Being Army, I always joined in the friendly dissing of our Navy comrades. I will have a harder time doing that in the future.

Imagine diving down into murky brown water, with barely a foot of visibility, and your connection to the surface being a tether line and air hose; and, your job is to navigate amongst submerged cars and trucks, smashed concrete and rebar sticking out, and locate the bodies of those victims unaccounted for to date, all the while fighting the increasing currents of the rain swollen river.

The team of Navy divers that came to Minnesota to assist in recovery efforts follwing the I-35 bridge collape truly brought honor to their fellow divers. I was able to watch an interview with these young men and was struck by the apparent youthfulness, and the knowledge that they were here to find remains of people's loved ones, and deliver them with as much dignity as allowed by the circumstances.

My hat is off to these young men, and their fellow divers in the Navy. To be able to approach such a depressing task amid such obvious life-threatening obstacles, and successfully recover all the remains, and then respond to press questions with such tact and professionalism, gives credit to their instructors and peers.

/SALUTE

I wouldn't be too quick to say it was just Navy Divers there though, there were a vast number of civilian PADI divemasters and National Guard divers at work as well. Been doing some training videos for the National Guard this week for them to use running simulations about what they should do if a bridge collapses or is blown up, etc. and they were talking about how local Divemasters were contacted and in the water 3 hours after the bridge collapsed.

I can relate, minus the dead bodies. I have several certs Open Water, Advaned Open Water, Enriched Air and a couple others. Used to work for pier companies removing pier cribs from the bottom of lakes in Wisconsin, including Lake Michigan. Nothing like being barried up to my waist in muck and mud, not knowing which way is up other then I know mud isn't on the surface rolling several hunred pound boulders out of the cribs...all day long.

Nothing like being barried up to my waist in muck and mud, not knowing which way is up

Sounds like my open water class. Yay for diving in a quarry in York, PA in April. It was awful :(