Born and raised in Dubuque, Bill Brown never envisioned he would be an Air Force veteran participating in an Honor Flight.
Shortly before he enlisted, Brown completed a 60-week electronics course near Chicago, which would set the stage for his future role in the Air Force. Furthermore, Brown says that he chose to enlist in the Air Force because he believed he would receive a better education there than any other branch.
“I came back from school and [was] told that I would be drafted as soon as I got back,” said Brown. “I didn’t want to join the Army, so instead of two years in the Army, I decided to go in for four years in the Air Force, mainly for the schooling.”
After a 21-year-old Brown completed basic training in Biloxi, Mississippi, he took a 30-day leave before he was supposed to report to California.
“I got out to California, and they were gone,” Brown said. “[Troops] had already gone to Southeast Asia, and the commander said he was authorized to keep me back, so he did. He also said that I had top-secret clearance and that I had another set of orders.”
From there, Brown was briefly sent to Florida and was then shipped out to Turkey under orders to use his previously learned electronic skills. Brown recalls that the American base was on a mountain, and that he could look down and survey the country. “Our baseball diamond was great, because looking down over center field was the Black Sea,” he said.
Brown said one of the more memorable aspects of his service in Turkey was recognizing how different life was there compared to the United States.
“One of the things you’d notice more than anything was, below us there were farms, but the women did all the work,” he said. “And if it poured down rain, the kids and the wives were out on top of the roof to protect [the homes and farms], because they had everything inside. You’ve never seen that before, so it was an experience in itself.”
After Brown’s time in Turkey, he headed back to his hometown of Dubuque, graduated from Lawrence University, and learned to adjust to his life in the States where soldiers did not receive a warm welcome home.
“They told you not to wear your uniform when you went home, and that was because people would yell at you, spit at you, call you baby killers,” Brown said.
Fortunately, decades later, Brown and many of his fellow veterans would get an opportunity to celebrate their homecoming through the Honor Flight program. Brown had been to Washington, D.C. with his family a few years prior but was a member of this special voyage last month.
“It was an unbelievable trip,” Brown said. “There were Army, Navy, Air Force veterans there, but when you’re just talking to them, you have a camaraderie with them, because you all had the same experience.”
The itinerary of the day was bursting full, and the schedule was very tight. Tim Brown, Bill’s son, dropped his dad off at the Cedar Rapids Airport at 5:00 a.m. Tuesday, Oct. 14. Lisa (Brown) Popken, one of Bill’s two daughters, was a chaperone for the trip.
“We went to see the Lincoln Memorial, and that was just impressive,” Brown said. “My daughter might not have thought that, though, because she had to push me up and down it, but it was really neat.”
Besides the Lincoln Memorial, the Honor Flight group visited Arlington National Cemetery, Air Force Memorial, Marine Corps Memorial, Pentagon, Challenger and Columbia memorials, and the World War II, Korean and Vietnam memorials. At 8:00 p.m. Eastern time, Brown and his 87 fellow veterans departed from Reagan National Airport to head home to Cedar Rapids, where they arrived at 9:00 p.m. local time. At the airport, Brown and his fellow Honor Flight members were met by a welcoming committee of several hundred friends and family members, as well as American Legion and Boy Scouts of America members.
“It was very emotional,” Brown said on his welcome home. “It was something you weren’t expecting, and you didn’t know what was going to happen.”
As far as if Brown recommends fellow veterans to sign up for an Honor Flight, his answer would be a resounding yes.
“It’s a great experience,” Brown said. “I’ve never talked to anybody that hasn’t really been impressed when they went on the flight.”
For more information on the Eastern Iowa Honor Flight, including how to have a veteran placed on the waiting list go to https://eihonorflight.org.