Unlocking a painful wartime past through photographs

Myron Petrakis, 100, spoke at the opening of a new photo exhibit, “American Heroes: Portraits of Service” at Midway Airport. (Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times)

The Navy minesweeper motto is “Wherever the fleet goes, we’ve been.”

The unofficial one, the one that Myron Petrakis remembers, goes something like this: “Put up the gold star, mothers, your son is in the minesweepers.”