Life is filled with difficult decisions.
Ninety-six-year-old St. Paul native Shirley Weslie knows a thing or two about difficult decisions.
Living on this earth for more than a century, she’s had to make a lot of them.
One of the most impactful came 75 years ago when she decided to enlist in the Navy.
“That’s one of the best decisions I ever made,” Weslie says.
She was a young college student at the time, taking classes in Duluth, when she decided to serve her country.
“It was 1945. The war had been going on for a while already. I was getting really tired of the weather in Duluth, so I joined the Navy,” Weslie laughs.
She served two years as a flight attendant with the Navy, shuttling service members from one base to another.
“I kind of enjoyed it by the way,” Weslie laughs.
For her, it was an opportunity to see the country, and in 2012 she got another opportunity, to see the monuments made in her honor.
“It was a very meaningful trip. Very meaningful.”
Shirley is just one of the 220,000+ veterans who have received free trips to Washington D.C. through the Honor Flight network.
The organization was founded in 2005 and now has more than 140 chapters across the country.
Jerry and Jana Kyser have been running the Twin Cities chapter for the last 12 years, and they’ve never missed a flight, until now.
“This would have been our 23rd flight,” Jana Kyser says.
The couple’s latest trip was originally scheduled for May 16th, but with a worldwide pandemic, and a group of vulnerable veterans, they had to make a difficult decision.
“These men and women are precious cargo and their protection is the most important thing,” Jana says.
“We postponed the trip until October 3rd.”
And even that is a lofty goal.
The couple says a more realistic date would be some time in 2021, but they’re waiting on guidance from the national Honor Flight network before they decide to postpone the trip again.
“In D.C. they’re still figuring things out,” Jerry says.
The couple says it may be a year or more before they can fly again.
Shirley is sad that some veterans who are older or in poor health may never get to take the trip she did.
But she’s hopeful that like World War II, this too shall pass. We just have to stay positive.
“A positive attitude always outweighs a negative one, because you can build on a positive attitude. There’s no building on a negative,” Shirley says.