WASHINGTON, D.C. — Two proud Marshalltown veterans — father Richard Huff, 96, who served in the U.S. Navy during the Korean War, and his son Dave, who also served in the Navy during the Vietnam War — recently enjoyed the experience of a lifetime when they traveled to Washington, D.C. on June 17 for the Cedar Valley Honor Flight.

For Richard, who resides at the Iowa Veterans Home and served from 1948 to 1951 (three of his brothers, who have since passed, served in WWII), it was his first and likely last Honor Flight, and he credited IVH Social Worker Raena Garcia with making him aware of the opportunity.

“At that time, there were no jobs right after WWII. Nothing had started up again — no new cars or building homes, and no jobs either. So I decided to go in the Navy,” he said.

Along with about 90 other veterans from eastern Iowa, he and Dave boarded a plane at the Waterloo airport at 5 a.m. that day and headed toward the nation’s capital. It’s a trip he would highly recommend.

“I’ve got one word for it — fabulous. They have that thing organized to where you go from one activity to another, just as smooth as you could ever imagine,” he said.

Richard, who was the oldest veteran on the flight, said he was particularly impressed with the war memorials that have been constructed in Washington.

When he served, Richard spent all of his time on the waters near Korea and worked primarily as a plane guard detail for the carriers, picking up jets that overshot the deck and landed in the water.

“Once in a while, we’d lose somebody, but generally, they got on the landing with those jets pretty good,” he said.

Once he returned to Marshalltown, where he graduated from high school in 1948, Richard went to work in the HVAC business at Lennox and eventually moved up to a management role in quality control before retiring after 37 years. After retirement, he and his wife Marlys “had a little fun” and moved to Illinois for a time to be closer to a granddaughter then returned here and settled at IVH on his birthday, where they have resided for the last two years.

Dave Huff graduated from MHS in 1969, started working at Lennox and waited to see how the draft situation shook out, knowing that he didn’t want to serve in the Army and go to Vietnam but adding that he would have if called upon to do so. At first, he had a high draft number until the following year, when it dropped and he faced the realization that he was likely headed to the military one way or another.

He met with a Navy recruiter and signed up for a 180-day delay program. A few weeks later, however, he got his draft notice indicating that he was to join the Army until his recruiter “kind of went ballistic” and rectified the situation.

In 1971, he went off to basic training at the North Chicago Naval Air Station before additionally completing A School and an advanced C School and becoming an engineman working on emergency boilers and internal combustion engines.

Due to his high scores in C School, he was offered an instructor position but turned it down because he wanted to see the world. At that time, his fellow seamen in C School were receiving orders to head to Da Nang, Vietnam, which was known as the site of several crucial battles during the conflict.

“Now I’ve got orders to riverboat duty in Da Nang, and that was probably the worst scenario because, if you know anything about swift boats, they cruised up and down the rivers, and the Viet Cong took potshots at them all the time. So it was kind of one of those things where you’ve got to do what you’re told. Your orders are your orders,” he said.

The story took another twist, however, as Dave was offered an early leave, returned home and made arrangements in case he never came back. From there, he flew out to San Diego for his “rough training” and said goodbye to his friends who were headed to Vietnam, but then, President Richard Nixon announced his first cutbacks — and, fortunately for him, Dave was included in them.

He made his “dream sheet” for his next assignment and applied for duty in San Diego on a repair ship, and he got it. Dave later went to WestPac in Japan and worked on more ships, and he had the chance to travel to places like Taipei and Hong Kong with his admiral.

After returning to San Diego, he spent another year there before returning to Japan again — Yokohama this time — and making side trips to Subic Bay in the Philippines and Hong Kong. But his time to enter the war zone did finally come, and they tied up offshore and performed repairs on swift boats.

“I didn’t actually have to go in on shore or in the country like they’d call it, but we were there for a while,” Dave said.

He then returned to Yokohama and San Diego before wrapping up his service in 1975 as the war wound down. Once his service concluded, Dave went back to Lennox and ended up outlasting his father in longevity, working there a total of 48 years.

Both Richard and Dave had been to D.C. before, but the last time Richard had been there, the WWII monument was “just a hole in the ground.”

“That’s something he’s always wanted to go back and see, and so that was the number one ticket on his list of things to do there,” Dave said. “But just to be able to go back and see all those monuments and take a trip down memory lane was fantastic for both of us. A lot of people were pretty much amazed that, you know, here’s a son and a father that both were in the service. That’s kind of unusual on the Honor Flights. They do get that, but it’s kind of unusual. So they were glad to have us. That was a great trip. We appreciated it, and there’s several times during that time when you get a little emotional. You step off a plane and there’s a line of people clapping for you. We’re just average Joes.”

After wrapping up the activities in Washington, the veterans flew back to Waterloo and arrived at the airport at around 10 p.m. to a hero’s welcome. It was a proud moment for both Richard and his son, who recalled the special notes the veterans received from students at the WWII memorial.

“It’s hard to describe how they came up with that program and how well it’s run, how complete (it is). You get off of one thing, and the wheelchair’s there waiting for you. The meal’s there. Everything was perfect,” Richard said. “For somebody to take on a thing like that, and they had tremendous backing. We got home at 10:00 that night, and we got inside the airport doors. I looked down and there was a row of people, one on each side, turned the corner, there was another row of people, turned the corner for the third time and there was another row. I bet there were 700 people there. That’s how they back it.”

For Dave, who left the service at a time when many returning Vietnam veterans were receiving anything but a warm welcome back to the U.S., it was especially meaningful.

“The Honor Flight people really did a great job. They’re just awesome people. You just appreciate all of it, but when you walk through that door and here’s all these people clapping and saying ‘Welcome home,’ because in the ’70s, the Vietnam people didn’t get a good welcome home. That was special,” he said. “I would definitely recommend it to anybody that’s a veteran that qualifies… If you qualify, please go. It’s fantastic.”

To learn more, visit https://cedarvalleyhonorflights.org/.