LAKELAND, Fla. (WFLA) — Ray Hill, a Connecticut native who now lives in Four Corners, has seen Washington D.C. but hasn’t really appreciated it.

“You go on a kind of trip and you drive through D.C. and you look at the White House and you look at all these monuments and you see these towers and things, whatever but you don’t see it,” he said.

Hill, who turns 86 next week, was a Radioman Third Class in the Navy from 1954 to 1962.

He patrolled the Atlantic Ocean in World War II destroyers, chasing submarines.

“We’d be frozen and iced over and our captain would say, ‘Ok turn around, head south.’ So we’d go down and take a break down south. The ice would melt. We would melt,” said Hill.

A photograph from his time in the Navy hangs on the wall at The Glades at Championsgate.

A picture of Harold Katz, 97, hangs there too.

“While I was in basic training, the war was going on in Japan,” Katz said.

After Japan’s surrender in World War II, Katz, a New York native, was deployed to Vienna, Austria.

He, Hill and John Allen, 86, an Air Force Airmen First Class, will be traveling to Washington D.C. on Tuesday for the eighth “Flight to Honor Polk.”

“I haven’t seen any of the monuments so it’s exciting to be able to go and see those,” said Allen.

The free trip will bring 87 veterans to monuments, war memorials and the Arlington National Cemetery.

Flight to Honor Polk prioritizes veterans with severe health conditions and those from World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War.

The veterans are meeting in their lobby at 3 a.m. and returning to Lakeland Linder International Airport at 7 p.m. Tuesday.

“I’m in good health. I can handle it,” said Katz.

Hill will get a chance to soak in the sites, instead of just driving by them as he did on his previous trips.

“I’m gonna appreciate it more. I’m gonna see all these things up close, things I drove by at one time traveling through. But now I get a chance to actually look at things,” said Hill.

Honor Flight West Central Florida is also hosting an honor flight Tuesday out of St. Petersburg.