Good Night, Soldier. It's Long Past Time You Went Home.

A World War II airman has been located after some 60 years.

From KTVU, Fresno:

Rangers in Kings Canyon National Park and a military recovery expert on Wednesday started excavating a glacier-entombed corpse that is believed to be a World War II airman who died in a 1942 plane crash.

Two ice climbers spotted a frozen head, shoulder and arm while climbing the glacier on the side of 13,710-foot Mount Mendel in the Sierra Nevada on Sunday, park spokeswoman Alex Picavet said. The body was 80 percent encased in ice, and still wearing an Army-issued parachute.

A crew of rangers and specialists are camped on the mountain side, in sub-freezing temperatures, and are ready to stay there during the entire excavation process, which is expected to last for days, Picavet said.

"We're not going to go fast," Picavet said. "We want to preserve him as much as possible. He's pretty intact."

Losing anyone is difficult.

Losing someone and never knowing what happened, where they are is so much worse. Been there, done that more than once. I don't advise anyone buy that t-shirt if they can help it.

Good night, pilot. I'm so sorry that your parents never knew, had no body to bury, cemetery to visit - just tears to shed and a hole rent in their lives that they could not fill.