Norman Mineta had the unfortunate privilege of being the Secretary of Transportation on September 11, 2001.

Norman Mineta was born on November 12, 1931 in San Jose, California. As a Japanese American, Mineta was sent with his family to an internment camp in Heart Mountain, Wyoming after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. Mineta was 10 years old and loved baseball at the time. He brought with him to the camp a baseball bat, his prized possession. It was confiscated as a weapon and he never saw it again. When Mineta was in the House of Representatives, a random man from Los Angeles heard the baseball bat story and sent Mineta a baseball bat used by the great Hank Aaron. Unfortunately it was valued at $1,500 and as a member of the House of Representatives, Mineta could only accept a gift valued at $250 or below. He sent it back and told a reporter at the time, ''the damn government's taken my bat again.'' 21 years later, when Mineta retired, the man sent it back to him and it was finally his forever.

During the Korean War, Mineta served as an intelligence officer for the U.S. Army after having trained in the Reserve Officers Training Program. After the war, he returned to San Jose and became active in local politics, joining the City Council and eventually becoming mayor of San Jose. He just kept on climbing and in 1974, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.

In 1988, Mineta was influential in passing the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which provided monetary compensation to those sent to the Japanese internment camps. Mineta argued, “We lost our homes, we lost our businesses, we lost our farms, but worst of all, we lost our most basic human rights." (The law passed because duh, btw.) At the end of Bill Clinton’s term, Mineta was elected to Secretary of Commerce. He was the first Asian American to serve on a presidential cabinet.

When George W. Bush was elected in 2000, he made Mineta his Secretary of Transportation. When 9/11 happened, there were 4,546 planes in the air and Mineta ordered them all down, an unprecedented call. After the attacks he was adamant about the fact that airlines should not racially profile passengers in response to this attack. Then he built the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to combat terrorism. He retired in 2006, having seen some bad stuff, but also having accomplished incredible things. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2006 and the Distinguished Medal of Honor for Lifetime Achievement and Public Service from the Japanese American National Museum in 2012. All very deserved.

Now all we want to know is whether or not Mr. Mineta flies commercial.