Blind dates usually come and go, but some can change two lives forever. For Mary Lou Walker, accepting a blind date in August 1969 changed her life for the better. And she wouldn’t have it any other way.

Growing up in Lawrence, Massachusetts, Walker never imagined spending her life in the middle of Iowa. She had graduated from high school there only two years earlier, was attending business college, and working at a scientific supply company in her hometown.

Charlie Walker, an Iowa native, was serving in the U.S. Army, stationed at nearby Fort Devens. Walker had a car; his buddy had a girlfriend, but no car. It would be a double date, with Walker providing the wheels. In return, Charlie got a blind date with a young girl named Mary Lou — and it wasn’t long before the two were engaged.

Life moved fast. Charlie Walker was in Vietnam by Jan. 6, 1970. Mary Lou would wait at home in Massachusetts for his return.

She can still remember her very first visit to Iowa.

“Charlie was going to Vietnam and he was coming home for his two-week leave before he left,” she said.

She met her future in-laws and got her first taste of Iowa.

Despite the happiness that comes with a new engagement, it was also a time of uncertainty as Charlie Walker left for his deployment.

“His mother took me to the airport to go back home, and she took Charlie to the airport to do his duty in Vietnam,” she said.

As the years went by, duty would be a theme of their life together.

Thankfully, Charlie Walker arrived safely back home one year later. There’s something about people who have seen war, and that is that they don’t often waste time. They make the most of each day. The couple married in December 1970, shortly after he returned to the United States.

“Ours was a rush marriage,” Charlie Walker has been known to say. “But not why you think. We planned on getting married at the end of January, but when they cut my tour short, I figured if we married by the end of December it would save a hundred dollars on our taxes.”

Mary Lou Walker only smiles when her husband tells those stories. She’s no doubt heard them all. The two have spent a lifetime working closely together.

Mary Lou Walker has usually been the silent, smiling face behind her affable husband. For a decade or more, she has been the maestro behind the scenes of the Brushy Creek Area Honor Flight — planning, organizing, and seeing to every detail for both the public board members and the veterans whom they serve.

“I am basically a very shy person,” she said. “It takes me awhile in a big group to feel comfortable enough to start speaking out and voicing my opinion.”

Through 55 years of marriage, she has worked for accountants, in bookkeeping for various companies, including The Messenger, and most notably for her husband’s law office in Fort Dodge. She is not one to sit still when there is work to be done.

Mary Lou Walker remembers in the 1980s when her husband was in his final year at Drake Law School. It was a busy time, as the entire Walker family was in school.

“When I went back to college, we were all in school; we had a kindergartner, a fourth-grader, Charlie was in law school, and I had just started at Iowa Central,” she said.

Caring for a young family, and supporting everyone in their pursuit of education, it’s no wonder that Mary Lou Walker is a woman who knows how to balance a myriad of responsibilities.

As the behind-the-scenes organizer for Brushy Creek Area Honor Flights, she found a rewarding position uniquely suited to her skills, and her appreciation of those who serve. In addition to her husband, her two older brothers are also veterans. There’s no title for her job with the group — everyone just knows that she’s the go-to person to get things done.

“I love meeting the veterans,” Mary Lou Walker said. “Most of the time I just see their names, but when they come to the orientation dinner, and especially when they check in for the morning of the flight, then I get to meet them.”

By the day of departure, she is very familiar with the names on the flight. In many cases, she will have talked to them on the phone previously, gleaning additional information needed for the flight.

“Sometimes, when I call them for additional information, I will ask them about their time in the service,” she said. “And because it’s someone outside of their family asking, they will blossom and give me just vivid details of their time in the service.”

She appreciates every one of their stories and is happy to listen and to give veterans a chance to open up, when perhaps they haven’t done much of that in the past.

For all of her work making the Honor Flights possible, Mary Lou Walker has flown only once as a guardian, assisting one of the veterans on the flight. It was a very moving time for her to see the memorials for herself and watch how the veterans reacted.

“The Korean Memorial was the one that affected me the most,” she said. “I think it was because of the life-like statues. You could see real people.”

It was a different feeling as she walked the black granite wall of the Vietnam Memorial.

“The Vietnam Wall made me so cold,” she said. “All of those names … all of those names … it’s like, ‘How could we have done that to our men?'”

Along with board members for the Brushy Creek Area Honor Flight, Mary Lou Walker is also retiring from her critical, behind-the-scenes role. Like that long-ago blind date, her service with the Honor Flight has changed her life for the better.

“The Honor Flight has really opened me up to community service,” she said. “As soon I get to retire, I’m sure I will be more active in other ways of serving.”