ESCANABA — Upper Peninsula Honor Flight will be making its first all-women veteran flight to Washington, DC today, as well as May 21.

Honor Flight Network is a nonprofit that celebrates military veterans by taking them to monuments erected in their honor. Initially for World War II vets specifically, the first Honor Flight took place in May 2005 out of Springfield, Ohio.

20 years later, about 130 chapters in 45 states continue the mission, serving veterans of all branches. The organization reports that around the country, over 300,000 vets have made the journey through the program.

U.P. Honor Flight took off in 2011, and has made 24 flights so far. Another is scheduled for May 7.

Last year, talk was underway locally about trying to organize a flight exclusively for female veterans.

168 applications were accepted, and Mission XXVI came together as the “U.P. Women of Valor Flight.”

The 168 women represent all branches, and served from the Vietnam War to the present, said U.P. Honor Flight President Scott Knauf.

“We are not bringing guardians on this flight, and we will be matching up the younger women with the older women, and they will be service sisters on this flight,” Knauf reported.

Participants may be surprised with a token unique to the May 21 flight, which is scheduled to depart from Delta County Airport in Escanaba that morning.

U.P. Honor Flight says that priority is still given to senior veterans from WWII and Vietnam and the terminally ill, but they accept applications “from all veterans who served from 1941 to May of 1975 to see the memorials that stand, whether they served during war time or peace time and stateside or overseas,” according to their website: uphonorflight.org.