“Flight of Champions” Honor Flight – with Green Bay Packers Alumni – takes place at GRB November 1, 2018
Public encouraged to attend welcome home event
(Green Bay, WI) The first ever Old Glory Honor Flight “Flight of Champions – Brown County” will take place at Green Bay Austin Straubel International Airport (GRB) on Thursday, November 1, 2018 and the public is encouraged to participate in a rousing “welcome home” celebration at the airport.
The Flight of Champions wraps up the celebration of Brown County’s 200th anniversary, with more than 70 area veterans from the World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War on board the flight to Washington, D.C. where they will visit their unique and moving war memorials. Each Veteran will be accompanied by a companion for the day. Among those companions will be Green Bay Packers Alumni, including Mark Tauscher, Paul Coffman, Lynn Dickey, Earl Dotson and Marco Rivera. The Honor Flights are provided free of charge to the Veterans.
The day will begin very early for the Veterans as they board a charter flight in time for a 6:30 a.m. departure. They will fly to Washington, D.C. to spend the day visiting war memorials and touring D.C., before heading home. They will return to GRB between at 8:30 p.m. “That’s when we need the community to show up; to help us as we host an enthusiastic welcome home celebration,” explained Brown County Executive Troy Streckenbach. “We’re encouraging people to wear red, white and blue. And, lending to the festive atmosphere, there will be live music and lots of fanfare as our way of saying ‘thank you.’ Let’s give them a welcome home they won’t forget.”
Community members who want to participate in the welcome home celebration are asked to be at the airport no later than 7:30 p.m. Free parking will be available in the airport’s long-term parking lot as well as across the street at the Irene Moore Activity Center, which is next to the Radisson Hotel and Conference Center. Free shuttles to/from the airport will be available for those who park at the Irene Moore Activity Center.
“With our County’s Bicentennial celebration, it seemed like an appropriate time to have a local Honor Flight out of our airport, which is named for World War II hero, Austin Straubel,” added Streckenbach. “We thank everyone who has helped make this flight a reality. We especially thank Old Glory Honor Flight for partnering with us and providing their expertise to make this event the success we know it will be.”
Drew MacDonald, president of the nonprofit Old Glory Honor Flight, Inc. said, “Old Glory Honor Flight’s motto is that ‘it’s never too late to say thank you’ and joining in the efforts to make Flight of Champions a reality is just another way for us to put that motto into action.
