Six local Leelanau County women graced the first-of-akind all-women honor flight from Flint to Washington D.C. on June 12.
One hundred-fifty female veterans with a total of 1,605 years of service boarded the one-in-alifetime trip earlier in June to commemorate Women Veterans Recognition Day.
Suttons Bay veterans Justina Hlavka, Page Sikes, Suzanne McSawby, Leanne Snowden, and Linda Woods represented Leelanau County on the flight. Three women represented the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians.
Hlavka, an Air Force veteran, was an escort to one of the older women veterans that went on the flight.
“All of it was really cool and humbling. To be able to give back to an older veteran, and help her around D.C. was one of the most amazing experiences of my life,” Hlavka said. “The whole nine yards. It was amazing … It’s touching as a veteran, to be there with all the other veterans and remember that none of us were drafted. We all signed up, there’s something inside you that wakes you up, and to do it together was just priceless.”
Hlavka was in air traffic control in the Air Force for six years and then worked at Cherry Capital Airport.
The rare event came about after a mid-Michigan veteran chapter meeting in 2023. Board members of the time realized that of all the Honor Flights they’d ever sent, less than 1% of the veterans that went as honorees were women.
The all-women veteran group started by visiting various war memorials around the capitol for the day and a half before traveling back to Flint.
“Unless you’re absolutely 100% nursing home bound, at least look into it. And if you have an older veteran in your life, look into it for them because you can nominate people anonymously,” Hlavka said. “You do not have to be a veteran to do it. You just got to have love in your heart for your veterans.”
Page Sikes of Leland Township was excited to attend the all-women honor flight. Sikes was an Army nurse and spent four years in active guard reserve before retiring in 2010.
Sikes had a 20-year military career with active duty retirement. She ended up with two brief overseas missions to the Middle East before going back to Chicago. Sikes ended up in the D.C. area and worked in the Office for the Chief of Army Reserve. She was eventually pulled over to a task force at the Pentagon. She started as a butter bar (two bars) and retired as lieutenant colonel.
“I had no idea that I could make it that far in the ranks,” Sikes said. “It was such a special honor on that particular day it didn’t matter what branch.”
While on the trip, Sikes and the group watched paratroopers performing landing drills. Sikes observed a mother and daughter elated when they saw a woman doing the mission.
“Be all you can be,” she said. Leanne Snowden said the trip was emotional. Snowden was in the U.S. Army from 1978-1980 and was trained on the Gatling gun. She served in Germany and remembers many of the nice people there.
“I was proud to be selected, and I was humbled by all the other women that was included in all their experiences, after I got back, I think I cried for about two days,” Snowden said.
Some of her favorite moments were visiting the women’s veterans day statues that represents the eight women nurses that died in Vietnam.
“Driving through there and seeing all the markers. It’s very humbling and I’m proud at the same time to be a member,” Snowden said.
