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This article was written by Lou Bender for the Tallahassee Democrat and has been edited for content length. To read the original online article click here.  Images were provided by Capt. Scott Barry, Special Operations / Field Operations Supervisor Leon County EMS.

As one of the 81 World War II veterans privileged and humbled to be on the May 11 Honor Flight to Washington and the WWII Memorial, I want to share some of the special meanings from this event.

Honorflight(70)At Baltimore/Washington International airport, we were greeted by representatives of the Honor Flight Network that now covers more than 120 hubs in 41 states. We boarded three buses for the trip to D.C., and we had a police escort with lights and sirens blasting and opening for our caravan down the busy parkway and through the bustling city traffic. Most of us never had seen police lights blinking in front of us, but some admitted they had seen them in the rear view mirror over the years.

After passing the Capitol, White House and various government buildings, described and explained by wonderful local guides, we arrived at the WWII Memorial.

Our first excitement was to learn that the tall, handsome man standing close to where we would exit the bus was none other than Earl Morse, the founder of the Honor Flight program. He was a physicians’ assistant in a veterans’ hospital, and many of his WWII patients lamented they never would see the WWII Memorial completed in 2004. As a private pilot and moved by the fact several of his patients had passed away, he enlisted volunteers from an aero club in Dayton, Ohio, then undertook fundraising to transform an idea to reality. In May 2005, six small planes flew 12 WWII veterans to realize their dream. On Saturday, the Tallahassee Honor Flight was one of five, with others from New York, West Virginia, Tennessee and Texas.

Each of us was moved by the memorial. We learned from the guide that the word “veterans” is not used for the WWII Memorial, as it is for others. The reason is that it is intended to honor not only the military but also the women, children, and men on the home front. The “greatest generation” should be known to include every woman who labored in the defense industry or in the fields, and every child who supported U.S. Bond campaigns and recycling. Our nation’s might was a united effort to win for God and country.

Honorflight(165)The memorial is located between the Washington and Lincoln monuments, which represent the beginning of our nation and then the saving of a united states. WWII thus is viewed as saving the world from domination.

The Price of Freedom part of the memorial is a wall of stars behind a reflecting pool, with each star representing 100 American service personnel who died or remain missing in the war, for a total of 405,399.

We were privileged to witness a changing of the guard at the tomb of the unknowns at Arlington before returning to BWI, with our police escort clearing the way.

As we entered the airport, we were greeted by Honor Flight folks again, but also several lines of service men and women, clapping and shouting their thanks. At the gate area and just before boarding our return flight, our wheelchair comrades had a special treat. Miss Maryland wished each of them a happy farewell, and when of of the guys requested a kiss, he promptly received one on his cheek. Thereafter, the next one received the same, until one requested that she sit on his lap – and she did, to his joy and our laughter. After we boarded our plane, we heard an announcement for “mail call,” one of the most cherished moments for us overseas. Then each vet was given a manila envelope with letters written by schoolchildren, politicians and family members.

How touching to read the children’s letters and how meaningful for each of us. Then our return flight and an unbelievable welcoming home that commenced with a water salute by the Tallahassee Fire Department and was followed with a parallel-line honor guard of men and women again showing love and respect.

We could hear the swing band playing WWII songs as friends and family gave hugs of welcome.

The greater meaning is not the exciting, well planned and emotionally rewarding trip, but rather the fact there is faith, hope and charity that abounds in Tallahassee and neighboring communities.

Honorflight(289)

Lou Bender is a Professor Emeritus at Florida State University. Contact him at lo*********@co*****.net

Article in it’s entirety from Tri-Valley Times on 3/7/2013

PLEASANTON — Robbie Brumm has new found empathy for the disabled after spending a day rolling around school in a wheelchair.

“It was a little more work than I expected,” the 14-year-old said. “You have a different perspective in a wheelchair. Everyone else is able to walk around, but you’re not. Toward the end of the day, I wanted to walk because it was so slow getting around.”

Robbie Brumm, 14, gets one of the wheels of his wheelchair stuck while trying to get around campus at Hart Middle School in Pleasanton on Feb. 27, 2013. Students were given the opportunity to try out some wheelchairs on campus as part of a district wide fundraiser for the Rotary Club and the Wheelchair Foundation. (Dan Honda/Tri-Valley Times Staff)

Brumm was among 42 Hart Middle School students who spent at least half a school day using a wheelchair to get a feel for how disabled people live.

“It lets students experience life in a different way,” leadership teacher Stacy Webb said. “They’ll learn that it’s not easy getting around. It’s good to have the experience of feeling different and the difficulty of getting around.”

Hart students took part in the three-day wheelchair exercise as part of the school district’s campaign to raise money for the Danville-based Wheelchair Foundation. The nonprofit group raises funds to provide wheelchairs for disadvantaged people around the world.

“The district goal is to raise $42,000,” Webb said. “That would buy a crate of wheelchairs or 280 wheelchairs. We’re going to send them all to Guatemala.”

When the foundation offered to loan wheelchairs for students to use, Webb jumped at the chance.

“It will raise awareness,” she said. “Any time we don’t understand something, we tend to joke about it or make fun of it. Hopefully, it will help students understand the situation a little more and be more compassionate about what people in wheelchairs go through every day.”

Eighth-grader Lekha Kesavan signed up to ride in a wheelchair all day to experience life on wheels.

Lekha Kesavan, 13, makes her way through a door in a wheelchair at Hart Middle School in Pleasanton on Feb. 27, 2013. Students got to try out some wheelchairs on campus as part of a districtwide fundraiser for the Rotary Club and the Wheelchair Foundation. (Dan Honda/ Tri-Valley Staff)

“I wanted to know what people in wheelchairs have to deal with every day,” the 13-year-old said. “I was surprised at how dependent I was, especially in the tight aisles in the classroom. It was really hard to push myself. I wasn’t expecting it to be that much trouble. I realized how tough it was to roll myself and to turn.”

“After a while, my arms got sore,” eighth-grader Elena Angst added. “By the end of the day, I figured out ways to maneuver better. It was a good experience.”

The students admitted they often relied on the kindness of classmates for a friendly push and help getting around campus.

“Now that I know what they have to go through, I understand more,” Kesavan said. “I learned how much trouble it is for the disabled to move every day.”

This article taken in it’s entirety and written by Jody Morgan appeared in both the Danville Today News as well as the Alamo Today. 
 

The Wheelchair Foundation has delivered nearly 920,000 wheelchairs in over 150 countries since its inception in 2000. As founder Kenneth Behring’s original goal of giving one million wheelchairs to disabled individuals around the world nears fulfillment, global need continues to grow. An estimated 100 million people unable to afford a wheelchair are waiting in hidden corners of the earth for the chance to experience the empowerment of mobility.

Josh Routh connects with a nonagenarian in Tlaquepaque, Mexico, one of many wheelchair recipients from 4-96 years of age hea has met in Latin America. Photo courtesy of Don Routh

Wheelchairs were not among the donation Behring was packing in his private plane in 1999 when LSD Charities (the humanitarian outreach branch of the Latter Day Saints) asked him to drop off their aid packages en route to his African destination  He readily agreed. Included in that cargo were six wheelchairs bound for a hospital in Romania. “Little did I know” he writes, “that those six wheelchairs would change the direction of my life.”

Behring, a successful Danville developer, defines the joy generated by setting a wheelchair recipient’s dreams in motion as the acheivement of purpose. In his 2004 autobiography Road to Purpose, he recount, “I lifted a small Vietnamese girl from the ground and placed her in a wheelchair. In that instant, she found hope…Her face opened into a smile, her eyes as bright as the noontime sky. And I knew for all she had changed in that moment, I had changed even more.”

Initially, Behring explored recycling used wheelchairs. The process proved the reverse of cost-effective. Packaging for shipment added to the expense of parts and labor for repairs. Then Behring asked manufacturers to design a durable wheelchair priced according to the high volume of orders he anticipated. One product seemed perfect, but it required two hours to piece together when uncrated. Today’s model comes in five sizes, ordered with regular or all-terrain tires, and can be assembled in 15 minutes. Averaging shipping costs to all destinations, the Foundation can deliver each wheelchair for just $150.  In Bolivia a comparable product costs $1,700.  In many countries, the price of a wheelchair exceeds an average laborer’s annual income.

The Wheelchair Foundation runs an administratively lean operation, funneling virtually every dollar into providing wheelchairs. Volunteers and service organizations across America do much of the fundraising. Unanimously declaring the positive return on their investment inestimable donors traveling on distribution trips pay their own expenses.  On the receiving end, similar groups arrange local logistics including identification of recipients and appropriate configuration of the wheelchairs they require. They also fund and coordinate transportation to remote locations where wheelchairs are most needed.  Rotary International, with clubs in over 200 countries, is frequently involved in all aspect of the process.

Since Bill Wheeler, founder of Blacktie Transportation, invited them on their first journey, Josh Routh and his father Don have made 20 distribution trips to 11 countries. In the remote town Juigalpa, Nicaragua, they met a 26 year-old woman who had been waiting eight years to acquire the wheelchair she needed to utilize the scholarship to Managua University she earned as a high school honors graduate.  Finally enabled to pursue her studies, she chose psychology so she could hep families coping with disabilities   In poorer places, when one family member is disabled, another often has to stay home from school or work to act as a caregiver.

Josh tears up as he describes a recipient brought to a wheelchair distribution in a wheelbarrow and another crawling through the dust to get there. Born with cerebral palsy, Josh has never walked.  Although doctors predicted he would remain a quadriplegic, never uttering an intelligible word, the 33-year old San Ramon resident drives his own car and lives independently. A cashier at Nob Hill, Josh dedicates much of his time to aiding others.

Hayward students connected with peers in El Salvador by sending wheelchairs and t-shirts.

“When you give someone the gift of mobility, you are giving them freedom and dignity…and when someone has freedom and dignity then they have hope for the future,” explains Don Routh.  Now retired, Don spreads awareness of the worldwide need for the means of mobility and the elation engendered by improving the life of each wheelchair recipient.  One of his initiatives at a Hayward elementary school gave low-income Latino students the opportunity to celebrate joy in their joint accomplishment: raising enough money to send six wheelchairs to less fortunate peers in El Salvador.

Don Routh plans to introduce the program the “Three Amigos” (Don, Josh and Bill) are currently piloting with the Pleasanton Unified School District to additional area school districts this spring. They provide live and video presentations, posters, collection containers, and fundraising ideas. Wheeler offers Blacktie’s community bus free for one field trip per school to either the Blackhawk Museum/Wheelchair Foundation exhibits or a wheelchair sport event.  Ten wheelchairs are available for schools to borrow in rotation for students to test drive or use in fundraising races or sport competitions. For information, email do******@co*****.net

Eva Carleton, Regional Director of Operations of Latin America and the Caribbean, travels on 3-4 distribution trips a year while coordinating the delivery of 40-50 projects. Every working day she helps provide someone with what sh considers a basic human right: a wheelchair.  “Without a wheelchair,” Carleton notes, “you have to ask for everything you need.”  Eva’s mother’s quality of life improved dramatically once she accepted how enabling the device could be. She no longer has to ring for a nurse every time she wants a simple object like a tissue.

In a Colombian community several hours from Bogota, Carleton met a woman who had been unable to work for five years due to a spinal injury.  Thanks to her Foundation wheelchair, she was back at her job.  Minutes later, Eva encountered another wheelchair recipient happily earning money keeping parked cars safe.

“It’s always a joy to give someone a wheelchair and it is an even greater joy to personally watch and hear how that wheelchair improved their life,” explains David Behring, President of the Wheelchair Foundation.  David met Tran Nghia in 2003.  Born with a neurological disorder, the Vietnamese high school student depended on family and friends to carry her everywhere.  She needed a wheelchair to attend university to study English and become a doctor.  The following year David visited her family and they kept in touch.  In November 2012 they met again in Hanoi.  “Nghia unfortunately could not become a doctor due to her disability but she did learn English and translates documents for a Vietnamese company.  … Her smile was as radiant as I remembered it back in 2003.”

A wheelchair recipient with Kenneth Behring (right). Photo courtesy of the Wheelchair Foundation

Kenneth Behring make a point of shaking the hand of every wheelchair recipient.  “All we ask in return is a smile.”  Partnering with non-governmental agencies permits the Wheelchair Foundation to give the gift of mobility with no strings attached.  Creating global friendship and promoting the joy of giving are additional aspects of this non-profit organization’s mission “to deliver a wheelchair to every child, teen, and adult in the world who needs one, but cannot afford one.”

The Wheelchair Foundation’s annual Charity Ball at the Blackhawk Museum February 23rd is open to the public as are all Foundation fundraisers.  Jeff Behring, Director of Special Benefits, offers a Wine for Wheels private party plan getting rave reviews nationwide as a means for finding personal purpose while sharing fun with friends.  To register for the Charity Ball, plan a Wine for Wheels event, learn more about Foundation activities or to make a donation, visit www.wheelchairfoundation.org. Road to Purpose is available at the Danville Library.

David Behring, the President of Wheelchair Foundation, tells a brief story of how meeting a young wheelchair recipient in Vietnam has turned into a lifetime friendship.
Mr. David Behring with Tran Nghia in 2003

Tran Nghia was a 17 year old high school girl in Hanoi when I first met her.  She had been born with a neurological disorder that never allowed her to use her legs.  She was always carried by her parents, siblings and friends.  I was introduced to Nghia and her family at a wheelchair distribution in Hanoi in 2003.  I was immediately captivated by her smile and enthusiasm and, through a translator, found out that she wanted to study English and go to medical school to become a doctor.

She invited me to her home for tea on my next visit to Vietnam which actually occurred one year later.  At that meeting we learned much more about each other and stayed in touch through e-mail and Facebook during the next 8 years.  Nghia unfortunately could not become a doctor due to her disability but she did learn English and translates documents for a Vietnamese company.

In November of this year I returned to Vietnam with a dozen veterans and their spouses.  I arranged to meet Nghia and her mom at our Hanoi distribution.  It was definitely one of my trip highlights when I glanced over from the podium and saw the two them walking into the distribution.  Her smile was as radiant as I remembered it back in 2003. I immediately stopped my speech and introduced our personal story to the audience.  She met the veterans, was interviewed by a television station and made a short speech of her own about how the wheelchair had impacted her life.  It is always a joy to give someone a wheelchair and it is an even greater joy to personally watch and hear how that wheelchair improved their life.

Hanoi Wheelchair Distribution with Mr. David Behring and Tran Nghia
WCF, the VVDV, and EMW present wheelchairs to para athletes and others.

In November of 2012, Wheelchair Foundation, the Vietnam Veterans of Diablo Valley, California and East Meets West Foundation partnered together to distribute 260 All Terrain Wheelchairs and 60 Basketball and Tennis Sports Wheelchairs throughout the country of Vietnam.

On November 9th, 2012, Wheelchair Foundation, the Vietnam Veterans of Diablo Valley, and East Meets West presented 40 wheelchairs to para athletes and others at NHIP CAU Foundation in the An Khanh Ward, Ninh Kieu District,  Can Tho City, Vietnam. We spent time with swimmers, track and field participants and others, as well as members of the community simply in need of mobility.  Ms. Van Ly, Regional Communications and Development Manager, East Meets West, attended with staff. Mr. Hung, Head of Social Protection Division, Department of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs (DOLISA).

November 10th, 2012:  We paid a visit to the Thien An Social Protection Institution in Can Tho, Vietnam, an orphanage which returning members of the Vietnam Veterans of Diablo Valley had contributed to in 2006. We were greeted and entertained by incredibly beautiful children.

A visit to Can Tho Thien, a social protection institution. Hank Fanger and one of the girls.

November 12thWe distributed sports wheelchairs and All Terrain wheelchairs in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

Jerry Yahiro John Reese David Behring Rich Lambert w sports chair

Seen here Jerry Yahiro, John Reese, Wheelchair Foundation President David Behring and Richard Lambert of the Vietnam Veterans of Diablo Valley.

November 14th: In Quang Tri Province, we distributed sports and standard wheelchairs to athletes and others in conjunction with the monthly INSPIRE Sports Exchange event, where persons with disabilities throughout Quang Tri Province gather to participate and compete in various sports (badmitton, basketball, ping-pong, tug of war, etc.) in Ward 5 of Dong Ha City. This was also the event to officially announce the Inclusive Sports Clubs or the city’s Ward 5.

Following the wheelchair distribution we visited East Meets Wests’ clean water system in Cam Thuy Commune, Cam Lo District, about 30 minutes outside of Dong Ha City.  We were joined by Ms. Tam, Deputy Director for Water and Sanitation, and Mr. Mark Conroy, EMW Senior Advisor.

November 16thIn Hanoi we distributed 48 wheelchairs (18 sports wheelchair for the Hanoi  Disability Sports Club, and 30 to individuals) at the Hanoi Sports and Cultural Center .  Mr. Vu The Phiet, Vice Chairman and General Secretary of the Vietnam Paralympic Association,   Ms. Minh Thu, Program Development Director, East Meets West.

Wheelchairs for the Hanoi Distribution

VVDV asked that three wheelchairs be donated to representatives from the Ninh Binh Social Support Center , Nam Binh, Ninh Binh Province, which houses 37 orphan children ranging from younger than five years old to High School age children.

November 17th: Hai Phong, Vietnam.  20 wheelchairs (sport and standard) distributed to recipients at the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism.  Six Sports Wheelchairs were donated to the Hai Phong Disability Sports Club, 10 Standard Wheelchairs were given to individual recipients.

Hai Phong Wheelchair Distribution Group.

Visit our Facebook page by clicking here and see more photos of this amazing distribution.