BANGOR – Three married couples who served in World War II are among 140 people who will fly to Washington Friday morning to visit the World War II Memorial and other patriotic landmarks.

Sponsored by the Cole Land Transportation Museum in Bangor, the one-day trip will be aboard a 727 jet donated for the day by Pan American, whose president, David Fink, is a veteran.

Barbara and Frank Jewell of Hampden, Nancy and Guy Ellms of Dexter, and Ruby and Andrew Maliszewski of Verona will make the flight.

Museum founder Galen Cole started out hoping to find a plane that would carry 50 people to Washington, but found it easy to fill the seats of the larger aircraft with some 78 veterans – 40 of whom served in World War II, museum volunteers, troop greeters who have been meeting troop flights during both Gulf Wars at Bangor International Airport and other community members.

Del Merrill will be aboard – not because he used to be president of Husson College, but because he was a Marine foot soldier in World War II and volunteers at the museum.

The group will include at least three teachers who have brought classes to the museum for the Patriot Program, which allows small groups of youngsters to interview veterans about their military service.

The Maliszewskis, for example, have been interviewed by a total of 700 pupils through the program.

The teachers going on the trip are Patty Pelletier, a middle school teacher in Ellsworth, Debra Butterfield from Gardiner Regional High School and Pat Groleau from Lawrence Junior High.

Pelletier, Cole pointed out, “has promoted patriotism since 1986 when she held high a patriotic slogan as veterans passed by, ‘You are all heroes,’ during the dedication of the Veterans Remembrance Bridge.

The highlight of the trip will be the 2 p.m. visit and a service at the World War II Memorial. Rianne Barker of Machias will sing the National Anthem and read the prize-winning essay on patriotism she wrote after visiting World War II sites in Europe last year with the Washington County Children’s Chorus.

Also on the trip will be 13-year-old Ricky Bradeen, a Milo youth who has been a troop greeter at more than 500 flights into BIA.

World War II veterans on the flight will include four who marched in the Sept. 2 parade marking the 60th anniversary of the end of the war, and four who attended afternoon ceremonies at the museum.

In Washington, participants will travel by bus and view the White House, the Vietnam Memorial, the Korean Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, the Iwo Jima Memorial and the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery. They will eat lunch at one of the Senate dining rooms.

After a very full day, the group expects to return to Bangor about 9 p.m.

Story and photos of the veterans’ trip to the World War II Memorial will be featured in Monday’s Bangor Daily News.