Today I was a part of history

Ensign Robert "Bob" Keller, was buried at Fort Logan National Cemetary and our command had the honor of being apart of it.
Noone that reads this may know who Ens Keller is and up until a week ago I didn't know either, but throughout the process of preparing for this funeral I now know.
I learned that Ens Keller was a WW II pilot, for me there are two reasons why being a part of this was near to my heart. Both of my grandfather's served this country in WW II, which is part of the reason my family and this country exists with rights and privileges that we have. They both came home safe and started families, hence the reason I am here typing today. I honor men like Ens Keller not only because they were brave and fought for those that could not defend themselves, but fought for those of us that did not yet exist, so that not only would we have a future but we would have a future filled with hope and honor. I honor men like Ens Keller so that on the dreadful day of my grandfather's funeral other's will stand with me and honor him as well.
The second reason this hits so close to my heart is because I too was in aviation not a pilot but still worked everyday with this wonderful community of men and women. The aviation community is more then just that we were and are a family. I lost not a lot of friends but enough.

So to give you a little history about what happened in short his plane with seven crewman was shot down over a remote Alaskan volcano. There grave was marked with a wooden post that read "Seven U.S.N Airmen" for future attempts to recover the bodies. Two attempts were made to recover the crew but because of the remote location and the severe weather conditions of ice and snow they men and their plane was declared non-recoverable.

2001 - an wildlife biologist and his colleague while out on a scientific exploration saw what appeared to be the wing of plane. He looked around and found many articles lying around so he notifies his command post of what he had found.

It has taken 5 years to recovery and identify the bodies and return them to their families.