WASHINGTON - As a young sailor, 21 or 22, Henry Korell stood on the deck of his ship and looked up at a sky filled with Japanese suicide planes. One fell to the water. Another dived toward the USS Mexico, carving a 30-foot tunnel into the deck of the ship. It looked like someone had cut through it with a blow torch.

The next day he watched 55 men go into the water, a traditional U.S. Navy burial, the same Korell would have wanted had the plane hit his boat instead.

It was May 12, 1945. Korell was already a husband and a father.

He thought of 55 families who would never get their men back - only telegrams.

Korell, now 88 and living in Torrington, thought of these families again on Wednesday.

He and 110 Wyoming veterans toured the World War II Memorial as part of Honor Flight-Wyoming's first trip. Some remembered stories they hadn't told in years. Some remembered stories they would never tell, not even to other veterans.

It's a stereotype that when vets get together the war stories start flying, said Bill Yannacone, 87, of Cheyenne.

But on Wednesday, in the nation's capital, it was tempting to tell.

"It's not arrogance, certainly, but a little bit of pride. I was there. I did it," said Yannacone, a Navy man who served from 1944 to 1946.

He remembered a saying he once heard: You wouldn't take a million bucks for the experience, but you'd give a million not to have to do it again.

The corridor from the plaza to the first 43-foot granite archway is about 148 feet. Wednesday morning, children lined each side. They waited for every Wyoming veteran to pass through, either by his own feet or pushed in a wheelchair.

The children clapped. For each one, no matter how slow. People had been clapping for them since they left Cheyenne Tuesday morning - at the Taco John's Events Center, at both airports, at the hotel.

The veterans didn't know what the fuss was about.

When George Grenier, 84, came home in 1946, no one to met him in Pensacola, Fla. The Navy handed him a train ticket and sent him on his way. No parades. No newspaper articles. No homecoming ceremonies waiting for him in Sundance.

Too many boys were coming home with him.

For Grenier, three years passed from when he started boot camp on his 18th birthday to when he got his discharge papers on his 21st.

"You kind of think that you missed a period of your life. Most of the kids my age had been in the service. I think we matured a little too quick," said Grenier, now living in Casper.

The men went to college, to the farm or to look for work. They took the reins of a country still grieving the loss of 400,000 sons and daughters and started building it up again.

For a very long time, the country moved on.

Grenier worked for Black Hills Bentonite for 50 years and raised four children with his wife.

America, meanwhile, built memorials to Vietnam and Korea.

Finally, in 1993, President Bill Clinton signed a law authorizing the building of a World War II memorial. And just as they had done 50 years earlier, veterans went to work. The memorial wasn't just built for them; it was built by them. They sent in millions of dollars, raising all but $16 million of the $197 million price tag.

The memorial opened Memorial Day weekend in 2004.

The trouble was, few veterans were coming to see it. They were too old, too sick or too poor.

Earl Morse, a physician's assistant in a Veterans Affairs clinic in Springfield, Ohio, noticed soon after it opened that his patients weren't making the trip.

"And reality was setting in. They were never going to see their memorial," said Morse, founder and president of Honor Flight Network, an organization that flies World War II vets to the memorial, free of charge. The network has so far flown 18,000 veterans from 45 states.

After 55 Wyoming veterans made the trip in September with Honor Flight-Northern Colorado, a core of citizens decided Wyoming could do this for their own.

Getting 110 men aged 81 to 94 to and from Washington, D.C., is a logistical challenge. Even the saviors of democracy have to remove their shoes before getting on a plane.

"OK. Everyone down to their underwear. It will be easier," said guardian Chuck Tarter of Cheyenne as veterans emptied their pockets into gray tubs.

Tarter was the comic relief of the trip.

He was also a necessary set of hands. It took 40 guardians, 40 wheelchairs, nine months of planning, two paramedics, a staff doctor and a supply of extra canes to make the trip work.

In a whirlwind schedule, the entire trip would take just under 40 hours. But in that time, the veterans would see six memorials: World War II, the Korean and Vietnam wars, the Navy and Iwo Jima.

Wednesday, Mike Perri, 85, of Rock Springs walked under the "Atlantic" archway and looked at the place he'd been sure he'd never see.

He had started donating to the World War II memorial as soon as fundraisers started collecting. He'd even planned a trip to Washington, D.C. But when his wife underwent bypass surgery, he figured he lost his chance.

But here he was.

He thought of Cassidy, a friend from the Army's 8th Infantry Division.

Perri had been a platoon leader. When he was injured in 1944, Cassidy took his place. Days later, Cassidy was dead, shot by a German 8 mm rifle.

"I feel like he gave his life for me," Perri said.

He paused, looking for composure but finding none. "I think about him all the time. You become brothers, you get as close to them as your own family."

All around him, men battled their own overwhelming emotions. Some told their stories - stories about friends lost in Europe or the Pacific, or friends who came home but died before the memorial was built.

Some stories the veterans kept to themselves, locked away as they have always been.

R.C. Goheen, 84, of Cheyenne sat alone in his wheelchair facing the Freedom Wall. It bears 4,000 sculptured gold stars, the war's symbol of a son or daughter, husband or father, who would never come home.

"To see them stars … Every one means 100 people killed," Goheen said.

He served five years in the Navy and only came home once for a survivor's leave that wasn't long enough.

What did he survive? He wouldn't say. That story is his.

"Thank God for Truman," he managed finally. "He dropped the bomb."

Scott Peterson, 87, of Saratoga served in the Navy from 1942 to 1944. He held his cane close and blinked against the bright sun and the water welling in his eyes. "Coming here is like pulling a cork out of a bottle," he said and wiped a tear from his cheek.

He shrugged.

"When my wife died, I cried for a few days and got over it."

War, he told a group of gathering kids, is not glamorous. It's hard and ugly and sometimes necessary. Yes, he lost many friends in the war. Yes, he was crying for them today.

Perhaps, he said, he was crying now because there was no time for it 65 years ago.

"You know why this wasn't here for so long?" he asked, noting the granite pillars towering above him.

"Because we were too busy building houses."

Not all of the stories were sad or all the memories painful.

Norman Johnson, 85, of Glenrock couldn't believe the reception. He's not sure he's a hero like people kept saying, but it made him smile all the same.

A boy from California, Finn Wurtz, 14, peppered Johnson with questions, a video recorder capturing every answer.

How was the food? Were you ever captured? Where did you serve?

Wurtz couldn't imagine foxholes or the sound of mortars or a field echoing with gunshots.

"Did you lose any friends?" Wurtz asked.

"I lost a lot of friends."

"Were you ever cornered, trapped or surrounded?"

"Yeah. We were stuck on a beach for two days and two nights, and we couldn't get off."

Johnson, serving in the Army infantry for three years, stayed on the beach, ducking in foxholes, until the Japanese ran out of ammunition.

He dug a lot of foxholes, actually. Inside one, he met Ross, a 42-year-old soldier who'd survived 18 combat engagements and saved Johnson's life half a dozen times. A mortar's coming, Johnson would yell and jump up, ready to run. Ross would hold him down.

That's going to miss us by a country mile, Ross would say. And he'd be right.

Ross took care of Johnson and the younger soldiers. He left the war intact.

The boy lowered his camera so he could look the veteran in the eye: "I want to thank you for your service."

It's been a long 40 hours for Ivan Bruderer, 83, of Auburn.

And he's got farther to go. He lives so far west that people kid him to take care while mowing his lawn or he just might cross into Idaho. It's a six-hour drive home tomorrow.

He's tired, but still smiling.

If there's ever a doubt about the power this experience can have for some veterans, remember Ivan Bruderer.

He stepped on the plane Tuesday telling jokes. (And for his jokes, it's all his delivery. The punch lines aren't so great.)

He relished every friend, every speech, every honor bestowed by strangers.

Then he walked into the memorial.

"I think after all that we've been through, it's too bad some of my buddies couldn't be here to see this."

It's all he could say. Moments later, at the Iwo Jima Memorial, he had no words at all. He raised his hands - no questions. He retreated to a patch of trees, away from the crowd, and looked at the men raising the flag from a distance.

Decades ago, he'd watched a similar scene through a telescope on his ship. He watched the real men, the men honored in larger-than-life bronze, raise the real flag on Iwo Jima. And he remembered the injured Marines his ship carried to hospitals.

But as the plane touched down in Wyoming, just after 9 p.m. Wednesday, Bruderer's smile had come back.

He'd been up when he listened to the praise bestowed by Gov. Dave Freudenthal, former Vice President Dick Cheney and former U.S. Sen. Bob Dole. He'd been low, thinking of friends like Dale Peterson, who would never see the memorial.

He stepped carefully down the steps from the airplane and walked through the corridor of uniformed airmen from F.E. Warren Air Force Base.

Thank you, they said.

Thank you, sir. Welcome home.

Bruderer smiled and nodded at those he could. Two hundred more people waited inside the airport, waiting to shake his hand, pat his back, cheer him as he walked past.

Reach features editor Kristy Gray at 266-0586 or kristy.gray@trib.com.

COMING MONDAY

* Women in service: It wasn't just men who stepped up when duty called. Women served their country, too. Four women World War II veterans went on the first trip for Honor Flight-Wyoming.

* Windows: Charles Dressor, 83, still remembers the sound of an invasion. The bombs, the planes, the bullets. As he prepares to go see the World War II memorial, he thinks back to his own war experiences - the good and the bad.

ON THE WEB

Go to www.trib.com to watch Wyoming's World War II veterans at their memorial in Washington, D.C. Footage was provided by Doug McGee for Honor Flight-Wyoming. Edited by Dan Cepeda, Star-Tribune.

Get involved

There are several ways you can help Honor Flight-Wyoming fly World War II veterans to their memorial in Washington, D.C. Here's how:

* Make a donation: Organizers estimate that there are 5,000 World War II veterans in Wyoming, many of whom have never seen the memorial dedicated to their service. It takes about $130,000 to fly one plane of veterans to Washington, D.C., and Honor Flight can only do it with donations.

The group is now fundraising for a September flight and is considering a spring flight next year. To donate, make checks payable to Honor Flight-Wyoming and send them to P.O. Box 1143, Cheyenne, 82003, or call 307-637-2606.

* Become a guardian: One guardian for every three veterans must go to help veterans get on and off the buses, board the planes or to assist those in wheelchairs. Guardians must pay their own way, $800 all inclusive, to ensure that all donated money is used to fly veterans. Call 307-772-5016 for an application.

* On the Web: Visit www.honorflight.org for more information.