The aviation community abounds with largess. Air ambulance services save and safeguard lives. Charitable organizations such as the Flying Doctors of Mercy, Flying Samaritans, and the Missionary Air Force deliver physicians, medication, food, disaster relief provisions, and hope to communities in critical need of such.
The Corporate Angel Network transports cancer patients and their families to treatment centers otherwise inordinately difficult to reach. Challenge Air for Kids and Friends and Children’s Flight of Hope provide air transportation for ill and injured young people, as well as those with disabilities.
But what of America’s veterans—that historically underserved fraternity of selfless warfighters whose indispensable service to freedom has exacted enduring and terrible bodily, psychological, and emotional tolls? What of those whose struggles span decades—lifetimes, even—and pass without blaring headlines, frenzied news coverage, telethons, crowd-funding campaigns, and the high-profile virtue-signaling opportunities to which recreational do-gooders are drawn in droves?
To those remarkable individuals and their families, the architects, logisticians, aircraft owners, and pilots of the Veteran Airlift Command (VAC) have dedicated their expertise, effort, machines, compassion, and persistence.
Headquartered in the Minneapolis suburb of St. Louis Park, Minnesota, the Veteran Airlift Command provides veterans and active service members air transportation germane to service-related medical needs—to include convalescent leave. The non-profit organization also transports the families and friends of veterans and service members to medical facilities at which their loved ones are receiving treatment or recovering. What’s more, the Veterans Airlift Command provides air transportation to sustaining events the likes of observances and unit reunions.
“Our combat injured return home to face devastating injuries and long-term hospitalization—often hundreds of miles away from their families,” the VAC website sets forth. “Veterans Airlift Command believes that is no reward for sacrifice. And it’s the reason why we fly combat injured veterans to their medical facilities. It’s why we reconnect them with their families. And it’s why these flights cost them nothing. In our eyes, they’ve already paid the price.”
The VAC’s success and the importance of its mission are poignantly expressed in the written accounts of those who’ve benefited from the organization’s efforts:
“Veterans Airlift Command has flew my family and I back and forth from Virginia Beach, VA to Houston, TX for my cancer check-ups since 2018. It really benefited my family that we didn’t have to go through the long TSA lines and layovers that cause me excessive stress and anxiety. I am a retired United States Navy SEAL that lost my left leg below the knee while conducting combat action during Operation Anaconda “Roberts’ Ridge” on March 3-4 2002.”
“I recently had my 60th surgery after initially losing my leg 9 years ago while in Afghanistan. Without Veteran Airlift Command’s assistance I would have had to settle for inefficient care given the nature of my injuries. I’ve been refused by VA’s and even turned away from another large Military installation. Each issue and event causing a massive disruption in trying to live a “normal” life. Veterans Airlift Command and their donors have made it possible for me to receive the necessary care, even in an emergency situation with a seamless, user-friendly process.”
“My time after injury in Afghanistan in 2011 where I lost my right leg would have been substantially more complicated without Veterans Airlift Command. They helped my family and I in ways that I am not sure I will ever truly be able to show.”
Parties interested in supporting the Veterans Airlift Command and its eminently redeeming work are invited to visit the organization’s website.
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