The Patriot Post® · 'We Got Him'
Those were President Trump’s words Sunday morning when he announced the successful rescue of an Air Force officer deep inside Iran. On Friday, the pilot and weapons officer of a F-15E fighter jet were forced to eject over Iranian territory after their aircraft was hit by enemy fire. President Trump later identified the weapons officer as a “highly respected colonel.”
Just before ejecting from his F-15, the colonel radioed a brief message. Likely with his death or capture by the enemy racing through his mind, the colonel said, “God is good.”
Can you imagine having the faith and fortitude of that colonel in that moment? The normal human response in times of crisis is to question God or, worse, to even curse God for “allowing” some tragedy to occur.
What unfolded over the next two days was one of the most incredible search and rescue operations in modern memory. It has all the elements of a blockbuster Hollywood movie!
“An Easter Miracle”
The Iranian regime was furiously looking for the U.S. airmen. They put a $60,000 bounty on their heads—nearly 14 times the median Iranian household income. The capture of the U.S. airmen would have made for tremendous propaganda videos, just like the ones Iran made to humiliate U.S. sailors during Barack Obama’s presidency in 2016.
The F-15E pilot was quickly rescued, but Trump administration officials did not publicly confirm that. In fact, the president said yesterday that an investigation is underway to find out who leaked the news that the pilot had been rescued. President Trump said the leak was a breach of national security that aided the Iranians.
The CIA launched a deception campaign to keep the Iranians off track while the agency searched for the missing weapons officer. In spite of his wounds, the colonel managed to hike up a 7,000-foot ridge and hide in a crevice in the Zagros Mountains, evading capture.
The U.S. military constructed an “emergency” landing strip 200 miles inside Iran to support the rescue mission. Hundreds of U.S. special forces, including SEAL Team 6, and Israeli commando units were deployed to rescue the colonel, while the U.S. and Israeli military destroyed any enemy troops that approached the colonel’s location.
In a text message to one Washington reporter, President Trump declared that the colonel’s rescue was “an Easter miracle.” He’s right. Not only were many prayers answered, but the mission was incredibly complex, and there were no casualties.
Jeh Johnson, who served as a top official in the Pentagon and as Barack Obama’s secretary of Homeland Security, said Sunday that this rescue mission was “a remarkable demonstration of U.S. military courage, technology, and power.”
Referring to the military operation that successfully took out Osama bin Laden, Johnson added, “This kind of [rescue] operation is more complicated than the bin Laden operation, for example.”
Faith Under Fire
In recent weeks, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has come under fire from the left-wing media for his openly sharing his faith. He hosts monthly prayer services at the Pentagon and attends weekly Bible studies at the White House.
The Washington Post and other media outlets claim that Hegseth’s public expressions of faith are shattering “decades-old norms.” Those would be the “decades” when political correctness and leftist bureaucrats started pushing faith out of the Pentagon.
The Post and other secular leftists were particularly peeved that Hegseth prayed for U.S. forces in the Iran conflict to unleash “overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy” and that “every round [would] find its mark against the enemies of righteousness and our great nation.”
Were they upset at the colonel who was just rescued in Iran for relying on his Christian faith? The fact that there are leaders in our military and bureaucrats in the Pentagon who think the prayers of millions of Americans had nothing to do with his rescue is a sign of how much we have strayed from our Judeo-Christian heritage.
Thank God the president, the secretary of war and thousands of our men and women in the military are praising God and seeking His blessing before they go out on a mission. Why would anyone think they should do that in secret?
I can assure you there is not one jihadist Shiite warrior who doesn’t go through all the rituals of his false faith before he goes out to kill the infidel, whether it is an American or Israeli soldier or a Jew or a Christian. But we are told it is wrong to ask the True God for victory and protection.
Our Commander-in-Chief
At a press conference Monday afternoon, Secretary Hegseth told reporters that President Trump was fully engaged and making key decisions around the clock since the moment we were first aware that the fighter jet had been shot down.
But because President Trump was actively involved in supervising this rescue mission, he was not as publicly visible as he usually is. That led many left-wing lunatics to speculate (or hope) there was something medically wrong with the president. Yet, when Joe Biden disappeared for days because there really was something wrong with him, these people were silent.
Speaking of Biden, contrast President Trump’s leadership over the past 48 hours and the past 30 days with Biden’s inability to withdraw from the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan. Thirteen U.S. military personnel were killed and dozens more were wounded because of Biden’s incompetence.
Get Them Out
Kudos to Secretary of State Marco Rubio! After relatives of Iranian terror mastermind General Qasem Soleimani were discovered living in the United States, Secretary Rubio revoked their visas.
For 22 years, Soleimani led the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force, which is responsible for Iran’s foreign military and terrorist activities. Soleimani was responsible for the deaths and maiming of thousands of American soldiers in Iraq. President Trump ended his reign of terror with a drone strike in January 2020.
Soleimani’s niece, Hamideh Soleimani Afshar, and her daughter were arrested Friday and are awaiting deportation back to Iran. According to the State Department, Afshar routinely “promoted Iranian regime propaganda, celebrated attacks against American soldiers and military facilities in the Middle East, praised the new Iranian Supreme Leader and denounced America as the ‘Great Satan.’”
Afshar first came to the U.S. on a tourist visa in 2015 and was given a green card by the Biden administration in 2021. Yet in spite of her asylum claims, she traveled to Iran several times. So, while Trump took out Gen. Soleimani, Obama and Biden were bringing his relatives into America!
Afshar and her daughter are not the only relatives of senior Iranian officials who were living in the United States. Dr. Fatemeh Ardeshir-Larijani, the daughter of Ali Larijani, who served as secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, was working at Emory University in Georgia before she was deported.
More Job Gains
Friday’s employment report showed significant job gains in March—178,000 new jobs. That’s nearly three times what economists had predicted. Construction, healthcare, manufacturing and transportation all saw major gains, while 18,000 federal government jobs were eliminated.
The unemployment rate fell from 4.4% to 4.3%. Wages were up 3.5% over the past year, growing faster than inflation.
Easter Reflections
Joe Biden spent his last Easter in the White House celebrating Transgender Day of Visibility. His Easter message was perfunctory and less than 100 words. His proclamation honoring Transgender Day of Visibility was nearly 600 words.
In contrast, President Trump’s Easter message was 300 words, and, most importantly, it was a clear presentation of the Gospel.
What about President Trump’s Transgender Day of Visibility proclamation? There wasn’t one! But the White House did release this statement:
“Two years ago today, the Biden Administration desecrated Easter Sunday with a ‘transgender’ message that elevated radical leftist ideology over faith, family, and biological truth.
"This Easter season, the Trump Administration is celebrating a decisive victory: the swift and unrelenting dismantling of subversive, woke policies that endangered children, eroded women’s rights, assaulted common sense, and dragged America toward moral and cultural decline.
"Under President Trump, the era of government-sanctioned delusion is over.”