MIDDLETOWN – Hudson Valley Honor Flight
held a special red carpet event for the premiere of “Hudson Valley
Honor Flight – Generation Bridge,” a documentary by Joe Allen
chronicling the sixth Honor Flight to Washington, DC for World War II
veterans. The flights originate from Stewart Airport at Newburgh.
The documentary premiered at the Paramount Theatre in Middletown on Saturday
evening. Approximately 700 people came to see the film and support the
veterans who appeared in it.
Grace Damiani, a WWII nurse, is wheeled by Cornelius Denehy,
a WWII vet who served in Europe
Some 700 people attended the premiere of the movie
honoring WWII veterans
Honor Flight co-founder Brian Maher said they were very pleased with
the way Joe Allen brought the essence of the experience to the screen.
“Every single ounce of what Honor Flight is you can see in that
movie,” said Maher. “The emotion, the passion, the tears,
the stories that bring people together who would have never been brought
together had it not been for their Honor Flight experience; he epitomizes
everything it means into this movie and it was just so special being a
part of it and seeing it on the big screen.”
Allen said they set out to make an emotional film and he believes that
they succeeded in that respect. “I wanted to show these guys and
all their emotional feelings about this,” said Allen. “These
guys, a lot of them don’t talk about it, or, haven’t spoken
about the war in many years and now are suddenly near the end of their
lives rediscovering their emotions about it. So, I wanted to make sure
that I captured that.”
Allen financed the movie himself and did it with only about a third of
the anticipated $90,000 budget. He said with the help of some “angels”
they were able to complete the film. Allen announced he is giving the
rights of the movie to HVHF for free.
National statistics show that there are less than one million WWII veterans
alive and they die at a rate of 500 per day. There are only about 11,000
WWII veterans in the Hudson Valley.
Honor Flight has brought over 500 of these veterans on visits to Washington,
DC, but Maher said they’re not sure how many more exclusively WWII
veteran Honor Flights there will be, making the film documented history
of the last exclusively WWII veteran Honor Flight in Hudson Valley. He
said on the next flight coming up this spring, they will be transitioning
to include Korean War vets.
