Lana Fore-Warkocz races against time.

She fervently believes that all World War II veterans should have a chance to visit the war’s memorial in Washington, D.C.

But they’re dying faster than donations are coming in — at least to Honor Flight of Southern Colorado, a fledgling local chapter of a national nonprofit that sends World War II and terminally ill veterans to the capital free of charge.

For Fore-Warkocz, the mission is personal.

In March of last year she attended a meeting of individuals interested in starting an Honor Flight Network “hub” that would serve Pikes Peak-area veterans.

She attended at the urging of her father, former 1st Lt. James Fore, a World War II veteran who served in the Army Air Corps and spent time as a POW in a German concentration camp.

“I told my dad what they wanted to start, and he said, ‘Do whatever you have to do to get this going,’” said Fore-Warkocz, who eventually became vice president of the organization’s executive board.

Days later, Fore was diagnosed with stage-four lung cancer. He died the following month.

“He never got to go on the first flight,” Fore-Warkocz said. “That was the whole thing, to get him to go on the first flight. I was like, ‘We cannot allow this to continue.’”

Fore’s dying request was that donations be made to Honor Flight in lieu of flowers.

“He wanted to make sure that his comrades got to go because it was that important to him,” Fore-Warkocz said.

A year later, the organization is preparing to send 12 veterans and four guardians on its first trip, to take place in June. It has $10,000 in its coffers. But at an average cost of $1,000 per veteran, the charity remains a couple thousand short.

Determined to proceed with the flight, board members will dig into their own pockets if they need to.

“We made a promise, an oath that if we did not have enough for the first flight, we’d chip in,” Fore-Warkocz said.

The trip will mirror a typical honor flight and include a departure rally, an airport greeting by congressmen and visits to each memorial on the National Mall and Arlington National Cemetery.

But it’s the trip’s little details that just might pack the most meaningful punch.

“When we leave, a veterans’ motorcycle group will follow us up to (Denver),” Fore-Warkocz said. “We got approval to let the veterans skip security. We have school children write letters to the veterans, and they get to read them on the airplane.”

Fore-Warkocz has yet to accompany veterans on an honor flight but will do so in June at her own expense.

Retired Air Force Chief Master Sgt. Sal Ingraldi knows the magic of an honor flight trip firsthand.

Like Fore-Warkocz, he attended the initial Southern Colorado hub meeting — and walked out as president of the executive board.

A short time later he was on an honor flight sponsored by the Rocky Mountain hub, which serves Denver.

“Seeing all the people in the airport as they announced that there were World War II veterans coming through was pretty amazing,” Ingraldi said. “People were cheering for them and clapping for them and shaking hands and thanking them — stuff they had not gotten when they came home.

The orgazization’s waiting list is 87 veterans long. It hopes to send several of them on another flight in September.

Ingraldi would eventually like to see the charity sponsor four full flights of veterans each year — but that would require money that the organization does not yet have.

“We’re still working on raising the funds and we’ll continue to,” Ingraldi said. “I don’t really know the word ‘quit.’ We need some sponsors and we need some volunteers who are willing to spend some of their time helping us organize, helping us fundraise.”

His message to potential donors: Consider where the country might be were it not for the sacrifices of World War II.

“We enjoy all these freedoms we have today: the liberty to do pretty much anything we want, to pursue anything we want,” he said. “Without these World War II veterans, we can’t say definitively that we’d have those rights and freedoms.”

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Reporter: erin.prater@gazettedev.gazette.com

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