Basher Five-Two: The True Story of F-16 Fighter Pilot Captain Scott O'Grady

This story of a soldier in a desperate situation showed how knowledge, love, courage, and faith can help us survive. His humility is a great example to follow.

I am a former combat pilot who wondered about this pilot and his experience. I don’t think he told the whole story, but it is good enough for those readers who have not attended survival school.

I was on the Kearsarge when we launched the mission to rescue Capt. O'Grady. When the helicopters returned I took a walk around them on the flight deck and took several pictures of the many small arms bullet holes peppering the fuselage, rotors and especially the rear door of one helicopter.One of the marines whom I was acquainted with told me of the bullet that went through the canteen of the guy sitting next to him, spun around on the shaking helicopter floor in front of them until the guy reached down and picked it up. An RPG also flashed by their little bubble window but missed.The crew chief I spoke with said that capt O'Grady had his side arm in hand as he tried to climb aboard the chopper and would not follow instructions to put it away first. The crew chief was worried that a strung out O'Grady might cause an accidental discharge in the aircraft. When O'Grady continued to refuse, the chief knocked his wrist against the door edge until he let go of the gun.Overall, it is precisely as I remember it from my position as ship's crew but it is nice finally learning his side of the operation, which of course is the more important story.

We purchased this for a Co-op class my daughter was attending and it was such a great book. She strongly dislikes reading but she loved this!

amazing story for fifth grade and up and adults, full of adventure, hard work, patriotism, honor, miltary respect and gratefulness, Heroes in Arlington cemetery, a touch of humor in a difficult situation, amazing rescue of a downed Air Force fighter pilot, Scott , by Marines, over Bosnia in 1995. Good for class read like fifth grade up, adult version is called Return with Honor, 99% same as Basher Five Two(his call sign) version. Also gave as graduation gift to some highschoolers.

I ordered this book to replace the first book he wrote "Return with Honor". I thoroughly enjoyed reading both books, but after reading this one I am pretty sure somethings were rewritten.

The book provides the true story, the real things that happened, and these things would have made a better movie than the one that is supposedly based on Scott O'Grady's experience. I'm glad I looked him up and found his book. It's a wonderful read with chilling suspense and heart warming events that make me proud of the training and dedication of our armed forces. The rescue effort reached to the highest ranks, had the backing of Nato, and involved quite a large group of military people and aircraft. They risked their own lives to make sure his was saved. When he boards the rescue helicopter and looks around at the men sent to find him, they are all just kids looking back at him. It was heart-warming.

This was fine as a short book about the shoot-down event described in the book. I wish, however, that the author had considered writing a lot more than just that one event. This book would have been excellent if the author had included his entire career with the Air Force, from training. If not that much, then perhaps just the period of the posting to Italy. I enjoy reading details of flying and learning more about flying the F-16 would be a treat, but is not included in this book.

A nice easy read and, refreshingly, the author has avoided the temptation to embellish his story with exaggerations and egotism. A good short book that tells it exactly how it was and what the pilot went through.I am not religious so the endless references to the pilot praying to God got a bit tiresome. However, that is part of the story and, whether you are a believer or not, there is no doubt that his own faith kept him going throughout his ordeal.The film "Behind Enemy Lines" starring Owen Wilson was supposed to be based on this incident but, after reading the book, it is fairly obvious that the film is a complete work of fiction. Apart from a US pilot being on the run in Bosnia, the film has absolutely nothing else in common. Yes, it's a good film, but it is for entertainment only.If I could give a separate rating for the way this book has been converted for the Kindle I would give it zero stars. The conversion is an absolute disgrace. All the way throughout the book the word "I'd" (as in "I had" or "I would") had been written as "Fd". That's obviously the result of using poor character recognition software when scanning the pages of a print edition. Not spotting such glaring errors is a shambles.Overall, a nice short factual book about one pilot's experience in war. Well worth reading. Just make sure you buy the print edition!

This book, whilst a true story, is short at just 134 (ish) pages.When I received it in the post I was slightly disappointed with it being such a quick read. The story is compelling, overwhelming and the narrative is good.

started to read this book on my new kindle love the book interesting from the start worth the money ide say

A very good book on a true story of an American shot down over Bosnia while enforcing the no-fly-zone over Bosnia as part of the NATO mission. Coming from the region, there are a few corrections I would like to point out.O'Grady states early on that NATO is not wanted by all sides in the conflict. This is simply not true. The Bosnia-Herzegovina government had been wanting the international community to be much more involved from the beginning of the war because their side was massively outgunned in terms of military strength. The only side to not benefit from a no-fly-zone was the Serb side.It is mentioned that the two languages spoken are Serbian and Serbo-Croatian. Well, even someone not from the region can tell there is something wrong with that. Serbians speak Serbian and Croatians speak Croatian. Serbo-Croatian was a communist invention that combined the two languages in to one artificially created one.They are known as the Krajina Serbs not the Krajanian Serbs as stated more than once in the book.O'Grady, a Catholic, mentions the pilgrimage site of Medugorje in Bosnia. One problem: Medugorje is in Herzegovina, not Bosnia.On the whole, these are very simple mistakes that could have been corrected with some consultation before publishing but don't let that take away from his amazing survival story.

I did adpreciate the way this ordeal has been reported. True feelings and significant informations on such a hard time this pilot had.