Honor Flight – One Last Mission, the 75-minute documentary about the founding and first trip to Washington, DC by Wisconsin’s Stars and Stripes Honor Flight, may have had its “furthest from the U.S.” showing  on December 7, 2016.

Alan and Judy Lewis, members of Honor Flight’s Reagan Washington National Airport Ground Crew, felt there ought to be some recognition of the 75th anniversary of our entry into World War II while they were out of the country on a cruise ship.  They correctly assumed their ship, Regent Cruise Lines Seven Seas Navigator , would have a passenger list that would be a mix of U.S. citizens (and many military veterans), people from countries that were our Allies during World War II (there were), and likely others from former enemy countries who had suffered from the war  (there were some of those, too).

Not wanting to refight the war with a documentary film or a lecture, they decided that the Honor Flight film would be both non-inflamatory and would celebrate Honor Flight as an example of the American spirit of can-do volunteerism.

The film was shown on the afternoon of Wednesday, December 7, 2016, from a DVD that Alan brought with him.  There was an audience of about 50 people.  The ship was then off the coast of Namibia.  Ten days later, off the coast of Gambia, and at the request of the cruise director, it was screened a second time to an audience of about the same size, including at least two people who wanted to see it a second time.

Throughout the 35-day cruise that went from Cape Town to Miami, the Lewises  answered questions about Honor Flight. They directed their fellow passengers to the Honor Flight national website and to the Hub in their own home locale for further information about financial support, volunteering, and getting their area’s own World War II, Korean War and Vietnam War veterans on flights to Washington.