Letters from student given to veteran during return trip of Honor Flight
By Kellen Olshefski
Editor
Thanks to the help of students of West Side Elementary School, a local veteran of the Korean War recently received a pleasant surprise while returning home from Washington, D.C., on this spring’s Stars and Stripes Honor Flight; a whole slew of mail, during the flight’s mail call.
John Samuelson, and Elkhorn resident who served in the United States Army during the Korean War, was accepted to participate in April’s Honor Flight.
Samuelson’s daughter, Ann White, who teaches at West Side Elementary, after watching a clip from a movie about the Honor Flight that depicts the mail call part of the flight, the part in the flight home from serving overseas when soldiers would receive their letters from families back home, she knew it was something that would be incredibly important to the veterans.
“They don’t know this is coming and in their day, this was the biggest part of their day, to have the mail call, the letters from home,” she said.
While her job was to collect an envelope of letters from family members, she decided it just wasn’t enough.
With letters from family being delivered by Honor Flight personnel on the flight during the mail call, White packed her bags with letters from the students of West Side Elementary to share with her father on the flight.
“It’s very, very touching and very rewarding especially when the children have done it,” she said.
“In order to have our story told, we need to have a grass roots effort and this is my home and the kids supported me.”
White said teachers told her students poured their heart and souls into the project, being positively motivated to produce a piece of artwork to share with Samuelson.
“It’s events like these that bring out the beauty in life,” she said about the students diligent work on the project. “The kids have put their hearts so into this product.”
White said working on this project was an important project for the students, giving them an opportunity to tie what’s an abstract concept for many students, the idea of loved ones fighting overseas, to something more concrete.
In addition to producing letters for Samuelson’s return trip, West Side Elementary held a Red, White and Blue day prior to the Honor Flight, in honor of veterans, something that White said made a more abstract concept for children concrete, giving the students a way to connect.
White said with the multitude of letters and drawings that poured in from the students, she wasn’t able to take them all on the flight with them, though she made sure Samuelson received each and everyone. She said he’s been going through the letters a stack at a time ever since the flight.
Following April’s Honor Flight, White said the students at West Side Elementary continued to show curiosity and support.
“They were so kind after,” she said.
White said after returning from the flight, students were coming up to her all-day long, curious to see how the flight went, what the experience was like and what
The Honor Flight
White said they started the process of applying for the Honor Flight two years ago after a family friend had taken their grandfather.
“It was described to me at their training that this would be one of the best days of their lives,” White said prior to the flight.
“It’s ranked up there with being able to get married and have children.”
White said her father was excited he had been accepted for the flight, noting it was “almost like he won the lottery.”
White said her father learned he had been accepted the day before they returned to Wisconsin from their winter home in Florida.
“Like my mom said, he just floated home,” she said. “He’s 82-years-old and they drove home in two days.”
White said she was told many of the veterans returning from foreign wars, came home one day, hung up their uniforms and returned to living a normal life, leaving their stories untold.
“This is just a way that we can turn around and show the veterans just how much their service to their country meant to all of us,” she said.
Through the process, White said Samuelson has begun to tell his story, breaking out the photos, his medals and even his uniform.
Following the Honor Flight in April, White said it was like being royalty for a day, with police escorts and parades awaiting the veterans, and described it as one of those “take your breath away kind of days.”
“We still can’t believe we actually did it,” she said.
