When I first heard about it (Walter Mintus remains coming home), I became very emotional. But I got to the point where I wanted to go to Empire state building and call out, “Uncle Bert coming home!”

When I asked Pat (Scannon, Project Recover president and co-founder) why he is doing this, his response moved me. He said, “I do it because it is the right thing to do.”

Assembling a crack team of explorers and divers, Pat Scannon’s BentProp organization (Project Recover) has located a multitude of other wrecks and helped the U.S. government recover several American airmen, heroes of the greatest generation, previously missing in action. There is no way to overstate the value that closure and rekindled history has to the next of kin, event generations removed.

In a day that sees our country divided by so much that pulls us apart, we have the special privilege of being at the center of something that brings Americans together.