Eighty years after his death, war correspondent Ernie Pyle is remembered for telling the stories of World War II from a soldier’s perspective. The Hoosier native’s people-focused writing helped Americans better understand the hardships and cruelties of battle.

At 11 a.m. today, The Ernie Pyle World War II Museum in Dana will unveil a bronze statue of the writer. Crafted by Bill Wolfe of Clinton, Indiana — best known for Indiana State University’s Larry Bird statue and a sculpture of James Whitcomb Riley outside the Hoosier poet’s Greenfield home — Pyle’s bronze likeness warrants a Veterans Day reveal.

In a column he wrote from Italy in 1944, Pyle proposed that U.S. soldiers should get “combat pay.” That same year, Congress passed a law authorizing a 50% boost in salary for combat service

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