A Welcome Home, 56 Years later

For Vietnam veteran John Leiker, a Heartland Honor Flight delivered the homecoming he never received.

It’s an all-too-familiar story stemming from one of the country’s most controversial wars.

Vietnam veteran John Leiker came home to Kansas City in April, 1970. He flew into Municipal Airport, in uniform, by himself, was met by his parents, and quietly walked with them through the airport on his way to his home.

No crowds. No cheering. No parades. 

Leiker had served 31 months as a U.S. Army military police soldier. His job most of the time involved escorting convoys to various cities from one of the largest Army bases in South Vietnam, Long Binh Post, about a dozen miles northeast of Saigon noted for its overcrowded Army stockade. “Nobody spat at me or yelled at me at the airport,” Leiker says about his return to KC then. “People more or less ignored me, which was fine with me. We just walked straight to the car and that was that.”

Fast forward 56 years later. October 14th, 2026. 10 p.m. Leiker, now 80 years old, was coming home again. This time it was at Kansas City International Airport along with 92 other veterans from Vietnam and Korea after a busy day in Washington, D.C. visiting memorials—the World War II memorial, Korean war memorial, Vietnam memorial, Lincoln memorial, Pentagon 911 memorial, Iwo Jima memorial, Air Force memorial, and the unknown soldier memorial at Arlington Cemetery.

Their trip was courtesy of the Heartland Honor Flight, one of 134 hubs in a network of Honor Flight volunteers and fundraisers in various cities in the U.S. that was organized in 2005 to fly different groups of veterans on a one-day roundtrip to the nation’s capital. So far, 339,336 vets have gone on these flights.

The welcome home for Leiker’s flight was spectacular. Some vets in wheelchairs, some with walkers, most walking proudly, all beaming with smiles entering the baggage claim section of the airport through an excited gauntlet of family and friends estimated at 500, all cheering, waving signs, hugging them and chanting “USA! USA!”

It was a complete 180 degree difference from 1970. Former Army MP Leiker was stunned.

“I was kind of flabbergasted, on one hand,” he says. “On the other hand, I was fighting emotions. But I said, ‘Well, this is supposed to be a happier occasion, so let’s make the most of it.’ All in all, it was positive, and sure beat the hell of April 1970.”

Leiker had seen all the protests and riots in the U.S. while serving—“all that lawlessness”—and thought he would probably go into law enforcement once he got back home. “I felt it was my duty,” he says.

In February, 1971, he got a job as a Kansas City Missouri police officer, rising to sergeant in the east patrol in 1975 and retiring February 1, 2001.

Leiker reflected on his days in Vietnam during the flight, taking the trip with his daughter, Sarah, by his side as his guardian. “Yes, I had a sense of pride,” Leiker says. “A sense of duty. I think there was camaraderie among all the other vets on the plane. This was a time to get some closure maybe in some parts. It was inspirational,” he says. “All of the trip was positive. But it was saddening too in a way. We didn’t actually lose that war. But we didn’t win it either.”

Most Americans believe that it was just the Vietnam and Korean war vets who were ignored when they came home. But that’s not the whole truth, according to Christie Ramsey, Heartland Honor Flight treasurer. “There is a perception that World War II vets were greeted with parades and open arms,” she says. “They really weren’t. Having interviewed hundreds and hundreds of vets and taken their biographies, I’ve never heard of one who said, ‘Yep, got off the train, got off the plane, and there were tons of people waiting for me, cheering and excited.’ Never happened. So we have to sort of reevaluate our perspective that somehow the World War II vets were treated better or differently than anybody else.”

For each group, she says, these honor flights represent some new aspect of their service. “I’d say the World War II vets feel like it was healing. I think for the Korean vets, it was recognition. I think the Vietnam vets, it would be acceptance,” Ramsey says.

Sadly, it seems, there will always be wars. Leiker’s message for U.S. soldiers now in conflict overseas: Hang in there. 

“Hopefully, we can get things ironed out, and nobody will regard it as a negative experience,” he says. “But I hate the politics involved. All we can do is our duty.”

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