Having just watched the story of the Indy, I am prompted to salute those of you who survived and those who didn't make it. I was a very young boy when my dad died in WW2. A Navy vet, who lived but a short distance from us and who was aboard a ship that was sunk in the Pacific sort of took me in as his little brother. His name was Ernie Dixon. At the end of the war, troop trains filled with GIs coming back from the Pacific stopped by our house nearly every day.

Ernie told me many stories of his buddies that died, calling many of them heroes. One day, a hospital train stopped by our house on the Wabash railroad.  Ernie was allowed aboard and walked from car to car and got off by our house. When the train moved on, we sat on the rail and talked for some time, and I could tell he was truly bothered by what he saw on the train.

A week later, Ernie stepped in front of a fast moving freight train. At the time, I couldn't understand it but, some years later, I understood. War is hell, but it is due to fellows like you survivors of the Indy that we wear the badge of freedom like no other country in the world. I salute you gentlemen.