WW II veteran, former Citizen Times contributor Hogstrom, 99, taking his 1st Honor Flight

HENDERSONVILLE - There will be three World War II veterans on the April 27 Blue Ridge Honor Flight, taking off from Asheville Regional Airport to shuttle veterans to the war memorials in Washington, D.C. One of those three veterans is a man Asheville Citizen Times readers know very well.

Hal Hogstrom, 99, wrote opinion columns for the Asheville Citizen Times for several years. This will be his first Blue Ridge Honor Flight but not his first visit to Washington to see the memorials, he told the Times-News on April 23.

"I have visited Washington, D.C., many times. As a child, my parents took me to the Lincoln Memorial and to the Civil War Battlegrounds in the Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia environs," he said. "In the late 1980s, I took my family to see the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. That included my wife and our daughter from Korea, a teenager at the time. It was a very moving experience."

Hogstrom said he's eagerly awaiting the chance to talk to the other two World War II veterans who will be on the flight.

"I look forward to hearing about their service and experiences in that long ago conflict. I met one of the servicemen at the orientation meeting on April 13 (in Asheville) and I am eager to continue our short conversation from that day," he said.

Blue Ridge Honor Flight was founded in 2005 by Hendersonville's Jeff Miller. There are two flights per year (one in the spring and one in the fall) that takes veterans, free of charge, to the war memorials in Washington, D.C. More information about the flights and how veterans and guardians can apply to be on flights, is available at https://www.blueridgehonorflight.com/.

Young NY college student drafted into war

Hogstrom said he was drafted into the U.S. Army after he spent two months as a student at Queens College. He graduated Bayside High School in New York in 1943.

"In my senior year of high school at Bayside High School in New York, I took an exam to qualify for induction into the Army Specialized Training Program and won acceptance, which led to my training in that program. I entered and completed basic training, after which the ASTP was disbanded," he said.

"We all became members of the U.S. Army Infantry and commenced basic training in Louisiana as members of the 86th Division. I then volunteered for airborne training at Fort Bragg in the 541st Parachute Infantry. It was necessary to make six jumps to qualify as a paratrooper and then I trained for three months in Heavy Weapons.

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He said during that that time his regiment was split in two, with half of the force going to Europe and half going to the Philippines.

"I shipped to the Philippines in the spring of 1945 and continued training, until peace arrived and the war ended," he said.

Hogstrom said his duty wasn't over then, though.

"On V-J Day (Victory over Japan Day), my unit was sent into Atsugi Airbase in Japan and commenced occupation duty until the spring of 1946, when I was separated from the U.S. Army," he said.

For the April 27 flight, there will be 90 veterans aboard, including the three from World War II, five from the Korean War and 80 who served in Vietnam or the Vietnam era. Hogstrom said it's a trip he's been looking forward to for quite some time.

"I am so grateful to have the opportunity to visit other sites honoring World War II and Korean veterans," he said. "I would like to express my gratitude to Jeff Miller for establishing the Honor Flights program, providing veterans with the opportunity to join in remembrance," he said.

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Dean Hensley is the news editor for the Hendersonville Times-News. Email him with tips, questions and comments at DHensley@gannett.com. Please help support this kind of local journalism with a subscription to the Hendersonville Times-News.

This article originally appeared on Hendersonville Times-News: Asheville WWII veteran, 99, taking 1st Honor Flight to DC