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Locals fly in today’s Honor Flight
Published October 24, 2009
Four of the 126 Tennessee Valley veterans eligible for the Honor Flight today are from the Sand Mountain area.
Edward “Lou” L. Howren, of Albertville; Drexell L. Morrow, of Horton; Harold H. Nelson, of Albertville; and Clarence Rutherford, of Albertville, were scheduled to fly to the nation’s capital today and visit the National World War II Memorial.
The memorial, which opened to the public in 2004, honors the 16 million who served in the armed forces, the more than 400,000 who died and everyone else who supported the war effort from home.
Honor Flight is a nonprofit organization dedicated to transporting veterans to Washington, D.C., so they can visit memorials built in their honor.
Morrow is looking forward to visiting the memorial. He said he visited D.C. before the memorial was built.
“I’m part of it, I guess. I put in three years,” Morrow said, explaining why he wants to see the memorial. “I wondered why they waited so long to build it. So many passed away before it was built. I think there was about 16 million who served, and they say now about three million are left, and they’re dying at the rate of 1,300 a day.”
Morrow, who turns 85 on Thanksgiving day, served as an Army engineer during World War II starting in 1943.
“We were in an equipment company,” he said. “We built bridges in Germany, did roadwork … whatever needed to be done.”
The lifelong Horton resident attended Douglas High School and retired from the Alabama Department of Agriculture and Industries.
Morrow said of the war, “It was something that had to be done.”
Howren to miss flight
At least one of the four Sand Mountain area veterans will miss the Honor Flight today.
Howren, 85, is sick but said he plans to visit the memorial next summer. He served in the Army Air Corps during World War II from 1941 to 1945 with tours of duty in the Philippines and Iwo Jima.
Howren moved to Albertville in 1969 and is a retired Albertville city clerk/treasurer.
“It’d be wonderful to see it,” Howren said, referring to the memorial. “It’ll bring back a lot of memories. I have good memories and I have bad memories, but it was all well worth doing.”
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