U.S. Doesn’t Need To Put Pilots At Risk
As we celebrate a new American hero, we need to examine why Air Force Capt. Scott O’Grady survived six days downed in the heart of the Bosnian war zone.
The reasons are personal and communal.
O’Grady not only is cool-headed, courageous and well-trained, but also he’s fortunate to live in a country that values human life - and occasionally musters the will to act decisively in international affairs.
O’Grady, a Lewis and Clark High School graduate, might be sitting in a jail cell today, tortured by Bosnian Serbs and the focus of international negotiations with a brutal regime, if some Keystone Kops brigade of the United Nations had been in charge of his rescue. Or he’d be chained to a target, as U.N. peacekeepers were after their easy capture in recent weeks.
Instead, O’Grady relied on his Fairchild Air Force Base survival training to avoid Serbian patrols and put himself in a position for the rescue he knew would come. Air Force Col. John Chapman, director of Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape programs, described what O’Grady did as “virtually textbook.”
The same can be said for the U.S. Marines’ TRAP (Tactical Recovery of Aircraft and Personnel) team. The veteran 24th Expeditionary Unit, which has launched dramatic missions in other parts of this troubled world, performed flawlessly, whisking O’Grady out of danger without any loss of life.
President Clinton spoke for Americans everywhere, particularly Inland Northwest residents, when he told O’Grady afterward: “The whole country is elated.”
The president observed that Americans were on “pins and needles” while they waited to hear what had happened to the downed U.S. pilot. Few of us have forgotten how cheering Somalians paraded and abused the body of an American serviceman killed several years ago as the United States and other countries tried to help the starving country.
Countries like Bosnia, Somalia and Iraq may not understand our celebration over O’Grady’s rescue. In Bosnia, ethnic hatred runs so deeply that warring factions routinely slaughter each other. Human life has less value than it has here.
O’Grady’s rescue put an American face on the baffling conflict in the former Yugoslavia. Hundreds like the brave Spokane pilot will be lost if we’re crazy enough to get involved in a no-win land war there.
Then, we’ll shed tears of grief instead of joy.
, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = D.F. Oliveria/For the editorial board