Rebecca Rusch grew up in the suburbs of Chicago without knowing her father.
As an adult, an athletic competition that took her to Vietnam inspired her to learn more about his life.
She returned years later to document her search for where her father’s life ended and came home with a valuable history lesson and personal purpose.
Her father, Stephen Rusch, was a U.S. Air Force pilot who was shot down over Laos during the Vietnam War, when she was 3. Growing up, she had no personal memories of him and never asked too many questions, she said.
