Two Clovis residents to take part in honor flight

CLOVIS — Two Clovis residents will be among a group of veterans who depart from Lubbock on Friday bound for Washington, D.C., as part of the 2017 Texas South Plains Honor Flight.

Dale Hensley and Earl Robinson, along with about 90 other veterans, will participate in the program that honors military veterans by providing free trips to D.C. to visit war memorials and other sites in the nation’s capital.

“Everyone I’ve talked to said it’s a first class operation and they really treat you great,” Hensley said of the Honor Flight program.

“I think it’s great that you are able to go on something like that and see Washington, D.C.,” Robinson said. “It will be a nice trip.”

The three-day trip includes wreath laying ceremonies at memorials for World War II, Vietnam War and Korean War veterans, the National Museum of the Marine Corps and Arlington National Cemetery.

The trip will also include a tour of the Capitol with U.S. Rep. Jodey Arrington and a visit to the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center of the National Air and Space Museum.

Trip coordinator Mike Travis said the Texas South Plains Honor Flight transports about 90 to 100 veterans to D.C. each year, with about 150 to 200 more veterans on a waiting list.

Travis said participant decisions are based solely on age — the oldest applicants go first, though exceptions are made in the case of medical situations.

Hensley spent 28 years in the Air Force, including one tour in Vietnam. He first came to Clovis in 1972 when he was piloting FB-111 aircraft at Cannon Air Force Base and retired to Clovis in 1992.

Robinson served in the Army in Belgium and Germany for two years after completing basic training in 1944. A graduate of Eastern New Mexico University, Robinson has lived in Clovis since 1949.