Captain Scott O’Grady is best known as the F-16 pilot shot down during Operation Deny Flight over the former Yugoslavia in 1995.  He survived for five and a half days — during which no one even knew he was alive — before being rescued.  Upon his return home he was declared a hero, a title he eschewed and passed on to the Marines who lifted him to safety.

The book details the mission from his arrival at work until the missile took his jet out from under him; it then describes the days he spent on the ground hoping for a rescue.  Interspersed are back stories of his life and his family back in the US as they learned of his shootdown.  The retelling of the organization of the rescue effort and its subsequent execution — which was completed about 5 hours after the initial radio contact — is well done.

Regrettably, O’Grady became a victim of Read more