Arizona veteran dies while fulfilling Honor Flight wish
Arizona veteran dies while fulfilling Honor Flight wish
Shawn Raymundo, Arizona RepublicTue, May 5, 2026 at 9:42 PM UTC
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Corrections & Clarifications: A previous version of this article gave an incorrect city of residence for William Baca Tafoya.
Last fall, William Baca Tafoya got a call he had waited about three years for.
The Arizona chapter of the Honor Flight Network, a national organization that takes war veterans on visits to Washington, DC, had a last-minute cancellation.
It invited Tafoya, a Goodyear resident and 78-year-old Vietnam War veteran, on its next trip.
He really wanted to go, but if he did, only one of his two sons was available to accompany him as his “guardian.”
Tafoya opted to wait until the spring trip last month as he preferred that both of his sons, Richard and Eric Tafoya, join the three-day journey.
When Honor Flight agreed, the elder Tafoya hung up the phone, turned to his wife, Erin Tafoya, and said, “I hope I live till April.”
Tafoya died April 25 at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Glen Burnie, Maryland.
“He had such a good heart, and his sense of humor,” said Erin Tafoya, when asked what she will remember most about her late husband. “He always did the right thing. He had integrity. He’s very honest and kind, just so compassionate.”
William Tafoya, who often went by Bill, is an Arizona native who was born in Winslow and attended Tempe High School.
At 17, he got his father’s permission to volunteer for the U.S. Army. He was first stationed in Alaska before getting deployed to Vietnam.
There, he served with the 25th Infantry Division and saw combat as a “tunnel rat” — the infantrymen tasked with navigating the Viet Cong’s tunnel system. That earned him three Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star, his family said.
After the war, he got married to his first wife and had three children. He worked in construction and later became an analyst for APS.
That’s how he met Erin, who worked at the Palo Verde Generating Station.
“He just walked in one day, and our eyes met, and it was just an instant connection,” Erin Tafoya recalled of their first encounter in 1984. “When I look back, it’s hard to believe. We fell in love quick.”
They got married in 1987.
“We’ve been through so much,” Erin Tafoya said.
William Tafoya began suffering from health complications in 1990, surviving two heart attacks that were roughly six months apart. Erin Tafoya was also diagnosed with a rare stage 4 endometrial cancer.
“We’ve been through those challenges together,” she said, adding, “Love and support carried us through.”
During those hardships, William never lost his sense of humor and compassion, Erin recalled.
“He’s a survivor. He had so many close calls with his heart,” she said. “He never let that get him down.”
With his family, William Tafoya enjoyed the outdoors. He would often camp and hunt around Arizona’s mountains.
As Eric Tafoya recalled, his father was very fond of Mormon Lake, which is just south of Flagstaff. That was always odd to the younger Tafoya, though, he said with a chuckle, as there was never good hunting there.
“We did it for 20-something years. It was his favorite place … He just enjoyed his coffee, being out in the woods, he enjoyed his freedom,” Eric Tafoya said, adding, “He knew Mormon Lake like the back of his hand. He never got lost — I got lost — but he never got lost.”
Over the years, William Tafoya has been honored for his military service. Various family members nominated him to be the grand marshal of parades, and one year, his niece nominated him to be recognized at an Arizona Cardinals game.
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One event he applied for on his own, though, was Honor Flight’s trips to Washington, DC.
The organization flies veterans of World War II, the Cold War, the Korean War and the Vietnam War to the nation’s capital for free. During the trip, the veterans get a tour of the various monuments memorializing the fallen service members during those conflicts.
He spent three years on the group’s waitlist, Erin Tafoya said.
When the opportunity to go finally came, though, William’s health had already been deteriorating, Erin noted. His doctors, however, recognized how meaningful the trip would be, so they encouraged him to go.
“He had never been to DC, and to see the Vietnam Veterans Memorial — he had seen replicas throughout the years,” Erin Tafoya said, stressing the opportunity to see the official wall that’s engraved with the names of those who died during the war.
William Tafoya, his sons, and dozens of other veterans embarked for Maryland on April 21. The next day, they toured the various monuments around DC.
“He was in heaven,” Eric Tafoya recalled. “He talked about it for months. His face lit up. It was his bucket list.”
While at the Memorial Wall, Eric and Richard Tafoya helped their father find the names of some of his friends, including a Tempe High School classmate.
“The way he stared at the wall, he accomplished what he was there to do,” Eric Tafoya said. “He got to see his buddies on the wall and visit them one more time."
As their day of sightseeing went on, William Tafoya became ill as his blood pressure started to drop.
He was taken to the hospital for treatment.
Doctors there shocked his heart, which helped to stabilize him for a time, giving his wife Erin some hope that he could make it back home to Goodyear.
After landing in Maryland on the early morning of April 24, she raced to the hospital, where she spent the rest of the day with her husband of 39 years.
The following morning, William Tafoya died.
With much help from Honor Flight and Southwest Airlines, William Tafoya’s body was returned to metro Phoenix with honors on April 30.
When the plane arrived at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, airline employees and firefighters stood at attention while a fire truck flew an American flag. From the tarmac, family and friends were able to retrieve the American flag-draped box containing William Tafoya's body.
“It was a beautiful welcome home flight to Arizona,” Erin Tafoya said.
William Tafoya’s funeral is scheduled for May 11 at Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery and Funeral Home in Avondale.
Erin Tafoya noted that she’s heard from several veterans, including many from the Honor Flight trip, who want to attend. She joked, though, that William Tafoya would be too humble to want any of the attention he’s garnered since his death.
“I can hear him above saying, ‘All this for me?’” she said. “He’d probably be shocked by all this, but he deserves this. He’s very patriotic and always cares about fellow veterans.”
Eric Tafoya echoed the thought. Because his father left such an impression on everyone he met, he said, the funeral service is likely to be “humongous.”
“His smile was everything. A joker, always a joker, he could make a joke on the spot,” Eric Tafoya said. “He’ll be very missed every day by his family and his friends.”
(This story has been to add more information.)
Shawn Raymundo covers Phoenix and Scottsdale. Reach him at sraymundo@gannett.com or follow him on X @ShawnzyTsunami.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona veteran dies while fulfilling Honor Flight wish
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