Hi, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Club Eisenhower podcast. I'm Todd Arrington, the director of the Eisenhower Presidential Library in Abilene, Kansas, and I'm very pleased to have with me today, to talk about some really interesting and very important work. Welcome to Club Eisenhower, doctor Derek Abbey, director of Project Recover. Is that is that your title, Derek? Did I get that right? The president and CEO of Project Recover, but I appreciate it, Todd. Thank you so much for having me. It's an honor, truly. Well, it's an honor to talk to you, and and everyone will understand why here very shortly when we start talking about the work that your organization does. But if you don't mind, maybe just start off telling us a little bit about yourself, and how did you come to be in this, like I said, really interesting and and really important line of work. Yeah. So, I grew up in the Pacific Northwest, in and around the Seattle area, and, kinda had a, eventful childhood, which is I was raised by a single mom, and she did everything that she could to raise me when I was a little bit boy, and unexpectedly, she passed away when I was 13. So Oh, gosh. Pretty good. Yeah. Like but as you can expect, you know, that that was, incredibly impactful moment of my life, but I was a teenager without a rudder or a sail. And so, when I was approaching adulthood, I, made the decision to run off to the marine corps to find some purpose in life, a system I could succeed in, some discipline, which is what I needed, and the marine corps, provided exactly what I needed. I ended up doing an entire career in the marine corps. It was very much a a fairy tale type of career. I started off as an enlisted marine, had a successful first tour as a communications marine. And at the end of my first tour, I was selected for a commission program. The marine corps sent me to get my undergraduate degree and sent me to Oregon State University where I earned a couple degrees in history and was commissioned a grounds officer on the backside of that and sent to the basic school where every marine has to go for six months to learn how to be a junior level officer. And while I was there, I was selected for an aviation contract, which resulted in me being a part of, a couple of fighter squadrons. But my first fighter squadron was VMFA AW one twenty one, which had been around for a long time. And that was how I initially became connected to the marine corps. I ended up, you know, spending the rest of my career, doing a variety of things, but then I also, was doing this work of Project Recover, and I became connected to the organization through some World War two cadre. Just by happenstance, one day in 02/2003, I was in our Squadron ready room when the when the phone rang, and I had just come back from a deployment. But on the other end of the phone was a gentleman named George Bjuranic, and he was a World War two veteran. And he he was looking for contact information for other World War two veterans, and I happen to be the historical officer for the squadron. So I took the call, and we didn't have any, of the contact information he was looking for. But I just asked him simply, you know, what do you need the information for? And he said, well, every year we get together for a reunion in different spots of the country, I'm just trying to get as many people as I can. And this year, we're we're doing it in Indiana. And I said, well, that sounds really cool. Can I come? And, he said, absolutely, please. And so me and another, marine from the squadron took a a Hornet, an F 18 Hornet out there to meet the old squadron, and it was a credible experience, a connection of marines across time. You know, they were tell us about Iraq and F eighteen. So we said, who cares about Iraq and F eighteen? Tell us about World War two and Corsairs, and they say, you know, who cares about World War two and Corsairs? And like I said, it was just a connection across time. And through that day, they said, you know, you need to meet this gentleman named Pat Scan, and he he's doing this work, looking for Americans missing in action in the nation of Palau, which one twenty one flew out of Peleliu, which is an island of Palau, and some fierce fighting took place there. At the time, I wasn't completely conscious of all the air campaigns that took place there and how many people were missing, but Pat was doing work to to locate these sites and the people that were missing. And, but I missed him by twenty minutes that year. And so I I worked with those those, World War two veterans to have another reunion the following year, but I said, this this time, let's do it in San Diego, and we'll have the the old squadron and the new squadron together. And and that was when I met Pat Scanna for the first time, and him and I became fast friends. And at the time, the organization was called the Benpro Project, and, he invited me to be a member of the organization, and I, it seemed like the right thing to do. I had no idea what I would do to support the mission or advance the mission, but, you know, I was there to carry heavy things or do whatever they wanted and, became a member of the organization. And they, you know, had no I couldn't fathom that twenty seven years later, you know, I'd be sitting here talking about the work that we're doing in this worldwide effort that's taking place related to, missing an action by some pretty incredible people. But yeah. So I spent a career in the Marine Corps, twenty three years total. I I did everything you possibly wanna do in an F eighteen community. I actually left the F eighteen community after an extended amount of time and helped create and stand up marine special operations command, specifically their what was the West Coast, battalion, which is now they're all on the East Coast and, got some education in the Marine Corps, got everything that I wanted that that young teenager needed, and retired in 02/2014. And besides working in Project Recovery, I've done a lot of work in the higher education space, working with the military population, accessing and succeeding in higher education, running programs at San Diego State University and University of San Diego. And, for about five and a half years now, I've been the president and CEO of Project Recover. Great. Wow. Well, sounds like you've had a very, a very long and impressive career. Thank you for your service as well. And you as well. So tell tell me now how how does this process work? What, what does prod what does Project Recover need to start a I I don't even know the proper terminology. I apologize. Whether it's an investigation or or a, you know, an attempted recovery or or whatever the, the proper verbiage is there. But, what what do you guys need, and then what do you actually do? Do you guys do you guys go out into the field and actually conduct the the the searches? Yeah. So it's a lot. And so we're a nonprofit organization, and our mission is to, locate, ultimately repatriate American service members that are that are missing in action both as a unilateral organization and now as a partner of the Department of Defense. But I like to say that this work starts in the basement of an archive somewhere. We have a full time historian on our team that's constantly researching cases and building out cases, related to the more than 81,000 American service members that remain missing in action from our previous wars going back to World War two. And and that's what we do. It starts in the building out these cases, doing this investigation and research to to build these cases. And, and that is not only archives, but it's it's all sorts of means and really any means. So, it's doing the research in archives, but it's also hearing from families that have information related to their loved ones. It's doing research in the the countries where the service members were lost, whether that's interviewing, hunters or fishermen or combing their records. As time has passed, especially related to World War two losses, the firsthand accounts now are are less and less, unlike what it was twenty years ago. And so we'll build out those cases, and we'll add that to our caseload. And right now, we probably have a database that includes about, 700 cases associated with more than 3,000 missing Americans. And that's that's actionable cases, meaning if the resources are there, we'll take action on those. It's not this person was last seen heading west over the Pacific or something like that. This is you know, we have enough information to at least narrow it down to an area. And then we will prioritize those missions based on highest likelihood of success, ultimately, access to the area resources available, things like that. And we also do what we call campaigning. So we'll pick out regions of the world where there's a number of losses, so that we can continue to go back there. But, also, when we send people and equipment to work on these cases, we can work on multiple cases at a time. Unfortunately, it's not a a cheap mission, but it's, if we can get those people and equipment in place, we wanna maximize those resources and do all that we can. And so that's the next step is exactly that. We send teams into the field to do search missions. We work both we work both in the underwater environment as well as the terrestrial environment. So depending on the the area and the context, and the environment that we're working on, we'll utilize different technologies and different approaches to the cases to do these searches. So if it's underwater, typically, we're working with our partners at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, or the University of Delaware to utilize automated underwater vehicles to map the ocean floor in certain areas, find points of interest, and then investigate those points of interest, to determine if they're associated with these losses. And, usually, these are aircraft losses. So we're looking for an aircraft. If we find an aircraft, is it the aircraft that we're looking for? Once we get to that point, we know exactly who might be associated with it. And then we'll fully document it. And that's the next phase, whether it's on land or water. We'll document these sites, and we document them with the intention of preserving, the information related to the site, but also in preparation for an eventual recovery or an excavation. And then that's the next the next phase of the mission is that we conduct an excavation of the site. If it's on land, it's a traditional archeological, excavation that you might think of. We've grid out the site. We have a lead archeologist on hand, a number of other specialists to include a forensic anthropologist, and we'll go through every centimeter of that site trying to find any, anything related to the individual or individuals that are lost. And you just translate that to the underwater environment when it's an underwater site. We're using, typically our partners at Legion Undersea Services who are mostly former navy divers, but also some pretty incredibly capable people. But we do the same thing. We grid out the site underwater. That's too hard. It is very difficult, but then we we basically use a big vacuum cleaner to suck up all the material from the site in these, individual grids, and then we screen that using quarter mesh screen, every single piece of it to to find these individuals and ultimately, repatriate them back to the to The United States. And that's the intention of, the excavations, whether it's, on land or or in the water. We're excavating the site to find any type of material, human remains. But then, of course, any artifact that can assist with the identification, dog tags, watches, rings, anything that might be able to assist with the identification. Everything else, remains in place. So if it's an aviation crash site, we leave the airplanes and everything there, at the site. We only want the people. The the planes are a means to the people. And once we have all that, we coordinate through the host institution, and they have different agencies depending on where we might be working to work on creating the chain of custody that are gonna get those, remains when we recover them back to the The US. And from there, they're typically going to go to a lab either in Hawaii or in Nebraska. That's where the defense POW, MI, accounting agency has two separate labs where they will go through the identification officially, and they do that blindly to ensure that no mistakes are made. And that and then that's where our mission actually ends. We're a fully vertical organization within the space, meaning we do the mission from, research all the way to the recovery, but title 10 restricts identification to the Department of Defense Agency, that DPA agency that I mentioned. Does that does the Department of Defense also send teams out to do recoveries like this? Yes. You guys work closely with them sometimes, or are you just all completely stuck? No. So, there is an official department of defense agency. It's the defense POWMIA, okay, accounting agency, DPAA as we refer to them, most people refer to them, and that is their mission. Their mission is they have been tasked for accounting for these missing Americans going back to World War two. And so they do all of their organic work within the Department of Defense. But in 02/2015, they went through a restructure of that organization. And when they did that, they created the capacity to develop public private partnerships, and Project Recovery was one of the first organizations that they reached out to. We have been doing this work already for for two decades prior to that, and had a relationship with the Department of Defense along this mission and their previous, agencies, but it wasn't official. So we would actually feed information to them from the work that we were doing, but they were doing the recovery and the excavation work. And as they expanded and created these public private partnerships, now we it's allowed us to expand our mission. And so, yes, we we do partner missions with them. We do all that work that I mentioned already unilaterally. But from time to time, they'll reach out to us to conduct any piece of that mission, whether it's research, search, documentation, recovery in both the underwater or terrestrial environment. But, yeah, they'll ask us to do pieces of that in which we're we're very proud to do. Okay. Great. Yeah. That's that's very interesting. I wanted to make sure I understood that, you know, your your organization is not it's obviously a a a nonprofit. It's not part of DOD, but I wanted to make sure I understood kind of how you guys work together if you do. Yeah. It's a pretty complex mission, so I appreciate your question. Sounds like it. And then once you do find remains and you get them back to The States and then, of course, have to turn them over to one of those, labs you mentioned a few minutes ago. I mean, it can still be years sometimes before the identifications are actually made. Right? Yeah. Unfortunately, it can take some time, and it takes time for a a variety of reasons. One, it's not always easy to make the identifications. And they they use a variety of means to determine that, ID of the individual or individuals that they're trying to, and they they try to use as many as possible because as you can imagine, if can triangulate that information, it it provides a a more accurate identification and, eliminates any potential mistakes. You know, you don't wanna make a mistake on who you're identifying and, cause more harm than good ultimately with the families that we're we're working for. And so most people go directly to DNA when they're doing, when they ask about identifications, and they absolutely are using more and more advanced DNA technology to identify any remains that are recovered. But they're also using things like dental records, and examining skeletal remains for evidence that can point to this is the person. So if you have, that the individual broke their left arm when they were young and there's evidence of that, that's something. I mentioned artifacts. If there's artifacts commingled with the with the remains, that's something else that helps with the identification. But, if it's a multicrew, aircraft, you have to make sure that you're separating, if in the event that they are commingled and things like that. If it's in water, there's a desalination process that they need to do that's gonna help with the accuracy. But when it comes to DNA, they don't always have family samples. So can they narrow it down to, a small group of people so that when they have to reach out to, families that they're reaching out to the right families to get the appropriate samples? So if they are reaching out to families and they don't have those samples, then there's the genealogy that's associated with that, which is something that project recover, tries to do as well so we can have, you know, potential next that can that we can even deliver that information to DPA to assist with the identification process. But it's a lot. They're they're working on a lot of cases, so that's another reason, just simple backlog. But but it's also a pretty complex part of the mission. It's not not necessarily always straightforward. You know, if it's a perfect case where it's a preserved aircraft loss of some sort and it's a single piloted aircraft and this is the only person that we find with it, well, that that helps with the process. But if it's a underwater site with a multi crew aircraft, that's twisted and mangled or something like that, well, then it can get a little bit more complicated and take a and take more time. This is fascinating. I I am so I'm so interested in this, and I'm I'm a little bit jealous. This is this must be very rewarding work to do. Yeah. You know, as a as a veteran and as a veteran yourself, you know, when we when somebody swears a note to our constitution and dawns the cloth of our nation, you know, we as collective Americans make a promise to that individual that we're gonna do everything that we can to bring them home. And, that promise doesn't have an expiration date after their loss. And, you know, it's the it's the fellow warrior to their left and right that's tasked with keeping that promise. And and war is chaotic as we know, and the result of that is there's more than 80,000 promises that have yet to be kept. But, you know, as somebody with a military background, this draws me to this mission, but it's not just veterans that are involved. It's it's just fellow Americans and actually people from around the world. We have people from other countries that advance this mission because of the human element that draws them to it, and the opportunity to make a positive impact on these families and communities is is incredible. And I I say that members of our organization tend to go through three different phases when they when they become a member of Project Recover. And that first phase is you're just a you're attracted to the mission for whatever your personal values are and whatever reasons that bring you to it. It's the right thing to do. You have a military background and you just wanna keep on, you know, having a a personal mission or whatever it happens to be, whatever the individual reason reasons are. That's the first phase. And then, the next phase is, you know, they're gonna go on these missions. They're gonna participate in some way. And at some point, they're gonna have their first discovery. And that could be the first mission, but it could also be a long time after they become a part of the organization. And that's when the that's when it becomes real. Well, now you you realize, well, we found this site. This person might have been missing for eight decades, but you realize, there might be families that have no idea that we're even out here looking that are now going to have answers, related to the ambiguous loss of their loved one that they've those questions that they've held on to for just too long. And so then that's the the second phase is this is real. And I encourage every single one of our members when, one of these MIs that we are part of that mission of locating them or recovering them or whatever part of the mission we are part of, when they are memorialized and celebrated, in their hometowns or Arlington National Cemetery or wherever it has it's to be that, you know, we do everything that we can to show our support and bear witness to these events. And, you know, you could put it you can imagine how life changing it is for the families, but it's just as life changing for each and every one of us that that get to witness this and be a part of it. And then that's that that third phase. And, you know, I was I was in the marine corps when I started doing this work, and when I left the marine corps, I was doing this work, and I continue to do this work with Project Recover. But I look at a lot of my peers that have this peers from the military that have this perceived loss of value when they take the uniform off or they're seeking out that next mission, that that gives them fulfillment, purpose, generativity, and things like that. And I I know personally myself, I didn't have that that feeling of losing value, and and I always say that it's because of this mission, it's because of this organization, and what we're trying to do that that I haven't had that. And and I see it in in the peers that work alongside of me as well. That's great. So I I know you're the head of the organization now. Do you still personally yourself get to go out in into the field and and do missions, you know, trying to recover, service linkage? Well, I'll say not as often as I want to, but I I had a feeling that's it. That's what you were gonna say. Yes. But I do get to go in the field, from time to time. I actually just returned from a mission in Palau where we were doing actually two missions in Palau. And then in May, I'll have an opportunity to participate in part of a mission in Germany. But, yeah, you know, I've been doing this now for more than two decades and have grown, in the organization. My role in the organization has changed from and then it my just being a member to a team lead to then being on the board of the organization and now as the president and CEO, and my responsibilities have changed in how I advance this mission. But I still get the joy, and I I get to get dirty and muddy and filthy with the rest of the team from time to time. But, yeah, as I said, not not as often as I I I would like to, but that's okay because we have some pretty incredible people that are advancing this mission every single day and, you know, doing this part that some people wouldn't wanna do, I'm I'm happy to take it on, if it means that we get to bring more people home and provide more answers to for families. Absolutely. So I know probably all of these discoveries that you've been a part of are thrilling and rewarding and and and emotional. Are there any that really stand out that you think really affected you? The first one maybe, like you said a few minutes ago, but are are there any that were just particularly, you know, memorable for you for whatever reason? Yeah. Well, the the cliche answer is the next one. Right? Right. But I get asked that question a lot, and I I can't say that one is more special than the others. But I, there there are certain things and certain discoveries that really push the point home and and are special for a variety of reasons, and usually they're they're very different. But but the first one that I was a part of was was very special. So I mentioned, you know, how I started, became a part of the organization was through my former squadron one twenty one, which is still around one twenty one's flying, joint strike fighters now. But I it took me a while to go on my very first mission because I was deploying quite a bit as an active marine, when I first became a part of the organization. But I I finally went on my first mission. I came back from a deployment to The Middle East. I came home. I unpacked a sea bag. I packed a suitcase, and I took off to Palau. And, back then, we were doing one mission a year to Palau, combing the waters and the and the jungles looking for some of these sites. And and we were we've we had a MIA discovery that year. We located a site in very, very dense mangrove, and it turns out that it was a member of my squadron from World War two. The same squadron that connected me to, this organization. I became a a part of of locating one of those marines, and, you know, the it it was it was almost something like you'd see in a a movie or a book or reading a book or something like that. It just didn't seem like it was real, and I and I knew this case, you know, and and it it you know, there's 300 and some, service members still missing in and around Palau. So what were the chances that I was gonna find or be a part of, you know, finding this one? And then that would that turned out to be the very first, MIA discovery I was ever a part of. And, there's some absolutely incredible stories that have occurred since then, but, of course, that one was the one that just I mean, ultimately, I already had the the spark and the fire within me, but it just was like somebody poured gasoline on the fire internally. And I just wanted to continue to be a part of this and be a bigger part of it. And, and now there's there's several incredible stories since then. But, yeah, it's, that one that one is definitely special, even though that every single one of them is special. Of course. Yeah. And that yeah. That would be a great movie right there. You know, they're selling something like that. So I know you guys were involved in a in a recent identification of a of a Kansan, actually. Yeah. First lieutenant Herbert Tennyson, who was from Wichita. I think he was he was just identified here in the last couple of months, I think. Yeah. Very recently. I thought that while the serendipity of of having the opportunity to do something with the Eisenhower library and then it you know, the identification of somebody from Kansas occurs, right before then, it was very, very special. But, yeah, Lieutenant Tennyson was part of a crew referred to as Heaven Can Wait, a b twenty four crew, and Project Recover, in our partnership with Scripps Institution of Oceanography and University of Delaware located that site in Papua New Guinea. And it's just a very, very special story to, like like every single one of these, but it was it was pretty neat because, we had been preparing to go to Papua New Guinea and start to do some searches in in the waters off of their shores. And, right before we left for the mission, we were contacted by one of the Heaven Kinway crew. And something unusual had happened with this crew. It turns out that the families the majority of the families have been communicating for decades since this, b 24 was lost. And and that is pretty unusual, you know, for all those families to stay close. And they had all done a lot of research, related to the case and where it might be located. And so they reached out to us. Again, just one of those. We we and I don't call it serendipity anymore or coincidence or anything like that. And it was that actually, I got this term from somebody, one of the family members from Hemickway, because we've had too many coincidences that they just aren't coincidences. And so this family member says, you know, they're not coincidences. They're angel taps. They're they're somebody telling you that you need to be going in this direction. And so, right before we the team left for that mission, representatives from these families reached out to us and shared the information, related that they had to this loss. And so the team went into the field armed with that information, and we're able to locate the B 24 site, which is just special in itself. And we actually had moments with those families, after the discovery, being able to share some of that information with them, which is also unusual because, typically, we don't actively reach out to families. But we already had this relationship established with them, and so we're not gonna keep any secrets from them either. And so we were able to sell share the celebration of this discovery. And then in working with the Department of Defense, we're excited about, a quick recovery effort to take place. One of the challenges being that, this site is in very, very deep water, so it's it's deeper than 200 feet. And, so for a a nongovernment organization or nonprofit like Project Recover, that's getting into a realm that's beyond our capability. But, the navy has what's called the navy experimental dive unit, which, they they use a a variety of technologies that allow them to work at some pretty incredible depths. And to keep it in layman's terms, basically, they take a a housing in a bell, or a living environment, and they place it on the ocean floor for an extended period of time. And those sailors work from that environment. And so we were excited about that effort to take place. And then right when, things started to move to advance the recovery effort, we were smacked with COVID like everybody else in the world. Right. And that that delayed those efforts for a while. And only recently were they able to get that that dive team out there to execute recovery, and they were able to, recover remains from that site. And now, lieutenant Tennyson has been identified, and his family will very, very soon be, again, memorializing and celebrating his return. It's a great story. So I I get I guess one technical one question about that is is so the entire crew wasn't on the plane when it went down? Because you or was that somebody who had once been on that plane, excuse me, and, and then and reached out and was on that plane before? No. The entire crew was lost with that b 24. Oh, I'm listening, but I thought you said you got contacted by a a a former crew member. Oh, I'm sorry. No. It was, family members. Oh, I apologize. I apologize. No. No. Family member members of the crew. So I think almost all of the families have been in touch over the years. And it was Scott Altos kind of as a liaison, who is now a Project Recovery member, reached out to us. And and his loved one, he's a cousin of lieutenant Kelly, who has also been identified, from that aircraft. But and he'll be memorialized actually this coming Memorial Day in Lancaster, California. So, yeah, not everybody has been identified from that site yet. It's still an open site, but some of the crew have been, publicly identified to include lieutenant Kelly and and lieutenant Tennyson. Wonderful. I'm a little I'm curious about how you guys I'm I'm sure you must have to work with a lot of governments, to get permission to go in to places to do these kinds of things. So do you have somebody on your staff who is like a liaison or is in charge of your government affairs, something like that, that that makes those approaches to to other countries to say, hey. We'd like to come in and and and do a search here. Well, I wish I could say we had a government liaison on our team, but we're not that robust. But you're you're you're, you are correct. You know, almost all of this work, although not all of this work, takes place in in four nations. We do work in The United States off of our shores, in our great lakes, in our mountains as well, and I could dive into that. But, all all this work that we do overseas is with the permission of the host nations from which we're working within. And depending excuse me. Depending on the nations that we're working in, the process is different. And but but we do have to have permission from them, to do this work in in their countries, and we attain all of those those permits. Now if we are working with, in partnership with the Department of Defense, sometimes we can work with them, and typically, we'll work through the state the state department and our embassies to assist with that permissions. But, ultimately, we have to have the permissions from the host nations. And, those permissions are are pretty significant depending on on where you're working. Obviously, we get permission from the the government of of that nation, but it can go, all the way up to the top, and then it goes all the way down to the local government. And then as you can imagine, if there's a landowner, we need permissions Right. From them. If there's a variety of you know, sometimes there's parallel systems like a a tribal system or something like that that that we also need to work through to get permissions from chiefs or other leaders, to to access and work in those nations. But, you know, across the board, we we typically find success in, in attaining those permissions. Sometimes, if it's our first time working in one of these countries, they might look at us a little cross eyed, like, what are you trying to do? You know, they they might think that we're we're searching for treasure or gold or something like that. But once they realize that we are searching for people, very quickly, we've discovered over the years that there's a values overlap. And and they it it's not just our mission. It becomes their mission as well. And I I like to use Palau as an example because we've been going there for so long. So initially, when we started working in Palau, you know, they look at us like, what are these crazy Americans doing? They're they're diving in these places, but not the places where most people go scuba diving. They're diving in these really gross places that are mucky and and, silty and stuff like that. Don't they wanna see the pretty fish? And, but once they realize that we weren't, you know, searching for treasure or something else that they were look that we were looking for people, they saw the values overlap in when some when a Palawan dies, they're typically returned to the island from where their mother is from. And so in us wanting to bring them home, they understood that further, this is where the fighting took place. And, this this is the war torn country from eight decades ago during World War two, and they they understand and live with the sacrifice that were made by the these Americans. And so they wanted very much to support this mission. And and we've seen that across the board in in every single country that we have worked in. Now there are countries with losses that, you know, there's geopolitical things that we just can't work in. But the ones that we have had access to have been very, very supportive of helping us advance this this mission. They know that we're not out there, you know, trying to make money off of this or anything like that, that we're just really doing this for families. And once they realize that, they become very, very supportive. And and I've found that, you know, the impact that we create in The United States is very much paralleled in these countries as well. You know? We've witnessed that there's this healing impact at the individual level within the military community, the the obvious impact of the families, of those that are missing, the communities around them, and, ultimately, all the all the way up to the national level. Well, when this mission becomes, the mission of the host nation as well, this is where the fighting took place. And for them to have the capability to help us advance this and provide healing to these families and answers and maybe some sort of closure to these families. It allows them to heal in their own way as well, from these kind of long lasting wounds of war. And so it's it's pretty incredible to witness and and to work with them, to advance this. And and, yeah, just very, very special to be a part of. Have you ever been denied permission to to go into a place to do a search? We haven't had a straight denial that I can, recall, but we have had some, places where it's a little bit more challenging to to get, permissions than than others. And and, honestly, it's just it's just different systems in different countries. And so, you know, I mentioned earlier when we're we're talking about we do campaigning or what we call campaigning. So we go to these countries where we can, work on multiple cases at once. But there's also another level of that campaigning and having the ability to go back to countries, multiple times allows us to build a rapport with them, trust with them to help further advance this mission. And and we've discovered that, you know, you first go back and you kinda go through the the difficulty of figuring out how the new systems that you're not familiar working with, how they might work and and getting the right permissions and and learning their culture and how they do things in this country or that country. But then as you go back, now those relationships are starting to mature. And and we've discovered now when we go back to more these countries over and over again, then they're approaching us with information like, oh, you're you're back. We you know, you should talk to these hunters that work in this area or these fishermen that work over here, or we were talking to somebody at this museum, and they might have some information related to x. And so as I mentioned, it it becomes their mission, and they start working on it just on their own and and wanna be a part of helping us advance it. So that's this other kind of additional benefit from going back to these countries over and over again. Okay. Very interesting. Yeah. How do you I mean, you don't have to tell me this if you don't want to, but how do you guys how are you funded? Do you do you raise money? Do you do, like, campaigns to to try to raise money for, to to go on recovery missions? Yeah. So we're a nonprofit. So, like, every nonprofit, we rely on the generosity and the charity of the public. And so we have a a development officer and and a team. I like to say a team of two, but, of course, every member of a nonprofit is a development person as far as trying to fundraise and and things like that. And so, so we're always trying to raise resources so that we can advance this this mission further. And, ultimately, the more resources we raise, the more, missions we can do. And and we've been able to continuously increase on that and and build out, you know, the stories, let people know, let the public know about the successes that we've had. And so, yeah, we we rely on the on the the generosity of the public to to advance this mission. We are a partner of the Department of Defense. So when they ask us to do a mission, they will contract us to do that that piece of that mission that they're asking us to. But like I tell people, that's not a good business plan. And so it's not it's not enough to keep the organization afloat. We always have to to do fundraising efforts to to help advance this this mission. And we are work on we are working on scaling this mission. And that's not scaling for scaling sake. We wanna do more because time is not our friend. So, you know, as more time passes, these sites erode from the elements and and time. But also human development around the world, is encroaching on some of these sites. And so depending on where they are at, what countries they're at, who might stumble upon them may or may not report them. They might not realize that there's somebody associated with that site that's missing. And so we're doing what we can to to really grow this mission. And we've had success then. If there was a silver lining during COVID, you know, we had about an eighteen month period where we weren't able to execute missions internationally, but we weren't sitting on our hands. So we took a step back and really assessed our model, of the teams that we were sending to the field, with the intention of trying to grow it. And so we have a modulatable model that has a core. But we what we can do is we can, you know, take the that core piece and then add on to it and then send multiple teams in the field in parallel to advance this mission. And since we've come out of COVID, we've been able to test that successfully. We've advanced our mission pretty, a lot, I should say. Last year, we had a record number of missions. We sent 15. We we conducted 15 missions throughout the year. The previous record was 14 prior to COVID. And if if I have my wishes and we're successful, I'd like to grow that to about thirty thirty missions a year. That would require some growth of the organization. But, ultimately, we're a volunteer based organization, so the vast majority of the people that are executing this mission are donating their time, their expertise, to do it. We have a small staff right now of five, you know, so, I expect that would grow a little bit if we were able to get to that. But it's primarily a volunteer based organization, that gets this it's an expensive mission no matter what to get people and equipment to the other side of the world. It's not an easy thing. But we are working also to advance technologies, related to this mission. And we we're frugal in that approach too. So, you know, we we have the the honor of working with organizations like Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of Delaware. We we work with them to utilize their automated underwater vehicles and other technologies in the underwater environment, that if we try to house those within the nonprofit space, they would quickly become obsolete. So it'd be very expensive to get our hands on one, but the technology is advancing so rapidly that six months later, it would almost be worthless. And so having partners like that really help us. And then on the land side, we're working on some new stuff with the University of Georgia, which, believe it or not, it seems a little bit counterintuitive. The the technology under water has advanced far more rapidly in the last decade than our ability to advance this mission on land. And so now we're working with some some pretty cool stuff, related to drones and a variety of other sciences that are gonna help us, in the terrestrial environment, and University of Georgia is, one of those institutions that we're working on with that. Great. Do you do you have any sense what your success rate is? I mean, I'm sure there are missions where you go out and you don't find any remains. How do you have any data or or sense of, like Yeah. Greater or or success rate? Well, the truth is is every single one of our missions is a % successful as long as we bring everybody back safe. And and the reason is is we're not always finding a site, but we are always developing and gathering data. So, we are doing searches, and if we don't find something on the on a search mission, should you say should I say, well, we know that we need to go to a different location or that that eliminates that part of, of the area that we're searching. So we don't always have a discovery, and I I don't know what the the percentages are of every time we go out to search to to discovery. And then on the recovery side, actually, we we've been successful on every recovery effort that we've found, that we've that we've been a part of. We've been able to recover Aussie's material and and bring that home. But I I I'm sure at some point, you know, we're gonna come home empty handed and that and that'll be tough, tough for the team. But, again, you'd it we're still we're still gathering data, and if they're not there, they're somewhere. So we're gonna assess the data that we have, and that's going to inform the step that we take next in pursuit of finding that's that person that might be associated with that site. Well, we're we're coming up on, close to the end of our time, but, I I think you said earlier you're gonna be making a trip to Germany at some point for some Yeah. Last year, we we started our first effort in Germany, and, it was it was kinda neat because it was right when, Masters of the Air was coming out. So yeah. You know? So we got to watch that series as we're preparing to to look for some, losses to to include eight eight air force losses. There's a number of them, over there. And and just it turned out we hadn't done any work as a nonprofit in Germany. And we we really wanted to put support put for some effort in the Northeast. And, you know, kinda like if there's a silver lining to COVID, we we've discovered that. And, you know, if there's any type of silver lining to the iron curtain was, that part of Germany just was sitting untouched as far as these efforts go for a long, long time. And so now we're trying to put in some efforts in Germany. And this is a a reconnaissance effort. We will be do doing some water searching, while we're there, but this is primarily still information gathering case building. So we're meeting with, locals that might have knowledge related to any losses. When we were there last year, we did a lot of touring of a variety of cemeteries. You might think, well, why would you be searching cemeteries in Germany? Well, a lot of Americans were buried in German cemeteries, sometimes hiding them. The locals were hiding the service members under German names and things like that, so doing research related to that, but also interviewing historians, you know, fishermen in the Baltic Sea that might know about where they catch their nets on things, which could be an aircraft wreckage, to all sorts of different things. So we're building out our case load in in that part of the world, and we're really excited to, you know, continue to do that and, hopefully, bring about some solution to some of these cases cases Yeah. Some of these folks home. That that's great. The reason I I wanted to ask that question was, of course, we are the Eisenhower presidential activist. I had to get something in there about the European leader. Oh, yeah. Yeah. We well, and and Germany is not the only place that we've worked. We've worked in Italy, and we'll be doing, you know, Germany and Italy are are places that we consider part of our campaigning efforts. We've done work in in England. We've done work in Denmark and The Baltic Sea. So we, you know, you follow the lineage back to Eisenhower. We have plenty of connections to to general Eisenhower. That's for sure. Absolutely. Well, is there anything else you'd like to tell us or you want us to know about project, recover before we click off? Yeah. I I you know, first, I would like to say thank you for for including me and for for sharing the work of project recover, but also, keeping the memories of those that remain missing alive in in the public. And, I I'd like to say, you know, I I acknowledge not everybody can take off to the other side of the world, trips to the jungles or dive, in these various corners, but almost anybody can advance this mission. You know, I already mentioned that we're a nonprofit, so we always pre appreciate the support of of those that are out there. But we're a volunteer based organization. So, maybe you have talent, availability, and capability to advance this mission. And if so, we wanna hear from you, projectrecover.org. And we also wanna hear from families. If you have a loved one in your family that remains missing, we wanna hear from you because you might have that one piece of information that we need, related to the case. I I mentioned the heaven can wait. Families that that reached out to us and they had information, you know, there's there's journals and other stuff in people's basements and attics out there that we don't know about that might have just that one piece of information that you never know could could lead to the discovery and ultimately repatriation of one or several of these service members. And so if that's you, we'd we'd love to hear from you, and all of that can be done through our website projectrecover.org. Okay. Well, this has been an absolutely fascinating conversation, and I think this is, such good work and and such important work, and thank you for doing it. It's my pleasure, Todd. Thank you for having me. Alright. Very good. This is, doctor Derek Abbey, the, president and CEO of Project Recover. Thanks for thanks for being on today, doctor Abbey. My pleasure.