Maybe My Best Piece This Year

Earlier this year, I read a fascinating piece in the R-J by Keith Rogers about a North Las Vegas man whose father had perished in World War II. The man never knew his dad, having been born two weeks after his cargo plane crashed in the Himalayas somewhere. But Arizona adventurer Clayton Kuhles had found the plane -- and 14 others -- in an effort that picks up the serious slack in the US government's efforts to recover MIAs from World War II.

Keith's piece properly focused on the local family, but I wanted to know what the Arizona guy's deal was. Turns out, it is beyond fascinating. I had no idea, for instance, that there are 74,000+ MIAs from WWII, many times more than MIAs from more recent conflicts combined.

I'd been after the New York Times to let me do it but was repeatedly told the freelance budget was essentially empty. So, at long last, I did it for Sphere.Com, the AOL News outlet that I'm now writing for about a couple times a week. The money's good, the audience reach is potentially gargantuan and, best of all, I get to tell the stories I passionately want to.

So take a moment to go check this one out. It's a good way to acknowledge Veterans Day.