00:01Thank you very much.
00:04Do you believe that God supports the United States actions in this world?
00:08I do, because God is good and God wants to see people taken care of.
00:15God doesn't like what's happening.
00:21When American airmen were down behind enemy lines,
00:24our forces and our president did not hesitate.
00:26Special operators supported by elite air crews and intelligence professionals
00:31moved swiftly and decisively into treacherous mountain terrain
00:34under the constant threat of Iranian forces closing in.
00:39One downed airmen evaded capture for more than a day,
00:42scaling rugged ridges while hunted by the enemy.
00:46When he was finally able to activate his emergency transponder,
00:50his first message was simple and it was powerful.
00:54He sent a message, God is good.
00:59You see, shot down on a Friday, good Friday.
01:04Hidden in a cave, a crevice, all of Saturday.
01:09And rescued on Sunday.
01:12Flown out of Iran as the sun was rising on Easter Sunday.
01:17A pilot reborn, all home and accounted for.
01:22A nation rejoicing.
01:24The A-10 force and the rescue force did fantastic,
01:29did a fantastic job rescuing Dude 4-4 Alpha.
01:34He was recovered Friday afternoon.
01:36After establishing positive communications with the backseater,
01:40we learned, as the president said,
01:43that he was injured and actively evading enemy forces.
01:46And thanks to our interagency partners,
01:49we were able to get eyes on his location and positively ID him.
01:54Throughout this entire time,
01:56the enemy force continued to search for 4-4 Bravo,
01:59and the joint force continued to strike them over and over and over again.
02:04This was also a race against the clock,
02:07as it was critical that we locate the downed aviator as quickly as possible,
02:11while at the same time keeping our enemies misdirected.
02:17For that reason, in addition to the human and technical assets
02:22deployed by the president to find our airmen,
02:25CIA executed a deception campaign to confuse the Iranians,
02:30who were desperately hunting for our airmen.
02:33On Saturday morning, we achieved our primary objective
02:38by finding and providing confirmation
02:40that one of America's best and bravest was alive
02:44and concealed in a mountain crevice.
02:47That confirmation was relayed by Secretary Hegseth to the president,
02:52and the operation quickly moved to the execution phase.
02:56Following the successful exfiltration on Saturday night,
03:00our intelligence reflects that the Iranians were embarrassed
03:04and ultimately humiliated by the success of this audacious rescue mission.
03:09Generally, when planes are knocked down in war,
03:12especially when you're fighting a strong group, an evil group,
03:18you can't really do this because you send in 200 men to pick up one.
03:24And it's something that's usually not attempted as much as you want to attempt.
03:29And bad things happen to that one or two.
03:32And in this case, we did two, and it might not have been attempted before.
03:36But we did, and we had great talent, but we got a little luck, too, I would say.
03:41This first wave of search and rescue forces successfully located the pilot of the F-15,
03:48and he was extracted from enemy territory by an HH-60 Jolly Green 2 helicopter,
03:55a fabulous machine as our warriors faced gunfire at very close range.
04:01Meanwhile, the second crew member, a weapons system officer, a highly respected colonel,
04:06had landed a significant distance away from the pilot when you're going at those speeds.
04:11Even if you go out two or three seconds later, it's miles, it's miles and miles away.
04:17And he was injured. He scaled cliff faces, bleeding rather profusely,
04:23treated his own wounds and contacted American forces to transmit his location.
04:30They have a very sophisticated beeper-type apparatus that is on them at all times.
04:38We immediately mobilized a massive operation to retrieve him from the mountain holdout.
04:45And he kept going higher and higher. The mountain kept getting rougher and rougher,
04:49and really very, very hard to find.
04:52The second rescue mission involved 155 aircraft, including four bombers, 64 fighters,
05:0048 refueling tankers, 13 rescue aircraft and more.
05:05We were bringing them all over, and a lot of it was subterfuge.
05:10We wanted to have them think he was in a different location.
05:13We had seven different locations where they thought, and they were very confused.
05:18They said, well, wait a minute, they've got groups here, they've got groups there.
05:21It's amazing.
05:21It's amazing.
05:22There are a lot of people who can stand here right now.
05:24This is a mistake.
05:26We help us, it's amazing.
05:34This is a mistake.
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