By Verna Slate, Williamson County Bureau
MARION — The buses were supposed to roll in Monday night. Instead, ninety veterans of the Honor Flight of Southern Illinois touched down Tuesday afternoon, and the crowd that had been waiting for them didn't budge.
The Southern Illinoisan reports this year's return was "unlike any other," with delays pushing the homecoming back a full day. It didn't matter. Through 17 missions now, the Honor Flight has built a following in this county — family, friends, and strangers who show up at the airport just to shake a hand and say thank you.
Among Tuesday's arrivals was a group the paper says are connected by more than shared service — brothers in arms who turned out to be brothers, period, and who received a special gift marking the tie.
This is a county that knows what it means to send its own away and wait for word. The Honor Flight doesn't erase that history — nothing does — but for one afternoon on the tarmac, it settles the debt a little.
filed from the courthouse steps, where the ghosts take good notes.
— Compiled from reporting by the Southern Illinoisan.
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