BUFFALO, N.Y. — This weekend, Buffalo-Niagara Honor Flight will take off for its 16th mission. The all-volunteer group takes veterans to Washington DC to see the monuments built in their honor.
On Friday, 2 On Your Side got to visit with two veterans to talk about their Honor Flight experiences. Robert Urbaniak and Daniel Quigley Sr. both served in Vietnam.
"Drafted. Well, a lot of guys were drafted back then," Urbaniak said.
"We were good people. You just look to your left and right, you called everybody brothers," Quigley said.
They both recently went on Honor Flights to Washington. It was Urbaniak's first time visiting the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. He was also honored with a special assignment that day.
"Well, that was a real nice surprise. I don't know if I was deserving of it. I was able to lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. I mean, it's really something for me to do that," Urbaniak said.
Quigley said the Vietnam Memorial was emotional.
"We went to the wall. I was a little scared to go to the wall because I didn't know how I was going to act. I went to the wall, and I recognized that there's about 20 people that I know that are on the wall," Quigley said. "It's hard. You look, and you remember them. Like, I talk about Long, I played cards two days with him before we went out to the valley, and he got killed."
This weekend Buffalo-Niagara Honor Flight Mission 16 takes flight. This time, it's an overnight trip to give the veterans more time to experience it all.
"It's a lot. It's therapeutic, it's emotional, it's happy, it's sad, it's like every emotion they could ever gather in one trip," Donna Quigley, Buffalo-Niagara Honor Flight treasurer, told 2 On Your Side.
Donna Quigley, Daniel's daughter, said it's mainly Vietnam veterans going now, but anyone who has served in the military can sign up.
"Well, we do get a lot of veterans that say a couple of things. They'll say, well, I didn't go overseas. Well, you signed on the dotted line, so we want you to come. Secondly, we get a lot of veterans that are nervous to travel. Well, we have medical staff come with us, so we always have that area covered, as well as we have trained personnel to deal with different situations, including emotional situations, so we've thought of everything. We've experienced everything," Donna Quigley said.
If you'd like to support this weekend's mission, you can go to the Buffalo Niagara International Airport at 6:30 p.m. Sunday to welcome the veterans home.
And if you've thought about signing up, Urbaniak and Quigley say you should do it.
"The Honor Flight is a marvelous trip to go on if you're a veteran. You need to do this. You need to go on it. You have to see the monuments there in D.C. It's something you'll remember for the rest of your life," Urbaniak said.
"Arlington really impressed me. We had time to walk around Arlington. See everything. It really was a great trip for me. I think it was one of the best trips of my life," Daniel Quigley Sr. said.
Buffalo-Niagara Honor Flight is always looking for volunteers to help with future flights.
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