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<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nThe group behind the flight said that the mission took about two years to plan and took about $200,000 in fundraising.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis is an honor for us. I\u2019m going to start crying. It\u2019s amazing. What the people did to put it all together,\u201d said Joan Johnson, a Navy veteran.<\/p>\n\n\n
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<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nMission Highlights<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Homecoming<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The veterans returned to Lakeland yesterday evening around 7:45 PM<\/strong>. As is tradition for these missions, they were met with a massive “welcome home” celebration\u2014something many veterans from earlier eras didn’t receive when they originally finished their service. The event featured live music from the Lakeland Concert Band<\/strong> and a crowd of community members dressed in red, white, and blue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" While the Polk Veterans Council has been conducting these missions since 2015, this specific trip was dedicated entirely to women veterans, honoring their unique contributions to the U.S. Armed Forces.… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":63658,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"12","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNlwvMDNcL3ZsY3NuYXAtMjAyNi0wMy0xMS0wOWgyNG0zM3MzNDAud2VicD9maXQ9MTAyNCUyQzU3NiZzc2w9MSIsInR4dCI6Illlc3RlcmRheSwgTWFyY2ggMTEsIDIwMjYsIG1hcmtlZCBhIGhpc3RvcmljIG1pbGVzdG9uZSBhdCBMYWtlbGFuZCBMaW5kZXIgSW50ZXJuYXRpb25hbCBBaXJwb3J0IHdpdGggdGhlIGluYXVndXJhbCBhbGwtZmVtYWxlIEZsaWdodCBvZiBIb25vciIsInRlbXBsYXRlIjoiaGlnaHdheSIsImZvbnQiOiIiLCJibG9nX2lkIjoxNjMwNDA2NjF9.PfKRGHsYjlfV49RKdQUSnzgsAEXSF44-9lXR8QDB4sEMQ"},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[13094,14025,14040,14039],"class_list":["post-63657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-13094","tag-march-11","tag-marked-a-historic-milestone-at-lakeland-linder-international-airport-with-the-inaugural-all-female-flight-of-honor","tag-yesterday"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63657"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63657\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63661,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63657\/revisions\/63661"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n