President Trump on Monday revealed the miraculous and harrowing 36 hours that a US colonel spent behind enemy lines in Iran — “injured quite badly” and “bleeding rather profusely” before he was rescued.
“In the United States military, we leave no American behind. We don’t do it,” Trump told reporters at a White House briefing, sharing new details about the daring mission to bring back the weapons system officer from the “treacherous mountain terrain.”
The US colonel shot down over Iran scaled a cliff while bleeding profusely and then treated his own wounds while hiding nearly two days in an area “teeming with terrorists,’’ President Trump revealed.
“The heroic F-15 weapons system officer had evaded capture on the ground in Iran for almost 48 hours. That’s a long time when you’re in tough shape and when you’re bleeding,” Trump said at a press conference.
He landed a “significant distance” away from the pilot of the F-15E, shot down south of Isfahan Thursday night.
The weapons system officer was successfully extracted from the southwest of Iran on Sunday in “one of the largest, most complex, most harrowing combat searches … ever attempted by the military,” the president said.
In total, 155 military aircraft including four bombers, 64 fighters, 48 refueling tankers and 13 rescue aircraft were deployed for the mission, Trump said
“A lot of it was subterfuge,” the president explained. “We wanted them to think he was in another location.”
The “highly respected” colonel landed away from the F-15E’s pilot, “was injured quite badly and stranded in an area teeming with terrorists from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,” the president continued.
Iran used sniffer dogs to try to track down the downed airman, but they were ineffective at tracking him down, according to US military sources.
“They were given a tremendous incentive to find this pilot,” Trump added. “Despite the peril, the officer followed his training and climbed into the treacherous mountain terrain and started climbing toward a higher altitude, something they were trained to do in order to evade capture.”
What to know about the daring rescue of the US airman in Iran:
“You want to go as far away because they all head right to that site. You want to be as far away as you can,” he also said, noting that the crew member was “bleeding rather profusely” from his injuries and had to treat his own wounds before being able to contact “American forces to transmit his location.”
