{"id":391,"date":"2009-08-05T01:41:46","date_gmt":"2009-08-05T05:41:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2009\/08\/04\/fighter-pilot-remembered-for-christian-faith\/"},"modified":"2009-08-04T13:42:13","modified_gmt":"2009-08-04T17:42:13","slug":"fighter-pilot-remembered-for-christian-faith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2009\/08\/05\/fighter-pilot-remembered-for-christian-faith\/","title":{"rendered":"Fighter Pilot Remembered for Christian Faith"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Capt. Mark McDowell perished a few weeks ago when his F-15E Strike Eagle <a href=\"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2009\/07\/18\/fighter-crashes-in-afghanistan-crew-killed\/\">crashed in Afghanistan<\/a>.\u00a0 His <a href=\"http:\/\/www.christianfighterpilot.com\/fighterpilotspeak.htm#WSO\">WSO<\/a>, Capt. Thomas Granith, was also killed in the crash.\u00a0 McDowell&#8217;s grandfather noted his <a href=\"http:\/\/www.militarycity.com\/valor\/4196376.html\">call to flying<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>(Flying) was his life. He died doing what he wanted to do. He wanted to fly. He was called to fly&#8230;God called him to be a pilot.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>His <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gastongazette.com\/news\/force-36548-air-pilot.html\">memorial service was recently held<\/a> at First Baptist Church of Belmont in North Carolina.\u00a0 Much of the service focused on &#8220;Mark&#8217;s strong faith in God.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cMark was always seeking to know more about the Scriptures&#8230;&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote><p>The service concluded with a powerful message on faith in Jesus and an invitation for everyone in attendance to accept him.<!--more-->\u00a0Stan McDowell said he wants everyone to share his assurance of salvation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat is God\u2019s plan in all this? I don\u2019t know,\u201d his father, Stan, said. \u201cWhat I do know is that God is in control. I know that Mark is safe in heaven with God, and that one day, I also will be in heaven reunited with my son.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>His mother\u00a0recalled\u00a0the strength of his faith:\u00a0<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>[McDowell] will also be remembered for his intelligence and his strong Christian faith.\u00a0 &#8220;He knew the Lord very well and he was not alone in the cockpit that night,&#8221; his mother said. &#8220;Mark is with Jesus in heaven&#8230;&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Capt. McDowell was a 2005 US Air Force Academy graduate.\u00a0 Based on his graduation date, he would have been promoted to Captain a little more than a month prior to his crash.\u00a0 His widow, Katherine McDowell, is a 2006 USAFA graduate.\u00a0 Lt McDowell was <a href=\"http:\/\/www.charlotteobserver.com\/597\/story\/845966.html\">deployed to Iraq<\/a> while her husband was in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Capt. Mark McDowell perished a few weeks ago when his F-15E Strike Eagle crashed in Afghanistan.\u00a0 His WSO, Capt. Thomas Granith, was also killed in the crash.\u00a0 McDowell&#8217;s grandfather noted his call to flying: (Flying) was his life. He died doing what he wanted to do. He wanted to fly. He was called to fly&#8230;God called him to be a [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[13,2],"class_list":["post-391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-military-academies","tag-aircraft","tag-military"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=391"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}