Let's hear it for the USAF Pararescue crews!
NORFOLK As Navy pilot Lt. Chad Vincelette and a crewmate free-fell over Iraq after ejecting from their failing F-14 Tomcat a week ago, he thought about his daughter, who was turning 4 that day.
"Please don't let me die on her birthday," he said to himself, anxious until his parachute opened.
Lt. Vincelette was reunited Tuesday with his daughter, as well as his son, wife and mother. They were waiting for him at the gate as a plane carrying Lt. Vincelette and other military passengers arrived at Norfolk Naval Station.
"Hey," the 32-year-old Virginia Beach native said as he hugged and kissed his beaming relatives.
Lt. Vincelette scooped up little Annie and asked, "Did you have a good birthday?"
Annie buried her face into her father's neck and softly said, "Yes."
Six-year-old Jackson proudly showed his father new teeth coming in. He lost two front teeth while Lt. Vincelette was gone fighting the war.
Lt. Vincelette, an instructor at the strike-fighter weapons school at Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia Beach, said he returned home to spend time with his family while the Navy investigates the mishap. He declined to give many details about what happened.
The F-14 was heading back to the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk after a bombing run April 1 when a mechanical failure forced Lt. Vincelette and the jet's radar-intercept officer to eject. It was the first confirmed report of a U.S. fighter going down in Iraq during the war.
"I was kind of in a shock when the whole thing happened," Lt. Vincelette said. "We came down, landed safely and got picked up by the Air Force combat search-and-rescue guys."
He said he was very nervous landing in Iraq, and thanked his rescuers.
Asked how long the men spent on the ground, he said, "It seemed like forever."
After the ejection, he said, the worst part was during the free-fall in the darkness "for quite a long time" before the men's parachutes opened. That's when he thought about Annie, he said. He also concentrated on his survival training.
"Initially, your training takes over, and you just go on your gut instinct," Lt. Vincelette said.
Elizabeth Vincelette said she had talked to her husband by phone and knew he was fine, but was thrilled to finally see him.
"I'm just so excited right now just to be able to touch him," said Elizabeth Vincelette, who wore an American flag pin on her suit jacket.
"It doesn't always turn out as happy as this," she said. "I can only feel blessed and very fortunate that he's here right now."
Lt. Vincelette planned to have a beer and leftover birthday cake when the family arrived at their home in nearby Virginia Beach.
He said he expects to stay at home for a while, but that he would be willing to go back to Iraq.
"I'm an American fighter pilot, here to serve my country," Lt. Vincelette said.