He won’t talk about his service in Vietnam. His children got a glimpse on his Honor Flight.

DULUTH – The veterans who deplaned at Duluth International Airport on Saturday night after a whirlwind tour were greeted by a marching band — bagpipes included — American flags and homemade signs, and many friends, family and fans.

A crew near the back of the crowd started a chant when they saw Doug Heiken, wearing the signature gold shirt of the Honor Flight honorees, descend the escalator to meet them.

“Bopa! Bopa!” they said, using the family nickname and waving signs.

On Saturday, Heiken, of Grand Rapids, was among the 104 veterans to travel with Honor Flight Northland, a nonprofit that takes former service members from the region to Washington, D.C., for a daylong visit to the district’s memorials.

Each traveler is allowed a guardian. Heiken, who served in the war in Vietnam, went with his son Sam, and through work-related chance, his daughter Emily was able to go along, too.

Emily Heiken works for Minnesota Power. It’s considered a “Yellow-Ribbon Company,” with ties to the local Honor Flight program, and it has sent chaperones on the tours.

World War II veterans and those with terminal illnesses get top priority for the flights. Veterans are otherwise selected in the order in which they signed up.

This was Doug Heiken’s year.

Emily Heiken didn’t win the work drawing to be a chaperone, but a coworker who did gave up her spot to Heiken.

She immediately contacted her father.

“He was getting emotional, and tearing up, and really so excited,” she said.

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Doug Heiken hasn’t talked much about what happened while he was in the military, a period that also included time in Germany, but in recent years he recorded an oral history that Emily Heiken collected alongside photographs he had taken. He will talk about the Army, he says, but he’s not ready to talk about the Vietnam War.

Emily Heiken turned the family history into a book that features on the cover a retro photograph of her father with a cigar in his mouth.

“Dear Children,” it starts.

Heiken was a farm kid-turned-carpenter living in Atlantic, Iowa, when he enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1968. After training, he shipped out to the Mekong Delta, near the town of Vinh Long. He arrived there on the day of the moon landing, he said.

Heiken held a leadership position, and his team built barracks for a helicopter unit and water towers. They built three-room buildings for Special Forces and bridges — including a float bridge to Cambodia.

“Several years later, I was watching some old news footage about the war, and one of them was [President Richard] Nixon announcing that the U.S. was going into Cambodia,” Heiken said in his oral history. “I realized while he was making that announcement we were just finishing the bridge.”

Heiken left Vietnam a year from the day he landed there and was stationed in Germany, assigned to training. He was honorably discharged in 1972.

“I liked the Army and could’ve made a career of it, but I didn’t think it was a good place to raise a family,” he said in his oral history. “And more than anything, I wanted to raise a family.”

In 1974, he moved from Colorado to Grand Rapids, where he married, and he and his wife, Mary, had children Luke, Emily and Sam. Heiken has a son, Scott, from a previous marriage.

Emily Heiken describes her father as gentle, a vegetarian. He’s a family man who makes little sketches.

While awaiting him at the Duluth International Airport on Saturday night, Kya Heiken, one of several grandchildren waiting with signs, described him as looking like a cross between Bernie Sanders and Geppetto, Pinocchio’s kindly maker.

In looks and personality, a friend of the family added.

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The veterans entered the terminal at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport to a hero’s welcome.

“Coming into the airport, everybody applauded,” Heiken said. “That experience I’ve never had.”

By noon, humidity was low and skies were blue as the flight’s buses pulled onto the National Mall.

At the World War II Memorial, nestled within eyesight of the Lincoln Memorial, fountains gurgled, and a man dressed as a wartime, cigar-smoking General Dwight D. Eisenhower shook veterans’ hands. A tour guide slapped a thick packet and yelled, “I’ve got your re-enlistment papers right here!” to guffaws.

Heiken stood at the pool at the WWII memorial, taking in the throng of people. Around him mingled veterans from Hibbing and Duluth. He said he’d not known anyone on the trip, but he felt a bond among people with a shared experience.

“We’ve all kind of taken the same journey,” he said. “I’m just really overwhelmed.”

Soon, they were hustling back to the bus. The itinerary was like a tour guide’s final exam: crisscrossing the Potomac River for sightseeing at Arlington National Cemetery, the U.S. Capitol, the White House. Around dinner, they visited the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, before returning to the airport.

Midway through the flight, Heiken’s daughter and son gave him a surprise mailbag.

“[In Vietnam] every day they had mail call,” Heiken said. “If you got a letter, you were super excited.”

On Saturday’s flight to D.C., Heiken opened the letters and saw notes from his children, wife and cousins. There were drawings from his grandchildren. Decades later, he was still affected by mail call.

Back in Duluth, he was surprised to see the marching band and “half of Duluth” waiting at the airport.

“A huge part of the day for me was having that kind of time with my children, and having them share that experience with me was great,” he said.