THE GREATEST GENERATION. Cherokee County native Vince Studdard stands by a war memorial in Washington D.C. while on a recent Honor Flight for World War II veterans.
Studdard said he wanted to make the trip for some time and like many other veterans who made the trip, was impressed with the personnel involved and the respect shown to himself and other WWII Veterans.
“I didn’t have any problems,” said Studdard. “They called me a couple of days before the trip and said ‘at any time if you want a wheelchair, it will be there for you.’ They give you a one on one guardian. Somebody is watching you all day. My guardian looked like a young girl, but she was a mechanical engineer. She stayed right with me all day.”
Studdard said they spent the night before in Huntsville so he could be at the 4:30 a.m. meeting of other Honor Flight participants and personnel before departing for Washington. He said he was fortunate that his son-in-law, Lamar Williams, an emergency medical services supervisor, was able to accompany him.
“We had a real nice flight,” said Studdard. “When we got there, they turned us over to this group from John Hopkins. They had white shirts, we had black shirts, Guardians had gold or yellow colored shirts. Another volunteer group had green shirts, so you can tell who everybody was.”
Studdard said they saw many of the famous sights, including The Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial, which many tourists speak of. Probably their most touching monument, however, was the new World War II Memorial.
“They waited a long time to do it,” said Studdard. “It is about the largest size ground space of anything up there.”
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Also aboard this particular Honor Flight was Alabama’s Own American Idol Bo Bice who sang patriotic tunes at some of the ceremonies the veterans attended, including one at the Iwo Jima Flag raising statue and another at the World War II Memorial.
Bice, who accompanied his grandfather on the flight, drew rave reviews, according to Studdard.
Studdard said it took six buses to transport this particular Honor Flight passengers and crew around town.
He also noted that things have changed a great deal since he was in Washington, D.C. some 40 years ago.
Studdard’s military career began when he enlisted into the Army approximately one year before World War II started. He spent 26 years in the service and retired as an E7. He was a part of the Central Dental Laboratory at Fort McPherson.
At one point he served near Guadalcanal.
“We could still hear firing in the jungles,” said Studdard. “We had a company of infantry guarding us. Every once in a while a Japanese soldier would come in out of the jungle hungry and give himself up to get fed. The Japanese came in about February of 1943 and made a big drive to retake the island. We were placed on emergency status.”
“A bunch of troop ships were on the way,” said Studdard. “Several ran up on the beach. After that was all over, one or two weeks later, I rode around the island, I couldn’t get to the ships. They were just grounded. I found three bodies that had been pushed on the beach. Nobody had found them. The island had been cleared.”
Studdard said he and other Veterans were treated to a warm welcome home when they returned to Huntsville.
“We had Girl Scouts with cookies, an awful lot of people waving flags, we had an aisle we went through, had more speeches there,” said Studdard.
“A lot of people met us. When we left that morning, there were a lot of people there then and a lot of them were crowded on top of a building when we left.”
Studdard, who turns 89 in July, is proud he made the Honor Flight Trip and that he had no problems with the flight or the tour around town.
“It was well worthwhile,” said Studdard.
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