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Washington • Nearly 70 yearsand thousands of miles removed, Benny Benson of Murray sat beside a fountain at the World War II Memorial in Washington on Friday pondering the difference between the calm, inspiring monuments and the devastation he saw after America dropped an atomic bomb in Hiroshima.
"I don't want another war," said Benson, 95, a former Air Force pilot who flew a B-17 bomber as part of the support team for the first atomic bombing. It was an honor, he said, to be among fellow WWII veterans at the memorial on the National Mall. But it was also difficult.
"The bad part is, you don't want to remember," he said. "I have nightmares from it."
Benson joined 65 other veterans from Utah on the state's third Honor Flight, an effort to bring those who served their country to the nation's capital to view the memorials built for them. The blue-shirt-clad vets, many in wheelchairs, posed with their guardians for pictures and toured the monuments early Friday.
"I served my country, and I'm glad I did, and I'm glad I'm here now," said Lavoy Christensen, an 87-year-old Sugar House resident who joined the Navy at age 17 and served in a destroyer group during the war. "This is the greatest thing for World War II veterans I've ever, ever, ever seen."
Christensen, who also participated in the U.S. occupation of Japan after the war, donated money to the effort to build the WWII Memorial and had hoped one day to see it in person. The Honor Flight, paid for by donations, brought the chance, something he treasures.
"Look how thrilled these guys are," he said, "and a lot of them won't be here next year" to see the memorial, so it's important they got the opportunity now.
Eldon Nielsen, a 90-year-old Hyrum resident who served in the Pacific theater on the USS Tennessee, which participated in the battles in Iwo Jima and Saipan, was honored to have the chance to visit the memorial that pays tribute to both theaters of war, those who survived and those who never made it back.
"I'm a has-been farmer, but I'm still a Navy man," Nielsen said.
Carl Santoro of South Ogden was a Navy man, too. The 89-year-old who still plays drums with a Dixieland band, said the memorial — and the trip to see it— was an important reminder of the patriotic sacrifices so many people made in World War II and other wars.
"The big thing is that we should really be aware the good things that have happened to us over the years and we do owe something to the veterans," Santoro said. "Many of them did it because they had a patriotic reason. Some did it for other reasons. Overall, they all did some good for their country, for their families and their posterity."