Guy D. McCardle
A U.S. Air Force F-15E was shot down over Iran, leaving a weapons systems officer evading capture for more than 36 hours as American forces launched a full-scale rescue under fire. Seven thousand feet up, cut into rock and wind, a United States Air Force colonel sat alone with a pistol, a radio, and a beacon. He was bleeding. Not catastrophic, but enough to slow him down. Ejection will do that. The spine compresses. Limbs take a hit. You walk it off, or you don’t.
He moved anyway.
True to his SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape) training, he climbed out of the crash basin, away from wreckage, away from heat signatures and predictable search patterns. He found a crevice and stayed small. He keyed the beacon only when needed. Iranian forces were already moving. Civilians too. There was a bounty on his head, and state television was telling people to shoot on sight.
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