Washington Co., WI – Stars and Stripes Honor Flight has announced that they will carefully resume Honor Flights later this summer, with their first flight of 2021 scheduled for Saturday August 28. Other upcoming flight dates will be announced when they are scheduled, but the group hopes to host several flights in the fall of 2021.
The Honor Flight Network, the governing body for more than 125 Honor Flight hubs nationwide, will lift the suspension of Honor Flights beginning August 16.
In addition, the Honor Flight Network announced that veterans and their guardians who fly in 2021 will be required to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 or, for certain flights, to provide proof of a negative COVID PCR test within 72 hours of flight takeoff.
“Veteran safety has always been our top priority,” said Karyn Roelke, president of Stars and Stripes Honor Flight. “We take COVID safety incredibly seriously and participants will be required to certify that they can safely fly with us.”
Stars and Stripes Honor Flight will confirm veterans for upcoming flights in the order that applications were received, with the oldest veterans, terminally ill veterans, and those who were scheduled for the postponed spring 2020 flights as the top priority.
“We ask for the community’s patience as we work to resume operations,” Roelke said. “As always, the goal of Stars and Stripes Honor Flight is to honor and thank as many of our veterans as we can while maintaining the safest environment possible. We are still confirming our fall flight dates and how many veterans can fly on each date, so we ask for patience from our veterans and the public while we work out the details.”
Stars and Stripes Honor Flight is the Milwaukee area hub of the Honor Flight Network. Founded in 2008, Stars and Stripes Honor Flight has flown more than 7,600 WWII, Korean War and Vietnam War veterans from southeastern Wisconsin on one day, all-expenses-paid trips of honor to Washington DC. As an all-volunteer organization, they are proud to share that more than $.97 of every donated dollar goes directly to honoring veterans.
