FORT WAYNE, Ind. (Indiana's NewsCenter) - It was 9:31 a.m. on Sept. 4, 2010. The longitude: -84.85532. The latitude: 41.07396. There were no taps, no sounds of bag pipes at this location, just a silent salute to a fallen soldier on an Indiana road in Allen County.
Mike Ehredt staked a small American flag in the ground, tagged with a yellow ribbon. He will do this at every mile on his cross country trek, all on foot and all with heart.
He calls it the "Project America Run," a 4,514 mile journey across the country to honor and remember service members lost in Iraq. Each time a flag is staked in the ground, it is tracked by a real-time map on his Website so the public can see who has been honored and where. The flags are placed each mile along the roads on which he travels in reverse chronological order by date of death until the very last flag is placed on the shores of the Atlantic in Rockland, Maine.
Ehredt is a retired postal clerk and Army Veteran, now a certified personal trainer who aspires to help people become inspired and dream big. The flags bear a yellow ribbon with the name, rank, service, age and hometown of those whose dreams and ambitions were taken so quickly.
His blog depicts the journey with highly descriptive and detailed recounts from the road. Just two days ago, Ehredt remembered his ride through Wabash when he wrote "the word crossroads carries a special meaning today." He met a woman in Wabash- the aunt of Chad Lake, a young man her family lost in Iraq. She told Ehredt he "had her nephew," meaning he had a flag to honor his memory. Ehredt had never met her nephew, but remembered him clearly:
"I didn’t have his flag. It had been placed Aug. 19 on Blackjack Road, outside of Galena, Illinois. My aunt was with me and she had placed it. What's the chances that I would meet the aunt of this soldier on an obscure road out of 4417 thousand names? That my aunt would place his flag? That I would even remember that? I noticed that she couldn’t speak. She had tears. Her lip was quivering. Then she walked away and I ran on. Crossroads of America... towns and people... entwined."
Today, Ehredt travels through Fort Wayne as he continues his trek. He picks up every bit of change he finds on the side of the road along the way to put toward his charity. So far, he has found just under $15 dollars, a small but important contribution to his over $98 thousand dollars raised. Donations to Project America Run are used to cover the direct costs of staging the event and to fund private rehabilitation programs for disabled veterans who have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan.
And tomorrow, he will continue on with the 1,973 steps it takes to complete each mile. Each step taking him closer to another silent salute.
To learn more about the Project America Run or to donate to the cause, visit www.projectamericarun.com.
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