Honor Flight

ELGIN -- Local veterans will get a chance to see the memorial created in their honor for the first time when Honor Flight Chicago flies them to the World War II Memorial in Washington on Wednesday.

The World War II Memorial opened in 2004 and honors more than 16 million people who served in the war and more than 400,000 who died. Honor Flight estimates that 1,200 World War II veterans die each day.

Honor Flight Chicago is a nonprofit organization based in the city that provides a free day at the memorial for veterans living in the metropolitan area. Airfare, local transportation and meals are covered. About 100 veterans will fly to Washington and back in one day.

Three Elgin veterans plan to participate -- Paul Sellers, William Dreher and Walter Miller.

Although he won't be donning his uniform, veteran Sellers says he would if he could.

"I could still wear my uniform if I still had it. I am the same weight as when I went into the Army in 1943," he said.

Instead he will wear a cap with WWII markings and the Third Cavalry crossed sabers in remembrance.

Sellers traveled to Luxembourg for America-Luxembourg Friendship Week last June. He joined a group of 15 other veterans in addition to several children, grandchildren and widows of soldiers who fought in the Battle of the Bulge.

He said that the warm hospitality, lush green countryside and smiling villagers stood in stark contrast to Sellers' memories of bombed villages, shrapnel-scarred houses and snow-caked barns in December 1944.

Sellers, 86, looks forward to Honor Flight as a chance to honor his fallen comrades and to make some new memories.

Sellers operated an M24 light tank during World War II as part of the 20th Company, 3rd Cavalry, 3rd Army under Gen. George Patton.

Most of his memories of WWII are hardly good, but one of them still makes him chuckle. During the war he found an old railroad-style clock about 30 inches wide and 18 inches tall. He took the clock everywhere with him since he had lost his watch. Sellers' practicalities weren't appreciated by everyone though.

When Gen. George S. Patton came through his division, he spotted the clock on top of the tank and had a little something to say about it.

"Patton told my commander to get that blankety-blank clock off the tank," Sellers said, laughing.

William Dreher, 82, will join Sellers on the flight. Dreher enlisted in 1944 and went overseas in 1945 as part of the Army's 309th Infantry Regiment. He was placed in a guard position on the Ruhr River in Germany. He turned 19 the day after the war ended.

Rob Strickland, an Elgin volunteer, says that rounding up veterans can be challenging.

"A lot of veterans want to know what the trick is because we say it is free. There is no trick, the trick is that it is all made possible by kind work of individuals and sponsors," he said.