(NewsNation) — Honor Flight Southland is a nonprofit volunteer organization created solely to honor America’s veterans for all their sacrifices.
The organization takes veterans on three-day trips to Washington, D.C., to experience the national memorials dedicated to honoring their service.
“Our mission is simple one,” Craig Van Doren, chairman and co-founder of Honor Flight Southland, said. “We take our most senior veterans back to Washington, D.C., for a three-day free trip to spend time out and celebrate at the memorials that were built for them.”
Like many, their efforts were sidelined by the COVID-19 pandemic.
But on a recent Honor Flight, 34 veterans returned home to Los Angeles greeted by a sea of flags and signs at the airport.
“On this particular trip, we had a total of 34 veterans, 10 World War II veterans and 24 Korea veterans,” Van Doren said.
Applause from friends, family members and onlookers proved to be an emotional moment for some of the vets.
Some were brought to tears by the celebration of their service and sacrifice to our country.
“The bottom line from this is the fact that most of these veterans, probably 95 or 99% of them, never got the welcome home that they deserve when they came home from the war,” Van Doren said. “So what we want to do again is celebrate and give them that that welcome home that they never got.”
Honor Flight Southland was founded in 2014 and serves veterans from Los Angeles, Orange and San Bernardino Counties.
NewsNation affiliate KTLA contributed to this report.