The Kansas Honor Flight program lifted off with rural Holyrood resident Gary Oller in September. The program takes qualified veterans on an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington, D.C., to view the nation’s war memorials and other sites.
“I served in Vietnam. I was in the army from ’63 to ’65,” Oller said. “We left on Sept. 8 I think it was. It was a Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday on Honor Flight 104. I think flight 105 just went in October.”
While he had heard of the Kansas Honor Flight before, Oller finally took steps this summer to go.
“I guess I just always kind of knew about it. I asked the commander of the American Legion in Holyrood about it, and he kind of hooked me up. They scheduled me for October,” Oller said. “And I was talking to my brother-in-law, Marion Gehring, over in Newton about it, and his wife jumped on the computer and contacted them to say Gary Oller was going on this flight and he wants to go with him. So, they scheduled it for October, then they called up and changed it to September for both of us for some reason. They had a couple of openings I guess, so it worked out.”
Oller enjoyed traveling with someone he knew in the big group.
“I’ve known him since 1959. He lives in Newton, but he grew up in Lucas,” he said. “We had a good time. It was nice to have somebody you knew. We had a room together with two beds at the hotel down there. We’ve been friends all these years, hunted a lot together and stuff and we married sisters. Both of them died, so we both remarried.”
Neither had been to Washington, D.C., before the flight.
“I think I really liked the memorials. The Air Force Memorial and the Vietnam Memorial, they were pretty good, and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was impressive,” he said. “They changed the guard while we were there. They had four of our group carry a wreath in there. It is a temporary thing, it isn’t permanent because they get a million of them.”
Fort McHenry also made an impression on Oller.
“Fort McHenry, there in Baltimore, that is where, in 1812, when the British shelled them and they kept the flag up, that’s where “The Star-Spangled Banner” song came from,” he said. “It was interesting. They had some big cannons there.” Oller said they flew from Wichita to Baltimore. 
“They honored us when we landed at Baltimore,” he said. “They had water cannons from the fire department and showered the plane down. They did the same thing when we landed back in Wichita, coming home. It’s an honor for them to do that. It was kind of touching, especially the coming home ceremony, which most of the Vietnam-era people didn’t have. We were pretty much hated. I was actually before that. I came home in ’65, so nobody bothered me.”
Oller said they also visited the Vietnam War Memorial where he was able to find a name of someone he had known from Sylvan Grove who had been a helicopter pilot.
“He died too young. Vietnam was terrible,” he said. 
Neither he, nor his brother-in-law, had toured D.C. before. 
“We talked about it some and we both enjoyed going,” he said. “We hadn’t been there before, and we don’t want to go back for a repeat performance, you know — once was enough — but we both enjoyed it.
“He was actually stationed in a little missile base in Virginia, and his current wife couldn’t believe being that close to Washington, D.C., he’d never been to see it. And he said, ‘Well I had no interest in that.’ But he was glad to go and we had a good time with it.”
Oller said some people believe they have to have served overseas to be eligible for a flight. 
“People do not need to have served overseas. I was in Vietnam, my brother-in-law was not,” he said. “You don’t have to have served overseas, you just need an honorable discharge between certain dates.”
To find out more about Kansas Honor Flight, to apply for a flight or to apply as a guardian, visit www.kansashonorflight.org.