The Scott Speicher Story from the Beginning by Larry Stimeling Staff Writer

LTCMDR Scott Speicher was shot down over Iraq on the first day of the Gulf war, January 17,1991. Only hours after the plane was shot down, then Secretary of Defense, was on television announcing that the first casualty of the war was a pilot shot down over Iraq. This was LTCMDR Speicher. What the future Vice-president failed to mention is that there had not been any Search and Rescue mission to try to find out if indeed Scott was a casualty!

LTCMDR Scott Speicher was shot down over Iraq on the first day of the Gulf war, January 17,1991. Only hours after the plane was shot down, then Secretary of Defense, was on television announcing that the first casualty of the war was a pilot shot down over Iraq. This was LTCMDR Speicher. What the future Vice-president failed to mention is that there had not been any Search and Rescue mission to try to find out if indeed Scott was a casualty!

During the 18 years since the gulf war’s beginning, Scott’s status has been changed many times.

• 2001 he was listed as missing in action
• 2002 it was changed to missing/captured
• 2005 a review recommended an "increased level of attention and effort to find LTCMDR Speicher
• And in 2008 another review was ordered where Speicher was to remain classified as missing.

In press reports today we see statements like, "Our Navy will never give up looking for a shipmate, regardless of how long or how difficult that search may be," said Adm. Gary Roughead, Chief of Naval Operations.

This takes me back to there was no search and rescue mission before Speicher was classified as Killed In Action. It may be that the Navy will never give up looking for one of their own. But that only happens once they decide to begin looking. In the case of Scott Speicher, the navy the military and the Secretary of Defense failed in its duty to find any pilot shot down in a war zone.

At this point, it is premature to declare that Scott Speicher would be alive had there been an SAR mission. However it is not to soon to say that the people in charge should have been sure Scott was indeed killed BEFORE declaring him the war’s first casualty.