There’s a banner stretched across the outdoor deck of a Franklin Township home that announces, “Welcome Uncle Tommy and Family.” If not for the courage and cunning of a World War II Army Ranger from Indianapolis, there would be no family to welcome him home.

Former Private Tommy Mascari who turns 95 Monday, and celebrates Independence Day the day after, recalling the daring leap to freedom he made from a German POW train rolling through the mountains of Italy in 1943. “Every boxcar had a guard and ours didn’t,” Mascari recalled, sitting on a swing in a shaded backyard surrounded by family. “I put the word out, ‘I’m leaving. I’m leaving.’”