with the group to uh the changing of the guard, and we took this man over to found his brother, and he pulled out this letter he'd written his brother. His brother had been killed in World War II, and he never got the letter, and they sent it back to him, and he read him that letter. This SWAT team guy was probably 6'4, 240, solid muscle, big guy. He was over on one side crying, I was on the other side crying. We're both trying not to be obvious about it. And uh he reads him that letter, and then he says a prayer and reads a little scripture to him. And we went over to him and he said, I just wish I had something to leave here. And I had this coin that I'd been carrying from the day one, challenge coin, very and I just reached in and I said, We can we can leave this here, and we pushed it straight down the headstone in front of him. And uh sure enough, he went back and a short time later passed away. And uh but to be able to pull that off and then experience it. I mean, I don't know how you can have anything better than that, it's better than the lottery. I mean, to get to see that and know that we pulled it off, and Bob and I we smile about that a lot. But there's there's been a lot of opportunities like that we've had, and uh you know, we're blessed just to experience it.

SPEAKER_01 27:24

Well, you've been pulling it off for 20 years. 20 years.

SPEAKER_00 27:27

It's uh got old all of a sudden. I mean I did not doing that. It's uh it's amazing how fast it goes, uh but now there's a hundred and I think there's a hundred and thirty-two hubs is what we're a hub within the honor flight network and in forty-four states, and they're even flying out of uh Hawaii now, Alaska. And uh it it's it's really neat to see that, and we're approaching 400,000 veterans flown. Really, there's more than that because the honor flight network when they started counting was when they could officially count them, and there were honor air programs all over the country that because they weren't a member of an association, they couldn't technically put them in there. But like there was a group out of um Louisiana, uh Louisiana Honor Air, and they flew 21 flights and they had 100 veterans probably over time. Up and down East Florida, there was an honor air group, uh, Knoxville, Tennessee. They're just now shutting down. They started back in 2008, I think, somewhere near flying, and uh did a great job. They're not in it, Atlanta's not in it. Anything that wasn't on our flight didn't get thrown in that count. So um, right or wrong, it didn't, but it's uh the numbers are huge. Yeah. And we've got now we we're gonna have Asheville, which is us, Asheville, Hendersonville, Blue Ridge on our flight, western North Carolina. Uh then you have uh one in Charlotte that has been up and down, up and down, and I think they've got a shot at being more consistent. Triad, uh Greensboro, uh, Brown there, they have a an amazing organization there that this uh lady created, and and she's just like off the scale. She's so good, and she's helped Newburn, which um I think it's called Cape Fear. Then they're getting one in Fayetteville, another one, I think, in can't remember where, but there's oh, and and Raleigh Durham starting back. Uh triangle. So North Carolina's gonna have a lot to be proud of. South Carolina needs to step up, and there's an upstate on our flight we're working with to get them back on track. They used to be awesome. But what I what I'm getting at here is you're not seeing it uh slow down. Uh it's it's picking up. It's more people are jumping into it. And it's this isn't where it is a trip up for us up and back. West Coast, you stay two nights. We have hotels that work with us there. It's just too hard to try to fly up and back. Um it it's it's not a just a day trip. I mean, especially with the Vietnam veterans. We have um VA counselors with us, people that are trained to deal with that, stressful situations. It's life-changing. It is literally life-changing for many Vietnam veterans. You're not gonna, there's not gonna be just pure closure in rare cases, maybe. Uh, but we've seen some incredible steps out of the shadows. It was real hard to get them to go at first. You know, they thought they would come back the same thing. But when we got some to go and come back and talk and tell their friends, brothers and sisters what they experienced, they started coming out of the shadows, and that's where they've been. Yeah. They never wore a hat. You see the hats now. I was at Pop's Diner having breakfast two Sundays ago. And there was a gentleman at the sitting at the breakfast bar there. Uh he'd been to church, you could tell he's dressed up and he had his Vietnam veterans hat on. And I told the waitress, I said, I'd like to pay for his breakfast. And she goes, Too late. There's a line. And two people before me, the first one had already paid for it, another one asked, I asked. And when she went over to tell him that somebody had bought his breakfast, he started crying. And she came over to me and she goes, I made him cry. And I said, No, you didn't. I said, You made him really happy. I said, Now I want you to make it even make him even more happy. Tell him there were people fighting over paying for his breakfast. There wasn't just one. And she did, and he got the biggest smile on his face, and just walked out of there straight up and down, proud, and it was great. Some as simple as breakfast. Yeah. And they were fighting over. There were three of us all jockeying to pay for his breakfast. It's come a long way.

SPEAKER_03 32:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:56

And I love it when somebody recognizes that, that feels that. Feels good to do good, doesn't it? Yeah, and just to see him, uh man, I'm serious. He he straightened up. He was like, he's proud.

SPEAKER_03 33:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:14

And they hadn't had that opportunity very much for a long time. So it's not a day trip, people, you know, that don't understand it. You know, during the day, we fly up there, we will, and we change this up dependent on how many groups are up there and who's going to what memorial. But the memorials we visit, World War II Memorial, Lincoln, Korea, Vietnam. All three of those in one. Soon to be uh Desert Storm, Desert Shield, because it's if you're facing Lincoln, it's just off to Lincoln's left shoulder. You're right. It's right over there on Constitution Avenue. I mean, it's you just walk over there. Uh that one. Then we go. Sometimes we'll cruise by the Navy Memorial. It's right on Pennsylvania Avenue, small. You can't really get to it real well, but go by uh go by the White House, you go um over to uh Marine Corps Memorial, your memorial there, um, and we visited um Air Force Memorials right there, and then we go to Arlington National Cemetery, and that's a big day. And you know, we're in these really nice, we don't call them buses, we call them coaches, and everybody's fed, everybody's hydrated, you know, we know where all the bathrooms are. It's you know, it's a very well-guided and uh escorted tour. People that go to be with the veterans are called guardians. Uh somebody made a mistake and called them, you know, we're gonna be a chaperone. That doesn't work well. You're guardian, and your responsibility is that person or persons, making sure that, you know, biggest thing is nobody gets hurt. Steps are always a you know a challenge. It's funny to make granite in DC. Yeah, and it's funny, they don't have to build things to the same specs we do. No handrails. You know, you you just you can't take anything for granted. You have to be there kind of not being overbearing, overbearing, but I've I've made several veterans mad because I grabbed their arm when they're coming down um the steps at Arlington. And they're just like fussing at me because they can do it with their hands in their pockets going down slick granite steps, and uh I just let tell them to get over it, and we get down because I bet I've caught in 20 years 50 people falling, and you just have to do it, kind of force it, and uh our whole goal we take four uh EMT, I mean real advanced train paramedics and stuff with us, uh, usually two doctors, and our goal is for them to come back and didn't even have to open their kits. Uh regretfully, it doesn't always work that way. More times than not, they end up helping people from that are just up there on their own. I mean, we've we treat a lot of people till um the nine alone folks can show up.

SPEAKER_01 36:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:40

Good stuff.

SPEAKER_01 36:42

And you also take Gold Star family members.

SPEAKER_00 36:44

We have, that's something new. We met a lot, I met a lady named Ann Atkins and Ann Atkins, and um she gold star mom, and just you know, you just want to grab her and hold her and hug her, and I do every chance I get. And Ann brought me into this and and taught us, and we came, we put her on the board, and she went out and has been finding gold star family members, and we've been doing that. And what we found is that every time I ever asked a veteran about who gave the most, all the time they always say a gold star mom. Because a mother carries that uh that son or daughter, they come into the the world, they grow up, they go away, and they don't come home. And nobody suffers more from that than a mom. And you know, we just thought, well, let's create a place here. And buddy has it. I mean, the veterans just surround them, and when they're with uh when these gold star family members are with each other, they place a wreath. We place a wreath uh in honor of all the gold star family members and their you know, their children that were killed, along with Korean War veterans, World War II War veterans, and uh Vietnam War veterans. There's four of them that we do. And used to be at the Lincoln Memorial, but there's a lot of construction there, so we now do it at the World War II Memorial, and then we go place them appropriately. And that has just been such a lift for the whole uh you can kind of get in a rut, and that's probably a little strong word. You don't want to be just complacent. If you can do better, you should do better. And if there's something you can add and reject into what you're doing that creates new interest and new stories and uh excitement, and we didn't do it for any of those reasons, but all of them happened, and people started telling new stories, people started having um new reactions, and we started hearing a whole different side of the whole aspect of what happens in wars, and it was really eye-opening. And the other day we were doing uh a Saturday, we were doing our pre-flight orientation before we go on flights. Everybody has to come to that. And we had a couple of gold star family members that we knew we had. And Marvin Pope, who was doing his MC and the whole thing, going through it all, he said if you're a gold star family member, stand up. I looked over there, and I bet five people, two of which we knew about, five people, maybe six, stood up. And they hadn't told anybody. They were guardians. And uh so we had to go back and start thinking, how do we deal with this now? We gotta recognize them as well.

SPEAKER_03 40:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:17

And uh, but unfortunately, there's a lot out there, and we're encouraging the national organization to on our flight uh network to put these in. Uh and we're getting some, we're making ground on it. Yeah. But we're gonna do it. We don't care.

SPEAKER_01 40:36

What kind of waiting list do you have uh for these flights?

SPEAKER_00 40:40

Right now, the way I understand it, this flight is full, and so we fly 189 people, anywhere from 90 to 100 of that, 189 are veterans. We have to have a lot of support people. What we're finding out, the Vietnam veterans, so many of them are uh mobility challenged, is the best way I can put it. Uh there's a lot of soft tissue cancers, a lot of uh COPD. There's there's just a lot of restrictive things that have happened to them that the World War II folks at the same age didn't have. That Agent Orange erectum, the burn pits, that's coming out more and more now. And you know, this in this invisible enemy still killing people, and it's certainly still debilitating. So we've where we would have one guardian with two uh veterans so often with World War II folks up until they got really you know 100 years old, um, we're having to do one-on-one. So that cuts down your ratio. We try to use some guardians out of DC area. Um cadets are great. They've we've got a group of cadets that made us, so we can get more. So we'll have, we'll say if we have a hundred veterans, there's usually 60 on a wait list for the next flight. And by the time we do a flight, it's full, and there's 60 on that. Um the Vietnam veterans are are becoming more and more willing to go and wanting to go. Um, so we don't have any trouble finding enough to fill a plane.

unknown 42:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:27

And when you start adding the desert storm era. And and these are eras you when we're talking about these veterans, we're not talking about just combatants. You know, when you went into the service, you did what you were told to do. You know, if you got a dis I mean, if you got an honorable discharge, you you did what you were asked to do. And we don't discriminate between somebody that was in the jungle and somebody that was in Germany. You know, we want them all. And that took some doing to convince people. You know, they always said, including my dad, who obviously never would have, he wasn't alive when it happened, but he always said he did nothing. Um, but I know better. But they always want the folks that were in harm's way to have the first shot at going. But we'll get them, we'll get everybody. Yeah. If we have to add a flight, we've done that before. We've done three a year. You know, if we get behind, we catch up. Yeah. So it's if you served, we're proud to give you your own personal day of honor. That's what we're going to do.

SPEAKER_01 43:35

And the bulk of the veterans now are Vietnam War veterans. So the April 18th flight, primarily Vietnam veterans, but you do have some Korean War vets.

SPEAKER_00 43:47

I think we have one or two World War II veterans.

SPEAKER_01 43:49

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 43:50

We had one, I guess, a couple of flights back. It was 103 years old, and he can outwalk you and me. I think he was telling me about what he's going to be doing the Sunday when he got back. weed eating and all this stuff. It was crazy. Really cool thing, um, we we took four flights back. We really try to get people out of from the reservation, the Eastern Man of the Cherokee, uh the Cherokee Nation. Um we really work hard and we have uh warned three that um he's a member of the reservation that's on our board that helps us get there. And this this gentleman he was so beautiful beautiful jerky big man he was in a wheelchair all day we knew you know he was very sick. We had to go through a lot for him to be able to come we had a doctor and a nurses and right with him I mean the weather was testy that day. He never complained a minute we worked so hard to give him his day and we really didn't know what it was but he was focused on being at you know the wall and we took him down there we he told us who he wanted and and his best friend when he was over there was driving um a deuce and a half and they were just rolling down and a sniper killed him right beside him just killed him bullet went right by him killed his friend and he wanted to see his friend be with his friend one more time before he died and so we got him there and he got the and thank goodness it was right where he could touch his name we traced it we had everything done and he uh when we got home I remember he was it rained a lot and I didn't want him wearing his jacket so I put my jacket on I had a Blue Ridge on our flight jacket put it on and zipped him up tight watched him go down the ramp got up with his family and everything and that was Saturday I think it was on Monday we got the call that he died but he had this I was like oh my god did we did we make him die sooner and I was kind of in a pure own panic and finally his wife I got to her and she said no no no he knew he was going he had a beautiful day on Sunday we had this family reunion and everybody came and the next day we were sitting having coffee and he drank a cup of cup of coffee and we were talking and I turned around and I asked him something and when I turned back he was gone and she was like I don't want you to be upset because he was going to die you completed his circle of life. Wow everything makes it all worthwhile I wish I could get through that story one time and not get upset uh but you know if I go tomorrow I'll know that it does make a difference and I mean when she said that you helped him complete his circle of life all of our group that went to such extremes to take care of him and I mean it was a bunch of us and he was like I said he was just so beautiful and just a pleasure to be around that you know you'll pull certain things out that you'll never forget and that's what I hope I never do that uh you know it matters.

SPEAKER_01 48:17

Yeah. What's next Jeff? What's what's next for you what's next for the organization?

SPEAKER_00 48:24

Well the organization we just re did a reshuffle because all of us that started it 20 years ago have you know age has kind of crept up and the last thing I want is uh to see it you know kind of shut down because we didn't do uh the planning to make sure it goes forward and I mean I couldn't ask for better uh a better transition yeah some of us like me we're not the most techy people and there's so much technology you can bring into this to make it better more efficient uh the communication stronger and now when you want to fill out an application you don't have to go online find it print it fill it out mail it in hope it gets there it's all done you know digitally you just go online and if you need one mailed to you or whatever we can still do that or you can print one off all the the old school methods are still available but we've just given another one and with this it's called honor apps you can we get all your medical information because we have to have that we have to have doctors review every single person veterans guardians everybody to make sure we don't get up there and get some surprise that that we can't react to very quickly and so all of this we're capable of doing that now and getting it and the med team is is the only they're the only two people that can get on to the medical piece of that and look at it. So we're not a you know breaking any HIPAA rules we're still doing what we should there um all the team leaders can see who's coming in with them because we have red white blue and gold teams we have four buses coaches and uh so everything's really fast going to what is it constant contact or something like that just went in on that uh um a phone line that we can like if you're on you're gonna answer the phone one week I'm gonna answer it one week we can switch things around so people can you know talk to somebody rather than just dealing with uh sending emails or just digitally hoping things are working um you just have folks that are super they've come through the military I didn't I'm not the most organized I get it done but I I really love watching our friend Steve um organize stuff yeah man he's he's on he can be a pain you know but you can just well grab him sometimes to slow down a little bit but what he pulls together the communication piece of it is so critical and it's so good and consistent. I love it. He's a VP now and uh we have an SBI crime scene investigator also works at Cadabra Dog. She's our another vice president you have VP1 VP2 um Izzy and Neil Denman a retired um state trooper he's he's the president he's the big cheese on it took my seat and I was so happy to find somebody that man I just knew was the right person that younger person has years into it very committed to it. So all of that and we still have you know Joanne and Bob and and uh the judge Judge Pope and all these folks that uh have been an integral part of it that are still involved and so you have the best of both. Yeah and I still hang around and will do what I can. Fundraising is a big deal now. There's a lot of donor fatigue in this area because of Helene. It's not that people don't want to help they just don't have as much and they have to figure out where to send it. So we're having to work harder for money we've never since the first flight had to be in a panic about the flight and we're still not there by a long shot but we do know we have to do better and more organized work and and we have somebody doing that that's um that's that's really good and focused on it. You just have to be more deliberate and uh better and that's that's what they are this this new generation that are uh taking it and running with it I'm very grateful for it because I don't want to see it. I would like to see it absolutely fold up and be unnecessary someday because we didn't have any more damn wars. You know I'd love that I'd love no more memorials have to be built but until that happens I hope we can stay there because we have a very real purpose and there is a need. And what we do is very inexpensive relative to what has to be done for a lot of others that need homes and things. I love you know tunnels to towers what they do and I'm not taken away from that at all but we hit such lots we'll we'll take care of over 2000 people every year with the network. And that's a big deal what we're doing too as far as what it does for them mentally and emotionally. And uh they've earned it. They should have a day and like I said we don't just focus on combat veterans at all. You know it's the Gold Star family members and anyone that's worn the uniform like yourself that has served this country and put yourself out there especially people like me that have it it's it's an honor to do it and I think it's an obligation.

SPEAKER_01 54:48

How can people help?

SPEAKER_00 54:51

Go to BlueRidgeHonorflight.com and you can read all about us there. Blue RidgeHonourflight also is on Facebook. Coming up April 18th one of the biggest things right now that that is as important as any stop during the day on these flights is when we come home the last stop the welcome home it's all done at the Asheville airport right now because of all the construction we have to do it in a hangar a great big hangar signature flight they are just so good signature aviation they're just awesome every you know two times a year they move all of these beautiful very expensive planes out of their hangar and all those people are kind enough to let them do that. So we can get all the family members and all the people in the community that want to welcome these veterans home we pull that aircraft right out in front of that hangar and we unload there and we let the veterans come in to meet their families and bagpipes lead them in it's it's just a great opportunity for people to stay up a little bit later than maybe they want to that particular night again April 18th park at the Ag Center gate seven and anybody's welcome to to come out. Absolutely if you have a good attitude you're welcome if you want to make people that have worn the uniform feel you know welcome home that didn't for the most part if you want to welcome home um Gold Star family members that you know gave all it's a great opportunity it doesn't last a long time you won't be inconvenienced. We've got chairs for people that need it and uh it's it's a beautiful ceremony and it's a great opportunity for you to to go home and and feel really good about what you did that night and for those veterans to see that and feel good the rest of their lives. So that's right now do that we would love if if you would go to the website and you you can and are so moved to donate. Find veterans if you know veterans that would like to do this or don't know about it we fly again September 26th and that'll be the 20th anniversary of the first flight whatever. Same thing we'll we'll do the same thing that time the welcome home but April 18th the evening of uh we start moving people out of gate 7 at 745 I think and we will try to be on the ground by you know 915. It's only an hour and 10 minute flight from Reagan National Airport to Asheville in honesty we've made it in 52 minutes before depends on how busy the airspace is but you know you you're doing something for these veterans but I promise you you're gonna leave feeling really good about yourself for being a part of it and and it's a big deal. So Gold Star family members if you know any you know send them to us veterans World War II veterans all the way through the Vietnam War era um same thing starting next year in 27 you know we'll we'll we'll have the Desert Storm Desert Shield era veterans in there too. Any questions you can go there and to Blue Ridgeonorflight.com check that out or like Facebook we you know just follow us and you'll get all of that and it's good information we're not gonna wear you out it's it's happy stuff and good stuff stories about the veterans yeah um stories about different events that are happening um it's it's it's real positive yeah but first and foremost donate donate donate because these these flights aren't cheap no they're not cheap and second show up for that welcome home ceremony saturday april eighteenth how incredible to be a part of someone's journey you know in this whole ordeal that they went through their whole life to to help them complete their life cycle and you can be a part of that story just by shouting up the memory they have of a of their day yeah is you being there waving a flag clapping for them.

SPEAKER_01 59:37

And for many of them you're helping give give them the welcome that they never received when they came back in the 60s and 70s.

SPEAKER_00 59:44

It's never been more important in the 20 years that we've been doing this. Yeah and it's the thing I have the least control over I we control how people get there and what they get when they get there and how to you know we have bathrooms that are available we have entertainment so they're not just sitting around in a hangar waiting on the plane come in we have music we have the bagpipers alone are fabulous to listen to um but the bottom line is you know give a few hours a couple hours of your time uh for people that it you will never have a bigger impact on somebody than you will there um probably not yeah you'll go away feeling good yeah you know you did something and uh it it matters it really matters you can be part of their story yeah it's sure going to be part of their memory yeah it's powerful stuff yeah it's good stuff thank you Jeff Miller for all you do and um you're you're you're doing amazing work I'm surrounded by good people and I get to spend we get to spend hours and hours around um people that saved the world people that you know stepped up and put themselves out there for all the good stuff I I always say everything good in my life is because of what folks like yourself uh have done for me so till I get my last breath I'm gonna try to pay that back oh yeah you're doing it Jeff thank you sir thanks for coming on it's good to be here this is fun I enjoyed this thank you and thank you for including uh us in in the journey as well we'll look forward to doing this more and and just having you go with us and experience it firsthand I think that would be a great thing to do we were on that September flight last year incredible experience and we're looking forward to being on the April 18th flight yeah I just want you to keep popping in and seeing and then coming back and telling the stories. Yep maybe bringing I think having a veteran interview that went on the flight. Absolutely I mean now you already know about it you you know you and Tiffany both have done it uh to just bring a veteran back that it's impacted yeah pretty easy to find and uh like Bill Geis did just let them tell their story their stories are so much better than mine and you know my stories are their stories. That's the ones that that matter.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:29

Yeah it's just do your thing. It's about giving them the opportunity to tell their story because so often they don't want to tell those stories but that's all we all we do it's all you do is we give opportunities for people to tell good stuff or do good stuff.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:47

Yeah just create opportunities that are good. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:52

Thanks Jeff thank you appreciate it my pleasure the Kudzu project is made possible by the Lucy Agency helping businesses across the South grow deep roots and stand out. Based in Hendersonville North Carolina this full service marketing firm builds handcrafted websites eye-catching logos and social media that pops for businesses and organizations because if your story's worth telling it's worth telling right learn more at LucyAgency.com that's L Uceyagency.com everyone has a story and at the Cuddue Project we want to hear yours go to cudzooproject com and fill out our stories permission for you can write your story for us to read on the podcast request to be interviewed or even nominate someone else the Cudzu project is all about capture