A million kudos to the heroes of the Swift Creek Reservoir search

Government, at every level, has really been taking it on the chin lately, and deservedly so. Chesterfield County Administrator Lane Ramsey charters a flight for $18,000 to fly back from Kansas for a non-crisis crisis; state and local health officials hastily decide to off the Maymont Bears; Doug Wilder says the city isn't responsible for making its own schools accessible to the disabled; and we now know with 100 percent certainty that in the Hurricane Katrina disaster everybody knew everything and no one did anything.

So it is refreshing to able to commend a government operation, even if it is for so tragic an event. Chesterfield County police, fire and EMS and even the FBI went to heroic measures to recover the bodies of Jordan Sebia and Travis Turner, the two 13-year-olds who went missing on the Swift Creek Reservoir on Feb. 26. Who knows what it cost the county? Who cares? This is why we pay taxes -- for services that truly help people. Those divers couldn't help those boys or bring them back to their parents alive, but they were able to give their parents an important gift nonetheless: the chance to move to the next chapter in their unthinkable grief, questions answered, not having to look back at the water and always wonder.