CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – An Honor Flight might look like a trip to Washington, D.C., on the surface. But for Martin Leamy, president and CEO of Central and Southwest Virginia Honor Flight, the trip is about much more than visiting memorials.

“I see the trips as a means to an end,” Leamy told Cville Right Now. “Not so much as a ‘Let’s go see the memorials’ kind of trip. More as using the memorials as a catalyst to get these veterans the healing, the closure, and to receive the gratitude many did not receive either during their service or after.”

For Leamy, some of the most memorable moments happen when veterans are simply shown a little appreciation.

“Some of the things that stick with me is watching a combat veteran combat infantryman who served in Vietnam start crying when a kid shakes his hand at one of the memorials,” he said.

Then there was the veteran who told Leamy what the trip meant to him after returning home.

“Monday after the trip was the first time in 60 years I’ve slept through the night,” the veteran told him.

“Those are the kind of feedback we get,” Leamy said.

Central and Southwest Virginia Honor Flight provides the trip at no cost to veterans. That includes transportation, lodging, meals and medical support. Veterans can apply to be on a trip and the organization gives priority to those who served in WWII.

Making that happen takes plenty of help from the community.

“We are a nonprofit organization, which means we exist upon the generosity of others,” Leamy told Cville Right Now.

VFW Post 1827 in Charlottesville, for example, provides lunch on Friday and coffee and doughnuts when the veterans return Sunday. Mission BBQ is also among the community partners that help support the trips.

“That’s just an example of how the sponsors step up to make it happen logistically,” he said.

Then there are the Guardians. These volunteers travel alongside the veterans, helping them throughout the trip. Guardians pay their own way and cover their own expenses.

Getting veterans to Washington is only part of the planning. The organization also has to make sure they can safely make the trip.

“Our bus is ADA compliant. We have a wheelchair lift,” Leamy told Cville Right Now. “My medical staff reviews the applications for those that may have any kind of mobility issues and we will address those.”

The medical team includes an RN who serves as the medical coordinator, two emergency medical technicians from Virginia Military Institute and the hub’s vice president, who is a neurotrauma ICU nurse at Carilion in Roanoke.

“So I mean, you swing a dead cat by the tail on the bus and you’re going to hit somebody with a medical credential,” Leamy said with a laugh.

The medical team works with veterans before the trip to figure out what they may need. That can mean a wheelchair, a seat near the front of the bus or an accessible hotel room.

“I take a wheelchair, one wheelchair for every veteran on the trip,” he said. “So if they so desire or need it, they have it to use.”

Leamy remembers one veteran in particular: a 101-year-old World War II veteran who was wheelchair-bound and legally blind. His son initially thought his father would not be able to make the trip.

The medical coordinator, Tracy, talked with the family and worked to find a way to make it possible. The organization brought along a professional who works with visually impaired people to help the veteran experience and understand what he was seeing — or unable to see — at the memorials.

“She did a lot of interpretation of what the vet was experiencing without being able to see it,” Leamy told Cville Right Now.

The point, Leamy said, is not to look at a veteran’s limitations and tell them they cannot go.

“My job is to find a way to bring a vet and not tell a vet, ‘You can’t come because you’ve got a challenge,’” he said.

That same community support is visible when the veterans leave from the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford.

The memorial allows the Honor Flight organization to use its facility at no cost. Bedford Elementary School students line up to wave flags as the veterans leave. The Bedford Junior ROTC provides a color guard and the national anthem.

“It’s just a lot of individuals and organizations have come together to help make these trips possible,” Leamy told Cville Right Now.

Leamy knows that support firsthand. Before helping launch the Central and Southwest Virginia hub, he worked as director of facilities at the National D-Day Memorial.

He first saw Honor Flight groups visiting the memorial in 2012. Two years later, he helped coordinate logistics for about 300 World War II veterans traveling from Florida and North Carolina for the 70th anniversary of D-Day.

Eventually, he looked at the Honor Flight map of Virginia and noticed a problem.

“There was this big gaping hole in the rest of the state,” he said.

Leamy reached out to Jeff Miller, a co-founder of the Honor Flight Network, about starting a hub.

“He was like, ‘Yeah, go for it. I’ll support you in any way I can,’” Leamy told Cville Right Now.

The organization now serves veterans throughout Central and Southwest Virginia. World War II veterans and terminally ill veterans from any service era receive priority, followed by Korean and Vietnam veterans. Beginning Jan. 1, 2027, Desert Storm veterans will also be eligible.

Within each service era, applications are prioritized based on when they are received.

For veterans or family members who are unsure about making the trip, Leamy has a simple suggestion: Talk to someone who has already gone.

“I’ve got a deep bench of former veterans who have been on the trip and many of whom have actually returned with us to be guardians for other veterans,” he said.

That, perhaps, is what Leamy wants people to understand about Honor Flight.

It is a trip to Washington. But the destination is only part of the story.

“It’s more objective driven than just a ‘let’s go see the memorials’ trip,” Leamy told Cville Right Now. “There’s a method to the madness and a reason behind why we do what we do.”