(bright upbeat music) - Utah Honor Flight provides veterans with a once in a lifetime free trip to Washington DC to visit memorials built in their honor.

Stephanie Harmon shares how this creates opportunities for reflection, connection, and healing.

Welcome, Stephanie.

- Thank you, thank you.

- So, tell me about Honor Flight and the work that it does here in Utah that you guys do.

- Yeah, so like you said, we take veterans back to Washington DC to visit their memorials.

And for a lot of these guys this is just, they kind of go on this thinking that this is just a trip to go back and visit those memorials.

We're predominantly flying Vietnam vets, but when they get there and they're able to be around other veterans and see these memorials and share their stories with people, there's so much healing that takes place that's just amazing.

- What drives you to be a part of this and to continue pushing to find more vets to be able to take out there and to be, for the resources to be able to do this as well?

- Yeah, so for me personally, I come from a long history of Vietnam, or veterans.

My dad was a Vietnam veteran.

Both of my grandpas served in World War II.

Both of my other, my great grandpas served in World War I, have nieces and nephews that are serving now.

But what drives us the most, especially for all of us on the board, is hearing the veterans' stories when they come home.

Families coming back to us and telling us like what a difference just two days made for their dad.

We've had a lot of veterans that will come back and their families will reach back out and say, "I don't know what you guys did to my dad in two days, but that healing that they got was way more than they got through all of their therapies and things like that."

And I think it's just them being able to connect with other veterans.

Because a lot of them, when they start going through therapy they don't want to talk to other veterans.

They don't want to talk about their military history and what happened to them.

But when they get one-on-one with another veteran those stories just kind of seem to naturally come out.

- Yeah, so it's a whole communal experience.

- Yeah.

- And like you said, a healing experience as well.

- It is, yeah.

- Are there any moments that you'll never forget?

- There's a lot of moments that I'll never forget.

(laughs) Yeah, just standing, oh gosh, standing at the Vietnam Wall listening to veterans who were the only survivors of their units telling us those stories.

And a lot of times it just feels like you shouldn't be in that space, but they're sharing that story.

Listening, when we used to fly World War II veterans, they are just so humble with their stories.

- It just really touches - Yeah.

- your heart.

- It does.

- Thank you so much for opening up and sharing that.

For more information, the details are on your screen.

Just head to utahhonorflight.org.

I'm Liz Adeola, and thanks for watching "Contact."

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