Local Veteran Reflects on 9/11 Memorial During Honor Flight

SAN ANGELO, Texas (Concho Valley Homepage) — On the first day of the Permian Basin Honor Flight to Washington, D.C., I sat beside two remarkable men on the flight from Midland: 89-year-old Vietnam veteran Harrell Josey of Abilene and his guardian, Danny Davis of Midland.

Harrell, who served in the U.S. Air Force during the Vietnam War, is one of dozens of veterans on the Honor Flight. For Danny, being a guardian was something he had wanted to do for years.

“They called me I think in March and said, ‘Hey, we need a guardian for this trip,’” Davis said. “They assigned me a veteran — Harrell — and Harrell actually gave me a call. He knew more about me than I did about him! He’d done his research. But I’m glad to have met him. We chatted a little bit and met that first day — and it’s been great to go on this flight with him.”

Davis, a U.S. Army veteran, served from 1999 to 2002 as part of the Old Guard at Fort Myer, Virginia, a unit responsible for ceremonial duties and emergency support in the Washington, D.C. area.

“In ’01 we were training. One of the functions of the Old Guard is to support the D.C. area police if there are issues where they need backup,” Davis recalled. “At the time, we were training in riot gear for potential protests at the World Bank.”

On Sept. 11, 2001, that training took on a much more urgent meaning when Davis and his unit heard the impact of the plane crashing into the Pentagon.

“We were deployed there to help with the first responders and then to help the ATF, FBI — all the other agencies that were out there,” Davis said.

More than two decades later, this Honor Flight marked Davis’s first visit to the Pentagon Memorial.

“I had not seen that memorial yet,” Davis said. “It was kinda… it was a somber week and a half that we spent there. So coming back to that brought back a lot of memories. Like I said, we could go inside and help firefighters shore up the structure, and look for remains, or survivors, help recover some materials on-site. So coming back to see the area where we were staging all of our equipment before we would run in and do all these different tasks they had for us — and now a memorial — was… it was something to see.”

But for Davis, the trip was not just about remembrance. It was also about connection.

“Hearing these other stories is great. We all have a common thread, and I really love that we can still connect on a certain level even though our stories are all different,” Davis said. “One thing we all share is that we look out for each other, and so it’s great to be in this flight with a whole bunch of people that are looking out for each other and care for each other.”

But both Danny and Harrell were in awe of the Honor Flight experience, especially the connection it fostered among the veterans.

For both men, this journey was not just about remembering their pasts, but about forging new connections and sharing experiences.