Leonard Oshinskie didn't put much stock in what he'd heard over the phone.
Twice this fall he received calls from someone claiming to represent U.S. Air Force Mortuary Affairs, saying they had in their possession his late brother's class ring.
The ring hadn't been seen in at least 53 years, not since his brother, Robert, boarded a C-130 for an ill-fated surveillance mission on the outskirts of Soviet territory in the Caucasus region.
"I thought at first it was a hoax. ... I said, 'Somebody's pulling my leg,'" Leonard said by telephone earlier this month from his home in Oakland, N.J.
Robert, a Shamokin native and 1953 graduate of the city high school, was an airman first class, a voice and language specialist with the Silent Warriors of the Air Force Security Service.
He was with a detachment of a mobile radio unit on Sept. 2, 1958, and was traveling with a flight crew from the 7406th Support Squadron.
Looking back, Leonard dubbed it a spy mission.
"His tour of duty was up, but then he volunteered for this surveillance," he said.
They were to fly between strategic points above Turkey, but when the plane inadvertently entered restricted airspace, it was intercepted by Soviet fighter jets.
Four MiG-17 pilots each took aim at the unarmed American aircraft and shot it down. The plane crashed in the village of Sasnashen in neighboring Armenia. All 17 men aboard were killed, including Robert. He was 23 years old.
The remains of six Americans were returned by the Soviets in the weeks after the incident. Robert was among the other 11 who went unaccounted for - their fate muddled by diplomatic secrecy, the Soviets having denied for years that its pilots engaged the aircraft.
The incident was controversial and much of the events surrounding it remained classified as top secret for four decades.
Information began to trickle out after the fall of the Soviet Union, aided by the U.S.-Russia Joint Commission on POWs and MIAs, and some classified documents were made public as recently as 2009 through a Freedom of Information Act request.
An excavation of the crash site in 1993 turned up more than 2,000 bone and tooth fragments, life support equipment, personal effects and aircraft wreckage.
It wasn't until 1998 that a group remains identification was made for the other 11 airmen, whose remains were buried together on Sept. 2 that year - the 40th anniversary of their deaths - in Arlington National Cemetery.
Rings and a new school
Capt. Robert H. Sanders of the Kansas Air National Guard is a pilot. He admits it was unusual for him to take a job, a non-flying position, as the bilateral affairs officer with the U.S. Embassy in Armenia's capital city, Yerevan.
It was September 2009 when he arrived in Armenia, long after Cold War tensions had eased, and with their restrictions on information surrounding the C-130 incident.
The relationship between Armenia and the U.S. is warm, with Armenians having erected a monument at the site, called Aircraft Hill, in Sasnashen where the airplane carrying Airman Oshinskie and company had crashed.
A memorial service is held there annually on Sept. 2.
It was at that service in 2009 that Sanders' predecessor learned from the village's mayor that a pair of American class rings had long ago been recovered from the site.
He said it was convoluted as to if the rings actually existed and, if so, who possessed them.
The news popped up as a American project to rehabilitate a village school were pending.
"No one was saying it," Sanders recalled during a phone interview from his home state of Kansas, "but it appeared the rings were tied to a humanitarian assistance project to improve the elementary school."
So Sanders made the decision to lay low in pursuit of the rings until the project was approved, keeping the two issues separate.
Even after the school project got the OK, the situation remained delicate, Sanders said.
On one hand, despite the years having long worn on, there remained sensitivities surrounding the hostile military act.
On the other hand, there were sensitivities among relatives of the family believed to be in possession of the rings - and to whom among them the rings actually belonged.
Over time, Sanders and the village mayor became friendly, he said, with the two occasionally having dinner at the mayor's house.
One night, through a translator, Sanders laid it out.
"What's the real story?" he recalled asking.
Robert overcame polio
Leonard said he and his youngest brother weren't particularly close, citing their seven-year age difference, but the brotherly bond is evident in his voice when he speaks of Robert.
They were two of five children of the former Julia A. Kalinoski and John F. Oshinskie, who at one time was vice president of District 9 of the United Mine Workers of America.
Robert was faced with adversity early in life, having been stricken with polio at birth. He spent time in medical facilities in Elizabethtown and Mont Alto before being cured at age 4.
Robert would graduate from Shamokin High School in 1953. Leonard was graduated from the school in 1946.
All four Oshinskie boys would enter the service. John and Edward served in the Navy, while Leonard is an Army man.
The youngest sibling is sister Rose Marie.
Leonard's career led to him moving away from Shamokin to New Jersey in 1954.
He was working the day he learned Robert had been killed.
"I got the call from my wife that my brother had been shot down."
Given the Soviets' denial of the incident and the state of relations between the Soviet Union and the U.S., the story surrounding his death remained vague, even for Robert's family, until the 1990s.
'For our 17 brothers'
Larry Tart could likely be called the foremost authority on the crew of the downed C-130.
He is the author of two books, including "Price of Vigilance," a historical narrative of airborne intelligence reconnaissance that puts into great detail the events surrounding the doomed mission.
An expert in Air Force intelligence, Tart totaled 21 years in its Security Service, and from 1967 to 1973 he served in the same squadron as the reconnaissance crew killed aboard the American plane, having flown aboard a C-130, among other aircraft, just as Airman Oshinskie had.
Inside the squadron's briefing room hung a small, nondescript plaque with the names of the 17 men killed in Armenia.
When Tart became an airborne mission supervisor, he said it could be a challenge to hold the attention of young airmen during 4 a.m. briefings. As the briefings ended and they prepared to board aircraft for reconnaissance missions, Tart said he'd point to the plaque.
"OK guys," he recalled during a telephone interview from Destin, Fla., "let's fly this one today for our 17 brothers who didn't make it back, and let's be very vigilant so that the same thing doesn't happen to us."
To underscore just how sensitive the C-130 incident had once been, Tart said the plaque was ordered hung inside a classified room, out of eyesight of anyone without access.
Photocopies appear
In 2009, before Sanders arrived in Armenia, Tart said he had actually been contacted by an Army major named Krist Thodoropoulos who was at that year's memorial service on Aircraft Hill and was given two photocopies of the rings by the village mayor.
Tart said the major contacted him online and forwarded to him the photocopies for an initial assessment.
One ring was embossed with the year 1955 and what turned out to be West Monroe High School, along with the school nickname, Rebels. Tart correctly linked that ring to Airman Second Class Robert H. Moore.
The second ring had the date 1953. His research concluded, and rightly so, that it could only belong to Airman Oshinskie.
It's unclear if Thodoropoulos was Sanders' predecessor or was in Armenia in some other role. However, Tart lost contact with the major around the same time Sanders took over in the country.
It was disheartening to Tart.
"I was pretty sad because I'm sitting on information that two rings possibly exist but I didn't have any way to contact this major anymore," he said.
"And, I didn't dare contact the Oshinskie family and tell them the rings possibly existed because I didn't know anything else."
'Chills' for fellow airman
After Sanders prodded the mayor of Sasnashen for information on the class rings, he said the recovery effort quickly progressed.
It was July 2011 when he had a meeting with villagers about the rings. More details on the rings came through subsequent meetings.
Sanders said he stressed to the Armenian family involved that despite whatever was going on among them, it was important simply to confirm the rings' existence, to take photographs and to determine to which of the 17 men aboard the aircraft they belonged.
"Because the worst thing we could do is to notify the wrong next of kin," he said.
In short time, he was again summoned to meet with a village family. He spoke to a man about the issue of closure for a grieving family, in general, and how a personal effect like a class ring could ease their pain.
The man nodded as if he understood, Sanders said, and then the man's mother came into the room.
"She just pulled them out and hands them to me. I was like, 'No way!'"
The rings had been in the village family's possession for at least 20 years. They kept them in part because they were scared, a relative told Sanders, and in part because they wanted to be sure to give them to the right person.
"These rings have been gone for 53 years and the first American to hold them is also an air crew member," Sanders said. "It gives me chills right now just to think about it."
Sanders left the home that night without the rings. Some decisions had yet to be made among the family and, after actually having held the rings, he said he felt comfortable they weren't going to disappear.
On Sept. 2, 2011, the 53rd anniversary of the death of Airman Oshinskie and his 16 fellow servicemen, a ribbon-cutting was held. The village opened its new elementary school to much fanfare among residents.
On hand were several high-ranking officials representing both the U.S. and Armenia. Maj. Gen. Mark Zamzow, vice commander of the 3rd Air Force at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, accepted the rings on behalf of the U.S. and the family of the 17 Americans killed aboard the C-130.
Sanders' mission in Armenia ended in late September. When he returned, he brought with him the two class rings, which he first showed to members in his squadron before promptly mailing them to Mortuary Affairs in Washington, D.C.
"I'm a pilot and I get to fly around the world, but this job and getting these rings back is without a doubt the coolest thing I'll ever do in my entire military career."
Opening the box
If Leonard needed any convincing that one of the two rings recovered in Armenia belonged to Robert, it took but one visit from officers of Mortuary Affairs who, last month, hand delivered the Shamokin High School class ring.
The visit, coupled with those earlier phone calls, were the first time Leonard had learned of the ring's existence in wake of the fiery crash.
"I opened that box and I just couldn't believe it. It was a very emotional moment for me," he said.
Tart, the author who helped identify the owners of the two rings, heard from Thodoropoulos out of the blue this past September and learned the rings were now in possession of the U.S.
Tart kept quiet a little while longer. His involvement was then rewarded with a heartfelt thank you letter from Rose Marie. The two had previously met at the National Vigilance Park in Fort Meade, Md., site of a memorial honoring the 17 men killed on the C-130, a project Tart helped spearhead.
A few days later, he and Leonard spoke by phone. They talked for a long while.
"We both shed some tears on it," Tart said. "At least by getting Robert's ring back, the family had closure at last."
Cherish forever
The box is finely finished; on its top is an inscription in both English and Armenian commemorating the 1958 incident.
Leonard said he took the ring out of the box, held it in his hand. It's identical, he said, to the class ring he once had - a ring that is long gone in its own right.
His wife, his high school sweetheart, the former Joanne "Nancy" Williams, still has hers, he pointed out.
Of Robert's, he said, "It's something that we'll cherish forever; as long as we live."
Leonard had been keeping it on his dining room table. In his bedroom he keeps his brother's Purple Heart among other mementos. It's hard to imagine the ring won't join them soon.