Wheaton-area students surprise WWII vet with Honor Flight letters

Dozens of manila envelopes are scattered across George Lutz's dining room table, the contents of some spilling out.

There are crayon drawings of American flags and neatly typed notes, cards covered in patriotic stickers and pencil-written thank-yous on folded notebook paper.

“The number of letters we got, we spent two days, about four hours on each day, just reading them, and I think we still have another four or five days to go through them all,” Lutz said.

The more than 2,000 pieces of correspondence — mostly from young strangers — were part of a surprise “mail call” that occurred when the World War II veteran took an Honor Flight earlier this month to Washington, D.C.

Just a month ago, as they prepared to take the trip together, Lutz's son, Charles, was worried if he could collect even a few dozen letters for his father.

Representatives from the Honor Flight Network — which provides the free one-day trips for service members who want to see the memorials that honor their service — told Charles the veterans often receive 200 to 500 letters.

George, 94, of Burr Ridge, had never joined a VFW or American Legion post. He didn't belong to a church, and most of his friends had died.

Charles estimated he could gather 25 letters, maybe 35 at best.

In a last-minute effort to prepare for the mail call, Charles wrote to Matt Biscan, principal of his daughters' alma mater, Wheaton North High School.

“We were wondering if it could be possible to have your students write him a letter — short, long, drawings, anything — thanking him for his service during World War II?” he wrote. “We understand that you have a school curriculum to run and we don't want to put any undue burden on you, but we are not sure where else to go to obtain additional letters.”

Biscan knew, however, that writing letters to George would be something teachers and students at the school would want to help out with.

“It's very personal to us, in terms of what veterans do and what they give up,” he said.

Wheaton North, he said, has been named an Illinois Democracy High School by the Robert R. McCormick Foundation. A Medal of Honor curriculum was also embedded in the school's U.S. History classes after an alum, Robert Miller, received the honor posthumously.

Biscan said he “merely asked our students to take time and write letters.” He publicized it on Twitter and his blog and shared a YouTube video about the Honor Flight on social media.

Some teachers set aside time for the students to write the letters during their social studies classes, and parents joined in the efforts, too.

In the meantime, still not thinking he would get much of a response, Charles and other members of the Lutz family reached out to additional schools and organizations.

They included Daniel Wright Middle School in Lincolnshire; Pleasant Hill Elementary in Winfield; Emerson Elementary, Monroe Middle School and Cub Scouts in Wheaton; and several city officials, schools and a hospital in the Palos Hills area, where George worked as a public works director before retiring at age 85.

The Lutz family is still reveling in the response.

“(They are) just the warmest, most beautiful letters you could ever imagine,” Charles said. “Not just from the young kids, but from the high school kids — telling my father what their dreams are, what they want to be after high school. They shared a bit of their lives with him.”

George said the letters were a huge surprise and very touching.

The letters, combined with the warm greeting he got from a band and hundreds of people when he returned home from the whirlwind day in D.C. — which included stops at the World War II memorial and the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum — brought back good memories.

“Coming home to the airport reminded me of Shanghai, when we were bringing Chinese troops into Shanghai to take over for the Japanese when the truce was on,” he said. “We came in on a charcoal burning truck and people (were) reaching out to us and cheering. It was fantastic. It just reminded me of that, the first parade or greeting that we received there.”

George joined the Army Air Corps, now the Air Force, at age 22 and held the rank of major. He flew planes to just about every part of the world, including Alaska, South America, Africa and Europe.

For the majority of his service time, however, George was stationed in India, where he served as a “Hump” flyer, or a pilot who flew over the Himalaya Mountains to supply troops and to China, where Chinese and American troops were fighting the Japanese.

“When it hit bad weather, I used to think, it's like dueling with the gods,” he said. “We lost a lot of people up there, but mostly in the weather.”

Charles said it took five years to convince his dad to go on the Honor Flight. The experience was so amazing that both son and father are now urging any other World War II veterans — about 800 of whom are estimated to be dying each day — to sign up with Honor Flight Chicago.

“I thought it was just going to be a show of Washington, a show of the monuments and that was going to be very nice, but I never expected anything like what happened,” George said.

”Whoever came up with the idea (of the Honor Flight), it's well worth it. If anybody would like to go they should go.”