Retired Marine Col. Jim Leslie, 85, is one of more than 70 veterans who boarded this year’s Southwest Florida Honor Flight at Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport, bound for a single day in Washington, D.C. to visit the memorials built in their honor. Leslie served 30 years, earning three Purple Hearts in Vietnam after arriving at Khe Sanh in 1967, then going on to serve in Grenada, Panama, and Desert Storm. It’s his first Honor Flight and his first visit to the memorials in more than 20 years.
The thing Leslie wants people to know isn’t about the medals. It’s about the 105 Marines under his command, all of whom came home alive. “I never won a Silver Star or a Medal of Honor. I was just an ordinary Marine doing my job,” he says. Anyone who has been to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial knows how those two ideas sit side by side at that wall: the men who came home, and the ones who didn’t.
The Honor Flight program gives aging veterans a one-day trip to see the memorials, at no cost, and the Southwest Florida chapter flies out of SRQ several times a year. If you know a veteran who has never made the trip, it’s worth looking into. Do you know someone who has been on an Honor Flight? Tell us their story in the comments.
