article_snippet.sent: Back in the galley, I ask Cortese about Cortese worst experience while serving at sea with the Guardia di Finanza.
article_snippet.sent: Cortese and most of Cortese shipmates took part in the rescue effort on October 3, 2013, after a ship with hundreds of migrants had gone down off Lampedusa.
article_snippet.sent: More than 350 people died in that disaster.
article_snippet.sent: I still remember pulling out of the water, with our hands, a young, pregnant woman who had just died," Cortese recalls.
article_snippet.sent: There were children," adds Cortese crewmate, Idone, shaking Cortese head.
article_snippet.sent: It was a bad situation.
article_snippet.sent: Cortese and Idone stress that as fathers, there is nothing worse than having to see the bodies of children.
article_snippet.sent: He emphasizes that He and He shipmates were just doing he and his shipmates duty as professional military men.
highlights_snippet.sent: The Calabrese was involved in a rescue in October 2013, during which more than 350 people died .