Vicki O’Tool will be aboard the plane with her husband, fellow Navy veteran Larry O’Tool.

The couple from Arcadia will be among the roughly 100 veterans making the journey from Fort Dodge to Washington, D.C., to see the nation’s war memorials.

“It’s just an honor for us to be able to go,” she said.

The veterans, their families and the organizers of the Honor Flight came together Tuesday evening at the Webster County Fairgrounds for the traditional banquet that precedes each flight.

-Messenger photo by Bill Shea
Kian Wolfe, left, and Maddie Shannon, fourth graders at Manson Northwest Webster Elementary School, sing “God Bless the USA” during the Brushy Creek Area Honor Flight banquet Tuesday evening.

There have been 27 flights that have taken about 3,700 veterans to the nation’s capital since 2010.

Those first 27 flights were organized by a committee led by the late Ron Newsum, of Fort Dodge. The flights were his idea, born of the desire to get his father, Clem Hentges, to the National World War II Memorial.

Newsum and his crew retired after the 27th flight in May 2025.

The upcoming flight has been organized by a new committee led by Sara Murphy.

Larry and Vicki O’Tool are part of the inaugural flight of that committee.

-Messenger photo by Bill Shea
Veterans and their families filled the auditorium building at the Webster County Fairgrounds Tuesday evening for the Brushy Creek Area Honor Flight banquet.

They met while they were in college in Nebraska.

In 1969, he received his draft notice and quickly decided to enlist in the Navy.

They got married the following year.

Then after five years of being a Navy wife, she enlisted and became a Navy sailor.

“I always wanted to go in the military,” she said.

But her mother was firmly against the idea. So they never told her or any other member of her family. They even made sure that her mother never saw any photographs of her in uniform.

Larry O’Tool was trained in satellite-microwave communications. He served on several ships, including the submarine tender USS Proteus, based in Guam. He was also a member of the original crew of the amphibious dock ship USS Ponce.

Vicki O’Tool was trained in data processing. At the time, women were never assigned to Navy ships so she worked on land in places like Long Beach, California, and Great Lakes Naval Training Center in Illinois.

What do they hope to see in Washington?

“Anything and everything,” Vicki O’Tool said.

For Army veteran Donovan Stout, of Rockwell, Arlington National Cemetery is on the list of places he most wants to see.

Stout served in the 1950s at the height of the Korean War. But he didn’t go to South Korea. He was assigned to Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers in Europe, in Paris, France. SHAPE, as it was called, was a predecessor of NATO.

Marine Corps veteran David Abbott, of Clear Lake, said he has friends who went on previous Honor Flights and told him “how great it was.” He said he is looking forward to seeing the Marine Corps War Memorial, which is a huge sculpture of a famous photo showing the Marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima during World War II.

Each flight begins early in the morning at Fort Dodge Regional Airport. The veterans, board members, other volunteers and a small group of medical personnel fly from Fort Dodge to Dulles International Airport in the Virginia suburbs of Washington. There, the group boards buses and heads into the capital.

The group visits the Lincoln Memorial, Vietnam War Veterans Memorial, Korean War Veterans Memorial, World War II Memorial, the Marine Corps War Memorial, Arlington National Cemetery and the Air Force Memorial.

The flight then returns to Fort Dodge late the same night.