Though currently flying into the sunset in its final season of travels, Northwest Ohio Honor Flight
continues to have the power to affect those it seeks to serve.
"It kind of brings a tear to your eye," said Richard Gilts, Walbridge, who flew on Wednesday’s
mission to take area veterans to Washington, D.C.
Gilts, a Marine veteran of the Korean War, enlisted in 1951 and was discharged in the winter of 1953.
He was a cartographic draftsman with the Marine Corps’ G2 Intelligence group.
With such intelligence work "you take care of the secrets that come over the … telegraph," he
said.
"And what we did was gather all the information as to how many people were shot … and how many
ammunition dumps were destroyed, how many MiG fighters were destroyed."
"They took real good care of us, at the airport and on the ground," said Gilts.
Of the sights he saw on the trip, a highlight was "the statue that was erected with the Marines
putting up the flag on Iwo Jima. That really quite strikes the heart," he said.
"That’s very impressive."
Gilts said that, as a member of the Zenobia Shrine, he has gone on annual bus trips in recent years to
present a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
"I’ve done that for three years, but having all of those World War II veterans and Korean veterans
yesterday, I’ll tell you what, it’ll bring a tear to your eye."
Bowling Green resident Richard Gerding was just 17 when his Marine reserve unit in Toledo was called up
to fight in Korea.
"And I was a little guy then, not even fully-grown. So the first thing they told me was machine
gunner. So they assigned me to a heavy weapons company and I was a gunner on a machine gun, and it was
right after the (Battle of the) Chosin Reservoir, during the heaviest fighting when we were fighting the
Chinese."
"And I was in combat the whole time," he said later. "The only time I wasn’t in combat,
they would take us back in what they called reserve because they had to get more bodies. Guys getting
killed, wounded. We had to get replacements."
"Korean veterans, they’re not like (other) war veterans," he said. "We don’t go around
talking about the war."
"Then when I came home, I guess I didn’t see enough action, I went into the Toledo Police
Department, retired from there."
Of Honor Flight, Gerding recalled "When we got to Washington, D.C., I’m telling you I have been
overcome in my life, and tears have come to my eyes over many things, but I was never more tearful than
when we arrived in Washington, D.C., because there were hundreds and hundreds of people waiting for us.
And they double-lined, thanked us for our service, and hugging us, it was like the end of the Second
World War."
"I’ve never been so overcome in my life," he said.