{"id":87330,"date":"2025-07-24T00:56:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-24T00:56:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/87330\/"},"modified":"2025-07-24T00:56:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-24T00:56:09","slug":"chicago-area-world-war-ii-veterans-board-special-flight-to-new-orleans-to-visit-national-wwii-museum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/87330\/","title":{"rendered":"Chicago area World War II veterans board special flight to New Orleans to visit National WWII Museum"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A group of Chicago-area veterans traveled to New Orleans Wednesday to see for themselves a museum built in their honor.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.garysinisefoundation.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Gary Sinise Foundation<\/a> and American Airlines make these trips happen four times a year. The latest trip&#8217;s veterans received a big sendoff at O&#8217;Hare International Airport.<\/p>\n<p>People at O&#8217;Hare are always on the move. But travelers stop when there is a parade with bagpipers in the terminal \u2014 as there was for the veterans.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think it&#8217;s amazing,&#8221; one woman said. &#8220;We should always celebrate our veterans.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Eleven veterans from the Chicago area met at the same gate. Outside, there was a plane reserved for men who served in World War II.<\/p>\n<p>One of the veterans was 99-year-old John Rickerd, who was 17 when he enlisted as a U.S. Marine.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It brings back an awful lot of memories,&#8221; Rickerd said.<\/p>\n<p>Rickerd eventually shared those memories with his son, Mark.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0&#8220;Did a tour of duty in the Pacific, and ended up climbing Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima \u2014 hence my hero,&#8221; Mark Rickerd said of his father.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;And I often think of all the men we left behind,&#8221; added John Rickerd. &#8220;I mean the real, I think, number one heroes are those men who didn&#8217;t come back.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Thanks to the Gary Sinise Foundation and American Airlines, vets who served together traveled for free.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;A very special trip where we will take World War II veterans, pair them up with high school students, and take them to the World War II Museum in New Orleans,&#8221; said Randy Stillinger, manager of military and veterans&#8217; initiatives for American Airlines.<\/p>\n<p>John Rickerd said he was looking forward to visiting the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalww2museum.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">National WWII Museum<\/a>, which he called &#8220;so beautiful.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The three-day trip to New Orleans will also be an opportunity to make connections.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The ability for him to develop camaraderie with his peers, his World War II veteran peers, it&#8217;s hard to describe,&#8221; said Mark Rickerd.<\/p>\n<p>As the members of the Greatest Generation boarded the flight and left their gate behind, it spoke volumes that they traveled with gratitude.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s so exciting to be here and be a part of this,&#8221; said John Rickerd.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A group of Chicago-area veterans traveled to New Orleans Wednesday to see for themselves a museum built in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":87331,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[960,5386,1818,21461,58664,2512,41048],"class_list":{"0":"post-87330","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-chicago","9":"tag-il","10":"tag-illinois","11":"tag-new-orleans","12":"tag-ohare-international-airport","13":"tag-veterans","14":"tag-world-war-ii"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114905493441420212","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87330\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}