On your Honor Flight

The Spokane Airport lobby was filled May 8 with “welcome home” banners, balloons, music and a mass of people waiting for veterans, guests of Honor Flight, to leave the plane they had just arrived on and make their way through the airport.

As the veterans passed by, they were met with handshakes and thank-yous for their service.

It’s all part of the experience provided by Inland Northwest Honor Flight, a volunteer-run nonprofit — a local chapter of a national organization — that collects donations to pay for veterans to fly together to Washington, D.C. to visit the nation’s war monuments and memorials.

Michael Dunham, of Coeur d’Alene, was one of the veterans who made that experience this month. In a wheelchair, Dunham passed the well-wishers who shook his hand. An image of Dunham being greeted was on the front page of the next day’s edition of the Coeur d’Alene Press.

Images like this regularly appear in newspapers throughout the U.S., every time an Honor Flight returns to an airport. It’s a time when plenty of patriotic good feelings flow, usually with the media present.

For most, it’s an inspiring, emotional celebration, a feel-good news story of great work done by a nonprofit and its supporters.

But the photo of Dunham that ran with The Press story on May 9 sparked something else for a person who called the newspaper questioning Dunham’s service and right to be honored on the flight.

That prompted The Press to contact Honor Flight to confirm they had vetted Dunham before sending him on the trip. They had not.

“Our policy is to go by the application that is submitted by the veteran,” said Inland Northwest Honor Flight board member Deni Ellis. “We do not require a copy of the (military discharge document) DD214. We have discussed it in board meetings. We know there’s the potential for the stolen valor issue, but we’ve chosen to accept what they submit as truthful.”

Dunham, who refers to himself as a “Vietnam-era veteran,” provided a copy of his DD214 to The Press.

He enlisted in October 1972 and served stateside for one year and 10 months. He received an honorable discharge after working out an agreement with the Army, he said. He did not see action and his discharge was not injury-related.

“There’s an issue and has been an issue over the years of guys like me that were Vietnam-era vets that claim to have been in combat. I am not one of those guys,” Dunham said. “I have never, ever, ever presented myself as being a combat vet or ever told anybody that I was in combat.”

However, many assume that Honor Flight is reserved for combat veterans.

Bob Martin, who served as the commander of the Coeur d’Alene Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 889 for the past two years, was taken by surprise when he learned that for a veteran to participate, Inland Northwest Honor Flight requires only that the veteran was enlisted during a war or conflict. Although the organization does prioritize combat and terminally ill veterans, those who served anywhere, including in the U.S., during conflict eras are eligible.

“Everybody at the Post has always assumed you have to have been in a theater of war. You could have been a clerk typist, but you have to be in a theater of war. It doesn’t matter what your job is,” he said. “Only 10 percent of people in the military during wartime, only 10 percent, are in actual combat, the point of the spear, infantry — they’re seeing the enemy face-to-face, they’re trying to kill the enemy, the enemy is trying to kill them — the other 90 percent of troops in a war zone are fulfilling the support jobs, cooks, truck drivers, finance guys...

“It’s irrelevant ... They were in the theater of war.”

Martin was also surprised to learn that the local chapter does not require Honor Flight applicants to produce DD214 discharge documents when requesting to be an Honor Flight guest.

“It tells the whole story,” Martin said. “It’s going to tell the character of their service. They should check. Basic rule.”

Martin noted that he is often asked to provide proof of his service to receive discounts while shopping. Area restaurants often offer free lunches to veterans around Memorial Day or Veterans Day and proof of military service is required.

Inland Northwest Honor Flight requires applicants to fill out a two-page form. According to Jane Julian, bookkeeper with the National Honor Flight, it’s up to the different chapters how in-depth they want to be with their vetting process.

Julian said the national organization has experienced disputes in the past, mainly about whether someone was a combat veteran.

“The ones who went to Vietnam, no matter where you served, you served where they tell you to be. Any location, any capacity, they were still a veteran and they still deserve that honor,” she said. “We have had some disputes because we took a veteran who never saw conflict, and some veterans who have seen conflict have thought we shouldn’t honor someone who didn’t bear arms.

“We’re a very reputable organization, we really are, and I’m not saying someone won’t slip through the cracks once in a while ... but there’s only so much that we can do to verify what they did or they are what they say they are.”

Inland Northwest Honor Flight board member Ellis said this is the first time the chapter has had the validity of an Honor Flight participant’s military service questioned.

Honor Flight relies on fundraisers and donations. Inland Northwest Honor Flight’s 2015 tax filing, the most recent available, shows the organization reported $423,527 in revenue from contributions for that year. The nonprofit organized two flights during that tax year, sending 180 veterans from Spokane to Washington, D.C., and back. From 2011 to 2015, the local Honor Flight chapter reported a total of $1.9 million in public support.

These funds are used to send the veterans for an overnight trip to see Arlington National Cemetery, the World War II Memorial and other places that aid in the healing of these veterans’ unseen wounds.

“Personally, (Honor Flight) made a big difference because a lot of my friends did go, and some of them didn’t come back, so I carried a lot of guilt for not going for a long time. I finally got to let go of some of that guilt for not going,” Dunham said. “When I moved around the country, when I went through an airport or anywhere, it was obvious that I was in the military. I got spit on and called names too. They didn’t ask me, ‘Were you there?’ I got treated just like they got treated. We were spit on and called names and it wasn’t pleasant.”

“Very easily they could have sent us into combat,” he said. “It didn’t happen for me, so maybe I was fortunate, but on my end, for a number of years, I didn’t feel I was so fortunate.”