Stealth Pilot Rescue | No Man Left Behind

I was a fighter pilot in the United States Air Force and the F-117 Stealth fighter, and I participated in Operation Allied Force. My task was to take out one of the most high-value strategic command and control targets in Belgrade. This thing was supposed to be a 3 to 5-day air campaign: just go, you know, hit a couple discreet targets, bring everyone back. Obviously, it didn't pan out that way; it became much more complicated.

The first and the second night went smoothly; all the missions went without much incident. We anticipated the third night would probably be the same. It was extremely unexpected that it would go past about 2 or 3 nights. So that, I think, gives you a sense of the type of targets that they would select for the F-117's and the B2s to surgically strike. The Serbs were a formidable force to deal with. Belgrade had a very serious integrated air defense system, which is why the F-117 was in there.

Early on, we knew we had the training, we knew we had the experience, we knew we had the gear to do what we needed to do that night. Once you are stealthed up, you do not communicate. So if anything were to happen to me, there's a real good chance that nobody would know.

My phone rings, and my Marine captain gives me a call and says, "I think you need to come up to the battle set floor, 'cause I think we've lost an aircraft." There is unquestionably an unwritten code that when an aircraft goes down, we will do everything in our power to retrieve that individual. Everyone was starting to find out that we had lost an aircraft; they all wanted a piece of this thing to be able to get Dil back.

We know that a survivor on the ground has a limited shelf life. We knew people were going to be trying to shoot us down; we knew that there was a much higher risk involved. The F-117 getting shot down was so unexpected that the attitude changed immediately. That it was just such an against all odds type scenario. I knew that when the night was over, it was going to be very different from what I envisioned in my head.

The only part that I knew, and that we all knew, is that we were going to rescue this guy. Part of the pledge we take, you know, our motto is that these things we do that others may live. That's everything you do, everything you train for, everything you deploy for. Several years ago, the opportunity presented itself for the Serbian Surface-to-Air missile battery commander, Colonel Zultan Donnie, and me to meet.

He's a wonderful, wonderful human being. Wouldn't it be amazing if we could all get to truly know each other? And then, once you become very close, intimate, dear friends, how could you ever be against each other?