WWII vets get wheels for memorial trip

One irony of the World War II Memorial in Washington is that three-fourths of the 16-million-strong fighting force it honors were dead before it opened in 2004. Another is that many of the 2 million veterans of the war still alive are too infirm to visit, or cannot afford the trip.

Honor Flight Long Island of Southampton has tried to change that with free flights for veterans from Long Island MacArthur Airport six times a year. But the next flight June 4 was in trouble before getting off the ground -- with 60 veterans and another 50 people to assist them, there were not enough wheelchairs from Honor Flight's usual source, the Northport VA Medical Center.

Since 2007, Honor Flight has flown 600 veterans and nearly as many "guardians," often friends or relatives who assist vets on the sometimes arduous daylong tour. Veterans fly free; guardians pay $260. The June 4 flight was scheduled for twice the usual contingent, which led to the wheelchair shortage.

The group normally borrows wheelchairs from the veterans hospital, said Honor Flight coordinator Virginia Bennett. But this time, the hospital couldn't spare enough.

Bennett, whose day job is deputy director of human services for the Town of Southampton, spoke to Suffolk Legis. Kate M. Browning (WF-Shirley), who got in touch with Nassau Legis. Dave Denenberg (D-Merrick); hours later they had the wheelchairs, donated from local medical-supply companies.

"Never underestimate how generous the average person is," Denenberg said at a news conference Wednesday announcing the contributions.

He estimated there are at least 10,000 WWII veterans living on Long Island; last year the Northport VA hospital treated 7,026. But Bennett said the waiting list for Honor Flights has dwindled to 70.

The group will continue to focus on World War II vets for the near future because theirs was the "last memorial built and these are the oldest guys," she said. As their numbers dwindle, Honor Flight Long Island -- one chapter of a national group that has flown 60,000 veterans to the nation's capital since 2005 -- may broaden its focus to veterans of later wars.

Also at yesterday's news conference was Army veteran John Maier, 83, of Commack, due to make his first trip to the memorial June 4. Maier guarded German prisoners of war outside Dachau, Germany, as the war wound down, and he later returned to a peacetime career as a metalworker. "I probably wouldn't get down there at all, if it weren't for this," he said.

It was important for him to see the monument, he said. "They were nice enough to put it up for us."

He said he just might see some of the men he served with, though, by now, "we probably wouldn't even recognize each other."

He is a vigorous man with no intention of using a wheelchair on the tour, but admitted that, after he was briefly hospitalized recently, his son reserved one for him.