Jim McAtee has patiently waited his turn for a Midwest Honor Flight.
It’s been two years since he attended a Welcome Home ceremony for a friend that had a chance to go on the flight in 2021. He was there, he said, when the flight returned late that night.
The experience was one that he’ll never forget.
Countless people were there, cheering the Veterans return, waving flags, and waiting to welcome them all back home — it was the welcome home, he said, that so many of his friends, fellow soldiers, even his brother, never received when they returned home after serving our country.
The Flandreau graduate (‘56) and Army Veteran (1961-63) decided that night that he wanted to experience it for himself. He knew his brother Larry, a Vietnam Veteran and FHS graduate (‘64), needed to experience it as well.
They got their chance this past week.
“Every place you went, there were people there to welcome you. At the airport in DC, as we landed, there were firefighters shooting water out over the airplane. When we got home, they did the same thing. There were lines of people greeting you everywhere you went. When we got back home, there were motorcyclists and bagpipes and others lined up in the terminal. Then as we headed toward the arena from the airport, we had a police escort and the bikers were riding alongside the bus…it was unreal,” said McAtee.
The Midwest Honor Flight is open to all Veterans from Northwest Iowa, South Dakota, Northeast Nebraska, and Southwest Minnesota to apply for. It aims to be a trip of honor at no cost to them and each Veteran is guaranteed a Guardian that is alongside them every step of the way.
The day starts at 3:30 a.m., their flight takes off from Sioux Falls Regional Airport at 5:30 a.m., the Veterans are escorted to each of the War and Service Memorials in Washington DC along with a few other stops, and they return home that same night.

Top priority, since its inception, has been given to WWII, Korean War, and terminally ill Veterans from all wars. There are more than 800 on a wait list to go, which is why the McAtee brothers are humbled to have had a chance at the trip.
They want to go back.
So does Dale K. Johnson of Flandreau, a ‘65 graduate and Army Veteran of the Vietnam War.
“It’s a trip that I was absolutely blown away from,” said Johnson.
“You can see a lot of things but you can’t spend much time there because you’re on a time constraint. You spend maybe 45 minutes at one place before you get back on the bus and move again. There are so many things to see, I’d go back again right now. I’d leave again tomorrow.”
The three FHS graduates were among 84 Veterans from Korea and Vietnam to board what was called Their Final Tour with Honor on October 10th. Mission 17, sponsored by the Clifford & LaVonne Graese Foundation, was completely full.
Johnson, who returned to service with the Army National Guard years after his initial enlistment right out of High School, said that he wanted to go so that he could experience the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. That memorial is located within Arlington National Cemetery. It has been a final resting place for one of America’s unidentified World War I service members since 1921. Unknowns from later wars were added in 1958 and 1984. The Tomb has also served as a place of mourning and a site for reflection on military service.
Tragically, Johnson also wanted to go so that he could see firsthand the name of Allen Christensen, a good friend and FHS classmate, on the Vietnam Memorial Wall. Christensen’s helicopter was shot down during the War in Vietnam. His body has never been recovered.
“When you go to a Memorial and you see all of the names that that particular Memorial is dedicated to… such as the Vietnam Wall, that strikes home a little bit more when you see the names that are on that. Everything had a lot more meaning to it, realizing why those memorials were even made. Those were servicemen and women that had given up their lives in duty to their country,” said Johnson.
Johnson’s oldest son, Daron, feels blessed to have been along as his dad’s Guardian that day.
“It was a very humbling experience, to see his emotions through everything. He never really talked about the War or Allen, but he opened up after we saw his name inscribed on the Wall. I got a little more insight into my father than I had before.”
Visiting with one of the other Veterans on the flight, the two agreed the experience really couldn’t have been any more soul-filling.
“The people on this flight, the people in charge of this flight, they made us feel so important everywhere we went…people not even not connected to the flight but who would see that we were there, they would come up to us and tell us, ‘Thank you for your service.’ It certainly would have been nice to have had that welcome when we came home from Vietnam. It did make up for a lot of the disappointment, I guess, that we ran into when we came back from Vietnam.”
Larry McAtee agreed.
“We really had an experience we weren’t expecting…When I came home (from Vietnam), we arrived in Port Lewis, Washington, we were given our discharge orders, the next day we went through the process, and after that it was like, ‘go home now.’ So we went home. Nobody really said anything. You kind of felt a little lonely…” said McAtee, his voice quivered and trailed off.
“Not after this experience.”
For more on the Midwest Honor Flight, how to apply, or support the mission, log onto mid