Posted on 07/03/2002 1:43:39 PM PDT by Slam
An author and former intelligence officer breaks the incredible true story of the first American pilot shot down during the Gulf War—found alive eleven years after his own government left him for dead.
Around midnight on January 16, 1991, Lt. Comdr. Michael Scott Speicher launches from the deck of the USS Saratoga in the Red Sea, joining a fleet of forty F/A-18 Hornets set to deliver the first air strike of the Gulf War. It is a mission he wasn’t initially scheduled to fly—and from which he would never return. Moments after an assault by an Iraqi MiG, Speicher’s plane reportedly vanishes in a blazing fireball over the Baghdad desert. The next day, Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell tell the public that Speicher was the first casualty of the Gulf War. He is listed as Killed in Action. His young wife and family are devastated.
Two months later, a colonel in the Kuwaiti secret police claims to have been in the same hospital ward as a captured American pilot. In December 1993, pieces of a wrecked F/A-18 are confirmed to be Speicher’s downed Hornet. Six months later, a military investigation begins. On January 10, 2001, on the basis of reemerging evidence (brought to light partly thanks to Amy Yarsinske’s dogged research), Speicher is officially declared Missing in Action, the first time in history that a U.S. serviceman’s status has ever been changed.
Tracking this explosive story for the past eight years, Amy Waters Yarsinske interviewed top government and military officials, diplomats, pilots, informers, and Iraqi defectors. The result is a stunning true account of the denials and cover-ups that obscured an essential fact: Speicher actually survived. In No One Left Behind, she takes readers behind the intrigue and the lies to solve this ten-year-old mystery and unearth the truth of what really happened that dark night over Iraq in 1991.
"When in the Course of human events....we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."
"I pledge allegiance to the Flag..."
Not just a bunch of words to Scott Speicher.
As an aside, I used to live in P'cola...hubby went through flight training there and, later, he was an instructor in VT-4. It's a wonderful city, and I miss the beautiful beaches.
HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!
;o)
Why did they move this? We are not trying to sell a book here...just trying to bring attention to an issue that Freepers especially need to be aware of.
Guess its News...its okay to discuss the pros and cons of an ex-pornstar two bit actor who's running for Gov in some state, but NOT announce that a must read book detailing the true real to life controversial story about an American hero on the eve of the Fourth of July is about to be published.
Who is moderating today?
"...book detailing the true real to life controversial story about an American hero on the eve of the Fourth of July is about to be published."
If it is to be moved, Religion would be the last place to put it.
Why don't you ask? I'm sure that he/she would be happy to tell you.
BUMP!
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