Three local veterans will join 41 others in traveling to our nation’s capital for a weekend to remember. On Oct. 25, Richard “Dick” Elliott, Merlin “Cush” Gray and Arthur Richardson will be the latest local vets to travel to Washington, D.C. as part of Honor Flight Maine. In 2014, the non-profit organization began honoring Maine’s military veterans with an opportunity to remember and reflect their service by visiting war memorials during a Washington, D.C. weekend visit. Richardson served four active and four non-active tours of duty between 1954 and 1962 in the Air Force. Gray served in the Air Force from 1950 to 1970. Elliot served on a submarine in the Navy during the Vietnam War.

The tour includes 44 Maine veterans and their companions or chaperones. In all, about 100 will leave Portland International Airport Oct. 25. The first stop is Fort McHenry in Baltimore. On Oct. 26, the tour resumes with a visit to the World War II Memorial followed by visits to the Vietnam, Korea, and U.S. Air Force memorials. Other stops include Arlington National Cemetery, and Women’s, Iwo Jima, and Navy memorials. 

Each trip, Maine Honor Flight officials select World War II veterans first, followed by Korean and Vietnam era servicemen, according to board member Dave Patch of Boothbay Harbor. “Every veteran in Maine who wants to go will go, eventually. Any veteran, regardless of age, who is in a hospice situation will go as soon as it can be arranged,” he said. 

The tour departs Portland at 8 a.m. Oct. 25 and returns at 1 p.m. Oct. 27.

This article has been updated and corrected from its original post.