The trip was the September 2023 version of the Brushy Creek Area Honor Flight, which took Iowa veterans from Fort Dodge Regional Airport to see the nation’s war memorials and brought them back that same night to a raucous welcome home celebration.

It was the kind of welcome home celebration that the Vincent area farmer and most other Vietnam War era veterans never received.

In fact, throughout the day, Dencklau and the other 115 veterans on the flight were given a level of respect and admiration they were unaccustomed to. The emotional impact of the day was so strong that Dencklau’s’s eyes fill with tears as he remembers it.

“You’re a changed person when you get back,” he said.

“I’m more respectful of all veterans and all people for that matter,” he added.

He said the experience of going on an Honor Flight has inspired him to do more to help others.

“I sure will do more, no doubt,” he said.

Dencklau had been aware of the Honor Flight for several years, but never applied for a seat on one of the trips. He had never served in combat, and wanted the seats to go to combat veterans. He said Charlie Walker, one of the organizers of the flights, had asked him to think about going.

His wife, Mary Dencklau, got him signed up for the most recent flight.

Just before the flight, he learned that his daughter, Lesa Dencklau, who lives in West Virginia, would meet him in D.C. He was very happy about that, but was wondering how he would meet her.

The driver of the bus taking the veterans from their plane to the terminal at Dulles International Airport in Virginia solved that problem. He instructed Dencklau to call his daughter, then took the phone and told her what gate he was taking the veterans to.

But the first person Dencklau saw when he stepped in the terminal was a Marine in his dress blue uniform. He went up and shook his hand.

A whirlwind tour of the capital and the war memorials followed.

“When I got to D.C., it was awesome,” he said.

He said he “can’t say enough” about the Brushy Creek Area Honor Flight board and the “endless hours they’ve put in.”

He specifically mentioned Ron Newsum, president of the board; Barb Schultz; and Walker.

The military service that earned him a seat on that Honor Flight began in 1962 when he enlisted in the Marine Corps. He said Don Hodge, a Marine veteran he knew who had fought on Iwo Jima during World War II, was a big influence on his decision to enlist.

After completing his training, he was assigned to motor transport supply at Camp Pendleton in California.

“I sat in a cage like you would at any car dealership and I ordered parts for vehicles,” he said.

But he also had a secondary job in the Marine Corps as a rifle range coach. Years of hunting and shooting gophers that popped up in the pastures on the family farm made him a good shot before he ever reported for military duty.

The maximum score on the Marine Corps rifle range was 250 points. Dencklau shot a score of 232.

Because of his marksmanship, he was given temporary additional duty as a rifle range coach. He said every Marine had to requalify with his rifle every year. When Dencklau wasn’t in the parts room at the motor pool, he was at the rifle range, helping Marines to qualify with their weapons.

He started with an M-1 rifle and later used the M-14 carbine.

He was eventually sent to the Pacific Ocean island of Okinawa. There, he had similar duties in the parts room and on the rifle range.

He was discharged in the spring of 1966 at the height of the Vietnam War. Within two weeks of getting home, he got a job at a Felco cooperative facility.

“I put on that uniform at Felco and put the other one away because everyone was against it,” he said.

The Honor Flight showed him in no uncertain terms that Americans are no longer against the uniform and the veterans who wore it.