At the Indianapolis International Airport earlier this week, people gathered outside the gate to greet 10 Indiana veterans and their closest family members about to hop on a flight to Washington, D.C.
They’re part of an Honor Flight, a program that takes veterans that served from World War II through the Vietnam era to visit national memorials. This group of veterans will be in the nation’s capital on Veterans Day.
The Nov. 9 flight, paid for by tech giant Meta, allowed veterans from all parts of the state to take the flight together.
Here are some of their stories.
Joining the Marines to help starving children
Freddie Edwards, 75, grew up in Florida, but moved to the near north side of Indianapolis in the late 1960s to work as an orderly at St. Vincent Hospital.
While working there, he heard about the Nigerian Civil War and children starving in a breakaway territory called Biafra.
He had acquired some medical training and wanted to help the Biafran people, but he couldn’t find a way to get there.
“I had a talent, and I wanted to go to Biafra to use it, and they said they weren’t taking anyone, so I said, ‘Well, why not just join the U.S. Marine Corps?’” he said.
He joined the Marines in 1970, during the height of the Vietnam War. He admits he didn’t know much about the military, especially that the Marines didn’t have their own medical service. Medical treatment for U.S. Marines is handled by U.S. Navy doctors and hospital corpsmen.
The Marines decided Edwards should be an automotive mechanic.
“I should have joined the Army or Navy, then I would have been back in the medical field. Instead, they turned medically sterile hands into greasy hands,” he said. “I tricked myself, but I learned to love it.”
Edwards would serve in Vietnam and would be stationed in places like Okinawa, Japan. His time in the service ended when an on-base explosion at Camp Pendleton, California, caused him to slowly lose his vision. He was medically retired in 1978.
After the Marines, Edwards got a job as an automotive mechanic supervisor for IPS. He’s now retired and lives in Lawrence.
He never made it to Biafra.
Carrying on the family tradition
Angola, Indiana native David Wood joined the U.S. Army because it was his turn.
“I had a long family history of people in the military, the Army in particular, so that’s the direction I wanted to go,” he said.
Wood, 64, served for two decades, from 1980 to 2000. He served as an Army medic throughout his enlistment.
“It was something I was interested in. I don’t know if I really knew what I was getting into at the time, but when you’re 17 you think differently. Probably the smartest decision I’ve made my whole life was joining and staying in,” he said.
After his time in the service, Wood worked at several universities throughout Indiana.
Later in life, he developed intraocular melanoma, which caused him to get his left eye removed. He has little vision in his right eye and has the help of a guide dog from the Blinded Veterans Association named Tessi.
Wood says he couldn’t have accomplished anything without the help of his wife, Linda, who accompanied him on the Honor Flight.
“Every veteran will tell you the same. You couldn’t do it without your spouse,” he said.
The mortarman with unrequited love
For Portland, Indiana native Glenn Walker, joining the Indiana National Guard at 20 years old was the best way to avoid something worse — the Vietnam War.
Walker, now 75, said he fell in love with a woman and didn’t want to get separated from her by getting drafted to fight in Vietnam. He joined the Indiana National Guard and was trained as a mortarman.
“Then we broke up,” he said.
Walker, though, couldn’t leave the Army. He was stuck fulfilling his six-year contract, but he and his squad mates made the most of their time.
“Every night was a party, because we were infantry,” he said.
But serving in the military wasn’t his passion, and he eagerly left the Guard after he completed his service.
“I was real happy to be done with it,” he said. “I couldn’t have a beard, and I couldn’t have long hair.”
In protest, Walker has had a beard ever since.
“No one’s seen the full face. My daughter, my grandkids, they have never seen me without a beard. They wouldn’t know me without a beard,” he said.
Walker now volunteers at his local American Legion as a member of the honor guard.
“I don’t want to see a veteran die, but somebody’s got to put them in the ground. And I’ve been doing that for almost 25 years,” he said.
From the infantry to human resources
Greenwood resident Jeff Leffler’s Army career began in 1980 with the search for some cash.
“I came from a pretty large family, and there wasn’t enough money to send all of us to college. So, I joined in hopes of saving up money to go to college,” he said.
He served as an infantryman for the first half of his career.
“You were out in the field all the time, and just gone all the time. As I got older, I wanted to be home more, but I still wanted to stay in the service,” he said.
Leffler later joined the Army’s Adjutant General Corps, essentially its human resources and staffing branch. His career would take him to places like Germany, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina before he retired in 1998.
This summer, he experienced a stroke that took his eyesight. He’s one of 130,000 veterans with visual impairments that will receive free Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses that can read documents, identify objects and complete daily tasks.
Leffler is married to a retired Veterans Affairs nurse, Vicki, who is accompanying him on the Honor Flight. For her, Veterans Day is an emotional one.
“It’s a day to reflect on my patriotism,” she said. “I was raised by a father who was very patriotic and instilled a lot of that into his kids. So it’s a day to reflect on my country and how grateful I am to have people that you know care enough about it to make a lot of sacrifices.”
On his Honor Flight, Jeff Leffler is looking forward to seeing the World War II Memorial.
“My grandfather, my dad’s dad, was killed in Africa during World War II, and we’ve got a long list of family members that have served. So I’m looking forward to seeing their names there,” he said.
Avoiding the draft in the Navy
Navy veteran Roger Gilliland, a Peru, Indiana native, joined the military in 1968 when the Vietnam War was as hot as it could be.
The North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong forces launched the Tet Offensive that January, the Marine base at Khe Sanh was encircled and the U.S. military launched several offensives to prove they could still win the war.
Gilliland was aware he couldn’t avoid serving for long, so he did it his way.
“It was a paying job. I had to go somewhere and I didn’t want to be drafted, so I joined the Navy,” he said.
He became a hospital corpsman, essentially a Navy medic, and served at Naval Station Great Lakes in Illinois, Norfolk, Virginia and Camp Lejeune in North Carolina.
Gilliland enjoyed the friendships he made while in the Navy.
“I miss the camaraderie with the guys. It was a really close knit group. We all had a common cause,” he said.
Lately, the memories of his service and other experiences have started to fade away.
“The years have taken a toll on me. I can’t remember a lot of things anymore. I can remember things like my second grade school teacher, but I can’t remember some other things,” he said.
Veterans Days to Gilliland are days to remember those he served with.
“A lot of guys go out and get the veterans discounts at the restaurants. I just stay at home and reflect and relax,” he said.
He hopes to honor his family members and other veterans while in the nation’s capital.
“My dad was in World War II, and my uncle was in Korea. The Vietnam Wall. I want to see that one,” he said.
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Mirror Indy reporter Enrique Saenz covers west Indianapolis. Contact him at 317-983-4203 or enrique.saenz@mirrorindy.org. Follow him on Bluesky at @enriquesaenz.bsky.social.
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