[May 22, 2013] Puget Sound Honor Flight hub set to take off Tweet May 22, 2013 (The Peninsula Gateway (Gig Harbor - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- Peninsula High School freshman Tanner Peavey and his parents, Jim and Renee, have been working hard the past several months to get a local chapter of the Honor Flight Network off the ground. On May 23, the Puget Sound Honor Flight hub will host a screening of "Honor Flight," a documentary about four living World War II veterans and a Midwest community coming together to give them a trip to Washington, D.C., to see the memorial that constructed for them in 2004. The screening is set for 6:30 p.m. at the Peninsula High School auditorium, 14105 Purdy Drive NW. Admission is $5 per person. Veterans get in free. An Honor Flight is conducted by nonprofit organizations dedicated to transporting as many U.S. military veterans as possible to see the memorials in Washington, D.C., of the respective war or wars in which they fought, at no cost to the veterans. Currently, those organizations are focused on bringing veterans of World War II to the National World War II Memorial, and any veteran with a terminal illness to see the memorial of the war in which they fought. The program plans to transition to focus on veterans of the Korean War, the Vietnam War and subsequent wars as the veterans of those wars get older. "There is one in Spokane right now," Peavey said of an Honor Flight organization, "but, because of demand, they are not able to serve the veterans in the Puget Sound area. There are over 300 vets on the waiting list that we are desperately trying to get to Washington, D.C., to see their memorial, all at no cost to them." World War II veterans are dying at a rate of 800 per day, Peavey said. "We're trying to get as many as possible to see their memorial," he said. "So time really is of the essence here." That's where the screening of the "Honor Flight" movie comes in -- as a fundraiser for the Puget Sound Honor Flight hub. "We're trying to raise $10,000 from now until that first flight," Peavey said. Puget Sound Honor Flight hub's inaugural flight is scheduled to take place Oct. 12-14. The Honor Flight Network was conceived by Earl Morse, a physician's assistant and retired Air Force captain. Morse worked in a Department of Veterans Affairs clinic in Springfield, Ohio, where he saw many patients who were World War II veterans. After the National World War II Memorial was completed in 2004, Morse asked many of his veteran patients if they were going to see it, and most said yes. Months later, he asked them if they had gone to see the memorial yet, and none had. Morse then offered to fly with two veterans to see the memorial, and after he watched them break down and cry and graciously accept the offer, he pitched his idea to a local aeroclub of 300 private pilots at an Air Force base, proposing that the pilots would pay for the flights for the veterans to Washington, D.C., and escort them around the city. Eleven volunteered, and the network was formed; by 2005, a board was formed, funds were raised, and volunteers had joined. The first honor flight took place in May 2005, when six small planes flew 12 veterans to Washington, D.C. For more information about the Honor Flight Network, visit www.honorflight.org. ___ (c)2013 The Peninsula Gateway (Gig Harbor, Wash.) Visit The Peninsula Gateway (Gig Harbor, Wash.) at www.thenewstribune.com/gigharbor Distributed by MCT Information Services [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]