COEUR d'ALENE - Bob Ball had one regret on Tuesday morning.

That he hadn't put his father on the Honor Flight waiting list sooner.

"Last summer he could have done it," the Hayden man said of the nonprofit program that flies veterans to tour war memorials in Washington, D.C. "Over the last six months, we've seen a gradual regression."

So on Tuesday, his father, Robert, who served in the Army Air Force in World War II, received the next best thing.

Representatives of Honor Flight visited Robert at the Country Comfort Residential Care facility in Coeur d'Alene, where they presented him with a speech, DVD and T-shirt that all Honor Flight participants receive.

Tony Lamanna, Inland Northwest Honor Flight president, pulled up a chair beside the 91-year-old veteran, seated in a wheelchair and wearing his favorite baseball cap, reading "World War II Veteran."

Deni Wiggins, also with Honor Flight, kneeled by Robert and clasped his right hand as Lamanna pulled out his trusty speech.

His head close to Robert's, Lamanna described the impact of World War II on the country. He emphasized words like "admiration" and "heroes," his eyes watering on occasion.

"You likely had to endure the unendurable. You may carry emotional wounds of the war to this day," Lamanna said.

It was hard to tell how much reached Robert, who was bent in his seat, his eyes closed from time to time.

Wiggins was smiling as she stood up.

"There were definitely parts that sunk in, because I could feel," she said, releasing her hand from Robert's. "I could feel the tension increase."

Bob thanked the pair, and called the presentation moving.

The waiting list for the Honor Flight had been long, Bob said, and the Country Comfort staff had agreed Robert wasn't up for a memorial tour in October.

"I was hoping he would be more alert," Bob said of his father during Tuesday's presentation. "He has good days and bad days."

Robert had enlisted when he was 19 or 20, Bob said, after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in December, 1941. The event particularly hit home for Robert, whose brother Frank had been stationed at Pearl Harbor and survived the attack.

"After what happened to his brother, he wanted to go," Bob said.

Robert served as a B-17 crew chief, Bob said, denied his hope of being a pilot because he was colorblind. Stationed in North Africa, Robert worked at former Italian and German bases that the Allied forces had taken over.

"If a plane was short of parts, which was common, my dad and other chiefs did what they could to Mickey Mouse parts to get that plane off the ground," Bob said. "Even if that meant taking parts from German or Italian planes."

A table was spread with a collection of serial plates his father had taken off such planes, and kept all his life.

Robert had even used beer cans to patch up bullet holes, Bob added.

"Clever. Very clever," he said, adding that his father later worked as an assembly line machinist. "He could improvise."

The bases were often bombed, Bob noted, and Robert also survived a B-24 crash in Italy.

"He had two close calls," Bob said.

Kimberlee Ciccone, business manager at Country Comfort, said on previous days Robert has described in vivid detail hiding in a boxcar during the war.

"Every now and then, the pride will still kick in," she said, adding that he'll reach for his World War II hat above all others.

For more information about Inland Northwest Honor Flight, go to: http://inwhonorflight.org.

Bob encouraged folks to sign up their own veteran relatives for the program.

Just as important, he said, donate to Honor Flight so veterans won't wait so long to participate.

"We're losing how many a day?" Bob said. "Every day they're aging more and more."