A California woman has met a man from Norway who found her late father’s ring over 20 years ago.
Abby Boretto waited all her life for this moment. When she was only 15 months old, her mother of 50 Abby Boretto lost her father.
Her father, who was serving in the Marines in a NATO mission called “Another NATO Mission”, died in a helicopter accident. “Operation Strong Express,”In the Fall of 1972, on the Island of Grytoya, Northern Norway
It occurred at the heights of the Cold War. “war games”Between NATO and the Soviet Union. The accident resulted in five deaths.
Around 27 years ago, Abby’s mother was presented with a military ring that belonged to her late husband after Dr. Hans Krogstad came across the ring at the crash site while hiking the mountain in Grytoya.
“The ring sat in those elements for 22 years, in the Norwegian elements on top of this mountain, 2,500 feet above sea level in this moonscape of a place. I mean, you just can’t believe it,”She spoke to Inside Edition Digital.
Abby claims that Dr. Krogstad was in a position to contact various military organizations to return the ring to the next of the kin.
Eventually, Abby was given her father’s ring but put it away in a box of memories about a man she never knew.
Abby turned 50 last year and found the ring once again. She wanted to contact Dr. Krogstad to meet him personally and thank him for his help.
While many people in this day and age are on social media, Dr. Krogstad was not, which made Abby’s search more difficult,She said.
However, something remarkable happened around the same time — he was trying to find her.
“Unbeknownst to each other, he was also looking for me. At the same time, he had happened to bump into somebody and it triggered the thought about the ring. And so he started reaching back out,”She said.
She says that Dr. Krogstad’s son was friends with a journalist in Norway, who was able to use his resources and find her.
“I believe that I’ve been guided to this moment. I wasn’t equipped at 23 years old to take on this knowledge that I’m learning,” she said.
It took her nearly 30 years to finally meet Dr. Krogstad.
She hiked up the difficult mountain 50 years to the day of her father’s crash. The Norwegian military put a plaque commemorating his life and the other lives lost that day at the sight.
“We stood on that mountain 50 years to the day. That is an amazing feat. If you could understand where this is at the top of the world. It is within the Arctic Circle,”She said. “It was an amazing feat for me. It’s quite treacherous. It’s pretty difficult. It’s a high level hike and we trained for it, thankfully.”
She said she felt her father’s presence with her as she made the difficult trek to the spot and met Hans, who is now in his 70s and arrived by helicopter to the area.
“I feel like I absolutely have a relationship with this person that I’ve never known,”She spoke highly of Hans, their desire to meet each other.
She felt like she was meeting him for the very first time after she reached the spot where the crash took place and learned more about her dad.
“It’s a Cinderella story that you can’t, can’t even imagine. And it’s really, it’s about a girl meeting her father for the first time and sort of spiritually, if you will. You know what I mean? Because obviously he’s not here, but boy has he been here the whole time,”She said.
Abby has been documenting Abby’s journey for a documentary she hopes to release next spring. She also feels closer to her father by documenting her journey.
“It is very interesting for me to watch any footage from Operation Strong Express, especially if I’m to see the inch on the ship that he served on, or any of the helicopter flights during any of that very grainy tapings from back in the day footage,”She said. “But to know that my father was walking around in there, is an interesting feeling. It’s very Titanic. It’s very romantic. It’s very historic… Very ghostly.”