Ricky Mantei has built up decades of experience and insight in his field, including his work as a top Merrill Lynch broker in the 1980s and 1990s. Ricky Mantei is also a veteran of the United States Air Force, participating each year in South Carolina’s Salute from the Shore Independence Day flyover tribute to American service members. In the time since his retirement, he has piloted military luminaries including members of the famous Doolittle Raiders, the airmen led by legendary Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle in a perilous 1942 raid against then-enemy Japan.

In 2019, the last of the 80 Doolittle Raiders, Lt. Col. Dick Cole, passed away at age 103. Cole was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Cole had served as Doolittle’s co-pilot in the Doolittle Raid, the American forces’ first counterattack against the Japanese mainland following the attack on Pearl Harbor. Launched on April 18, 1942, from the USS Hornet, more than 600 nautical miles out from their target, the 16 modified B-25B Mitchell bomber planes did little physical damage, but gave those back home in the United States a big boost of morale. The raid also marked the only time US aircraft bombers were launched into combat from an aircraft carrier.

In the years before his death, Cole had become a legendary and beloved figure in public life. Notably, he participated in a 2016 announcement at the Air Force Association’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference to reveal that the B-21, the new long-range stealth bomber, would be called “the Raider.”