On this episode of Our American Stories, high above Iraq during Operation Desert Storm, Air Force Captain Steve Phillis faced the kind of split-second decision no pilot ever hopes to make. A Top Gun graduate and decorated Gulf War pilot, Phillis chose sacrifice over survival and changed lives in the process. His friend and fellow fighter pilot, Jim “Boots” Demarest, brings us inside that moment and into the heart of Desert Storm.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories
to show where America is the star and the American people,
and send your stories to our American Stories dot com.
There's some of our favorites up next to story that
comes to us from an Air Force fighter pilot and
top gun graduate. Let's take a listen.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
My name is Brigadier General Jim Boots Demarest. I was
a classmate at the United States Air Force Academy of
God by the name of Captain Steve Phyllis. And I'm
going to tell the story about Steve and his life
and the heroic circumstances around his shootdown and untimely death
on the fifteenth of February nineteen ninety one during Operation
(00:54):
Desert Storm. Steve was a minute Western kid born and
raised in Rock Island, Illinois. He was the oldest of
five children and described by both his mom and his
dad as Dobson's strong willed child. Early on in his life,
his dad was in the Air Force. They had moved
(01:16):
to Wyoming, and Steve thought his parents so oppressive that
he decided to run away. So he packed all those
earthly belongings at age four and went out the front
door and his parents washed him walk all the way
to the parade field. He got underneath the bleachers and
had packed a peanut butter jelly sandwich and lasted about
six hours under the bleachers before coming back and realizing
(01:37):
that perhaps his mother and father's rules were not as
onerous as he originally thought. But as the oldest of five,
he was a leader within the family. And you know,
we hear that a lot about the oldest children, but
in Steve's case, one of the examples that I think
that kind of brings this out is that in Rock Island, Illinois,
the family lived in a neighborhood full of children, and
(01:58):
so there were constantly sports games going on outside. They
would play street hockey and flag football and soccer, and
as was often the case, the kids that were better
athletes tried to put themselves all on the same team
to compete against the kids that were not as athletic,
and Steve was the kind of kid that would be
(02:18):
almost always selected as a captain. And unlike most of
his peers, Steve would pick all the kids that nobody
else picked to be on his team, but he would
take a few minutes before the start of a soccer
game and coach them all up, and nine times out
of ten, the less athletic kids, through Steve's leadership and coaching,
(02:39):
would come up on top of the neighborhood sports games.
And it was kind of a testament to the kind
of guy he was. He was very much an informal
and a formal leader later in his life, but he
he was an inspiring kind of guy, very quiet as
a child, but kind of led by example and through action.
He was a high school football player. He played in
(03:00):
the marching band, but early on in his adult life
he determined that there was something more for him out there,
and he couldn't quite put his finger on it. But
as he approached his senior year in high school, it
became evident to him that a future in the military
would align with his organized, fastidious personality and also with
(03:22):
the fact that Steve felt a calling to serve. He
was an altar boy. He was a captain of whatever
sport he was on, and so in late nineteen seventy
seven he wrote a letter and applied to go to
the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. And
the letter that he wrote to his congressman is a
(03:43):
classic because unlike a lot of others who wrote their
congressman to talk about the free education and that, Steve's
letter to his congressman was very focused on the fact
that he felt that it was his duty as an
American citizen to serve in the military, and that the
Air Force Academy would provide him with the greatest opportunity
(04:03):
to serve. He also thought it might be neat to
be a pilot, which he mentioned in his application, but
it was much more about service and his obligation to
his country than for his own personal game. So in
the summer of nineteen seventy eight, Steve shows up in
Colorado Springs with fifteen hundred of his new friends to
attend the United States Air Force Academy, and his parents
(04:26):
made the trip that many parents do. They loaded up
the family station wagon with all of Steve's worldly possessions
the other four children, and they made the long drive
from Rock Island, Illinois to Colorado Springs. Were on a sunny,
bright morning in June of nineteen seventy eight, Steve was
dropped off and in short order taught to march and
(04:47):
marched off with a group of a dozen or so
of his new classmates. So when he graduated from the
Air Force Academy on June tewod of nineteen eighty two,
he was one of four one hundred and fifty classmates
off to undergraduate pilot training. And Steve went off to
pilot training with one goal in mind, and that was
(05:08):
to be fighter qualified and to fly the A ten
Warthog as an Air Force fighter pilot, and his single minded,
focused and determination drove him through the fifty two week
pilot training program. He excelled academically. He was always extremely
well prepared, He was a cool character under pressure, and
those things in the military aviation world translated to success,
(05:33):
and so on assignment night in late nineteen eighty three,
Steve was fortunate enough to get his first choice, got
assigned the A ten Warthog and was on his way
to Alex Louisiana to Suan Airbase in the Republic of Korea.
After being in Suan for a while becoming upgrading to
(05:54):
instructor pilot, it became clear to Steve that he wanted
to excel in the A ten and that means that
he wanted to compete to attend the prestigious Air Forces
Fighter Weapon School Now many may know the Weapon School
is Top Gun from the Navy movie, but the Air
Force Fighter Weapon School was more than just a place
to do great flying. Steve got over two hundred hours
(06:15):
of instruction and platform instruction to make him not only
a great fighter pilot, but a great instructor. And he
loved to teach and he loved to learn about the
A ten. And so while at Suan, he was selected
for and attended the prestigious Air Force Fighter Weapon School,
where he graduated as a distinguished Graduate, returning to Suan
(06:36):
Airbase to complete his two year assignment in Korea.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
And you're listening to Brigadier General Jim Boots Demrists tell
the story of Captain Steve Phillis, and you're learning about
a profile in character and a profile of some of
the men and women who serve this nation, and particularly
the ones that go to our academies. And that's at
West Point in Annapolis and in Colorado. That's the Air
(07:01):
Force Academy West Point, of course, the Army and the
Navy in Annapolis, Maryland. When we come back more of
the story of Captain Steve Phillis here on our American Stories,
(07:30):
Leehabib here and I'd like to encourage you to subscribe
to Our American Stories on Apple Podcasts, the iHeartRadio app, Spotify,
or wherever you get our podcasts. Any story you missed
or want to hear again can be found there daily again,
Please subscribe to the Our American Stories podcast on Apple Podcasts,
(07:51):
the iHeartRadio app, or anywhere you get your podcasts. It
helps us keep these great American stories coming and we
continue with our American Stories and bring it to your general.
(08:13):
Jim Boots Demrist telling the story of Captain Steve Phyllis.
Let's pick up where we last left off.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Then it was time for another assignment, and Steve was
lucky enough to get a third assignment to fly the
A ten, this time in a much different environment as
he was shipped from Korea to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina,
and Steve's cruising along like the rest of us until
summer of nineteen ninety when Saddam Hussein's Republican Guards roll
(08:44):
south from Iraq into a little country that at that
time none of us had heard of, called Kuwait, and
Myrtle Beach was part of a quick reaction force at
the time, such that as soon as armor came south
into Kuwait. Myrtle Beach was put on recall and told
to get ready to deploy, and Steve as the weapons
(09:06):
officer and tactical leader of the Panthers, who were designated
to be the first squadron out the door within a
few weeks of the invasion, are loaded on a C
five and sent to Saudi Arabia, to a little air
base in the middle of nowhere. So they land and
the door comes down on the transport airplane, and Steve
(09:28):
and the others on the airplane are greeted by one
hundred and twenty degree blast of heat from the desert,
the likes of which they had never felt before, and
they quickly prepared for the arrival of a squadron of
twenty four A tens, which when they landed had half
a load of fuel. The only weapons they had on
board were gun and they were the only things standing
(09:49):
between the Republican Guards and Saudi Arabia. And I think
what people have to remember is at the time that
Iraq invaded Kuwait had the fifth largest standing army on
the face of the earth. They had just come out
of ten years of combat operations with Iran, so they
were very experienced. They were equipped with some of the
(10:11):
most modern and sophisticated Soviet built aircraft and surface to
air missiles that the world had seen. And so while
we know in the end that Desert Storm was a
stunning victory, that was anything but assured in the summer
of nineteen ninety and so the build up during Desert
(10:32):
Shield was all about getting people ready. Now, in the
prelude to the war, Steve had been promoted out of
being the weapons officer and now was the commander of Seaflight,
and a flight commander is essentially the officer in charge
of about twelve other pilots in the squadron, and one
of Steve's important pre war taskings was to make what
(10:55):
we call combat pairings. And the idea here is that
you would take your most experienced pilot and pair him
with the least experienced pilot to average out the experience
of the flight so that as we went out there,
it increased the survivability of the squadron overall. And so
as Steve, as the high time a ten pilot in
his flight, decided to select as his combat wingman a
(11:20):
Lieutenant Rob Sweet.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
What we have seen is a redoubling of Sadam Hussein's
efforts to destroy completely Kuwait and its people. I have
therefore directed General Norman Schwarzkow, in conjunction with Coalition forces,
to use all forces available, including ground forces, to eject
(11:47):
the Iraqi Army from Kuwait.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
So Desert Storm kicks off, and Rob and Steve are
going to fly twenty nine of their first thirty combat
missions together. And it is everything from benign attacks of
unmanned targets to being shot out by surfaced air missiles
and anti aircraft artillery. And they had an incredible experience
back and forth. But the story really that I want
(12:12):
to focus on surrounds their thirtieth combat mission. On February
fifteenth of nineteen ninety one, Steve and Rob were tasked
on what was by far their most dangerous mission of
the war. They were tasked to fly one hundred miles
north of the Kuwait Saudi border and attack Saddam's elite
(12:34):
Republican Guards, the same units that had spearheaded the initial
invasion and who were equipped with the raq's most modern equipment.
So they're tasked against the Republican Guards, but not just
any Republican guards. They happened to get tasked against the
Medina Division, which later became famous for the Battle of
(12:55):
Medina Ridge. They proved themselves throughout the war to be
the most ferocious and dedicated fighters of any unit in
the Iraqi Republican Guards, and the mission was very straightforward,
to prepare the battle space for an upcoming invasion. They
were to target artillery, armor and military equipment. What would
(13:16):
make this mission even more difficult was that the Republican
Guards had concentrated their forces, so this unit of about
ten thousand elite Republican Guard troops were amassed in a
circle about three miles wide and six miles across, and
the idea behind that was to spread the equipment out
enough to make it hard to target, but to provide
(13:38):
overlapping fields of fire for the over one hundred and
fifty pieces of mobile anti aircraft artillery and the twenty
four SA thirteen batteries. Now the SAY thirteen was the
most modern and sophisticated surface to air missile that the
Iraqis owned. It was Soviet built and designed, and unlike
(13:59):
other systems, it did not rely on radar. It would
track in the infrared and the electro optical spectrum, meaning
that the aircraft would get no electronic warning that it
was being shot, and it was a raid with overlapping
fields of fire throughout this Republican Guard unit. So Steve
and Rob launched for their afternoon mission at about two
(14:22):
pm Local. They go up, they conduct a pre strike
refueling to top off on fuel, and they take their
fully loaded a tens one hundred miles north to try
and find military targets against the Republican Guards, and targets
they find. Steve is getting ready to roll in and
do a strafing pass and Rob is in an orbit
at ten thousand feet And the way that they ran
(14:45):
the tactics here is that one guy would roll in
an attack and the other fighter in a supporting role
would orbit overhead to look out for anti aircraft, artillery
and surface to air missile launches. So Steve rolls in,
comes off target, and as he looks up, he notices
that a surface to air missile has been launched at
(15:06):
Rob's sweet and Steve keys the mic and calls enfield
break SAM launch, and about the same time Rob looks
out and sees the surface to air missile has been launched.
A thin trail of white smoke, and the missile is
stationary on this canopy, a sign that it is tracking
toward him, not moving left or right is track and
(15:27):
toward him, So Steve calls out the break. Rob dispenses
chaff and flares, does a high G maneuver and successfully
defeats the first surface to air missile that Robin had
experienced in his Desert Storm missions. At this point, perhaps
it was time to leave, but the atens had decided
(15:48):
early in the war that if anybody on the ground
shot at them, they were going to immediately return lethal fire.
They were trying to discourage these SAM operators from shooting
at coalition aircraft, and there's no better way to dissuade
someone from shooting than to shoot back at them. So
consistent with their tactics, Steve rolls in, comes off a
(16:09):
strafing pass, starts to make a turn, and now it's
Rob's turn to roll in and deliver lethal fire against
the surfaced air missile launch site. At that moment, Steve
sees that a second surfaced air missile launch from a
different location is guiding on Rob's airplane, calls for the
break too late, Sweet doesn't see it. And he's in
(16:32):
his left hand turn when he feels a little bit
of a thump and this airplane is now rolled wings level.
It's not a violent explosion, there's no big bang. And
he looks down and there's a bunch of lights on
in the cockpit now, and he looks out to his
right wing and sees a big hole where the right
wing used to be. Most of it is gone. There's
some residual fire from the fuel and hydraulic lines, and
(16:55):
now all sorts of lights start to come on in
the cockpit indicating that there's a your malfunctions going on
in the airplane.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
And you're listening to Brigadier General Jim Boots Demeris tell
the story of Captain Steve Phyllis and his raid from
a base in Saudi Arabia one hundred miles north, coming
in contact with the Medina Division, the most ferocious division
of Sodom. Hussein's what happens next, Well, we'll continue with
(17:23):
this story. We'll continue with Jim Demeris story of Steve
Phyllis here on our American stories, and we continue with
(18:09):
our American stories and with Brigadier General Jim Boots Demors
telling the story of Captain Steve Phyllis in a raid
that cost him his life in nineteen ninety one. Let's
return to Brigadier General Demors with the rest of this story.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
The controls are not responding, and so he reaches down
and pulls the ejection handles and now is under parachute,
descending on top of the troops that he and Steve
just got done bombing. Sweet takes off his helmet checks
(18:48):
has got a good parachute. He can hear bullets whizzing
by his head as he's making this five minute parachute descent,
low on fuel alone, orbiting at ten thousand feet in
a slow moving airplane over ten thousand emboldened Iraqi troops.
After about a minute following Sweet's ejection, Steve has earned
(19:12):
the right to leave, Yet the thought of leaving never
crosses his mind. So he gets back on the radio
after getting the search and rescue started and starts to
call other A tens in the local area and connects
with a flight called pac Meyer three and four and
begins to talk to the flight lead. And what I
(19:32):
think it's important to understand is that the A ten
is not equipped with a radar, and so in order
for A ten piles to find some then they have
to visually acquire it. There's no radar or other g
whiz equipment that helps him find each other. So Steve
is on the radio, orbiting in a left hand turn
at ten thousand feet. Everybody on the ground with a rifle,
(19:54):
with an anti aircraft artillery or with a SAM system
is now shooting at Steve. Steve is trying to talk
this flight of A tens to come over his position
to help provide additional firepower and support because he's not
willing to concede the fact that Sweet's going to get captured.
Three minutes after Sweet ejects, Steve is still orbiting over
(20:17):
the target, and unfortunately, the inbound atens are unable to
find Steve and locate Sweet's position, and so, in an
act that can only be considered selfless and heroic, Steve
reaches down and purposely dispenses high visibility pyrotechnic flares. His
intent there is to use those as a visual signal
(20:39):
to get the A tens eyes on. What in fact
it also does is that anybody on the ground that
had not yet seen Steve now season three minutes and
forty five seconds after Sweet ejects an eternity in a
combat zone, orbiting over an entire division of Iraqi troops,
(21:02):
Steve's A ten is struck by an SA thirteen, and
he quickly identifies the fact that it's mortally wounded. What
does he do? The first thing he does is he
gets on the radio and tells the guys that are inbound, Hey, guys,
it's too hot here. You should not come then, and
(21:25):
only after making sure that his inbound friends are safe,
he turns the airplane south to try and put additional
distance between himself and Rob's ejection location. Knowing that search
and rescue forces are on their way to Rob, Steve
makes it about fifteen miles south, his airplane falling apart.
(21:49):
He keys the mic on his way out of the area,
and in a voice as cool and calm as I'm
telling the story today, using the code word for the
day for aircraft down, keys the mic and says Enfield
thirty seven is bagged as well. Just a few minutes later,
(22:12):
unbeknownst to his friends, his fellow fighter pilots, his wingman,
his family, his A ten is struck by another surface
to air missile shot from a different Republican guard unit
that knocks the tail off of his A ten, and
the mortally wounded airplane cartwheels into the desert, killing Steve
(22:33):
Phyllis on impact. Rob sweet lands fifty meters from a
Russian built T seventy two tank and is swarmed by
dozens of Iraqi soldiers, beating him with fists and rifle butts.
(22:56):
Had it not been for a couple of Iraqi officers
that came out and drug him out of there, he
may not have survived his first minute on the ground.
He has taken to an underground facility. He's transferred to Baghdad.
He is beaten and tortured and interrogated. But nineteen days
after he was shot down, the Coalition Air Force has
(23:22):
got word that Iraq was going to liberate all the
prisoners of war, and at the time, Steve was awarded
and earned the Silver Star and the Purple Heart for
his heroism. That day, Air Force Magazine wrote a great
(23:44):
article summarizing Steve's heroics and making the case and asking
the question, what does it take for a fighter pilot
to earn the Medal of honor? He goes, although we've
been in aerial combat for the last thirty years. No
fighter pilot has earned the Medal of Honor since Vietnam.
And look, Steve is a hero because the Silver Star
(24:07):
recognizes gallantry and action, and the Medal of Honor standard
is very high, as it should be. But to be
awarded the Medal of Honor, a member has to display
conspicuous gallantry at the risk of life, above and beyond
the call of duty, so conspicuous as to clearly distinguish
(24:28):
the individual from his comrades. It must have involved risk
of life, and it has to be against a military
enemy and a named operation. And so when you look
at those standards and the heroism of the story that
I just told, I think that Steve Phyllis and his
heroics check all those boxes. And I'm not the only one.
(24:52):
I've been able to garner the support of not only
our entire class, but Steve's wing commander, now tired Major
General Sandy Sharp, who was a colonel at the time
and indirectly involved in Steve's combat Valor award, agrees that
upon further review of the evidence, that Steve's heroics are
(25:13):
worthy of the Medal of Honor, But the Medal of
Honor upgrade process is difficult and long, and there's a
political component to it, meaning that after we assemble all
this evidence as to what Steve did and all these
sworn statements, a member of Congress has to come forward
and endorse the fact that they support the upgrade of
(25:35):
the Combat Valor Award. And I am very pleased to
announce that. While I cannot mention the name of the
United States senator quite yet, a prominent senator has stepped
up and said that they intend to endorse the package
and put Steve Phillis's award forward to upgrade his Silver
Star to the Medal of Honor. And whether it gets
(25:58):
upgraded or not is be on my control. But what
is in my control is to share Steve's story of
heroics in any way that I can. And I think
that sentiment is best expressed by the dedication of the
book five Nichols, because I made the dedication to my children,
to Gabby and Chad, so that you will know a
(26:20):
true hero when you see one, and that is the
story of Air Force Captain Steve Phillis.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
And a great job on the production by Greg Hangler,
and a special thanks to Brigadier General Jim Boots Demris.
We're telling and sharing in the story of heroism of
Captain Steve Phyllis and his work during the Gulf War
in nineteen ninety one, and history repeats itself again and
again and again and again. Men and women in this
(26:51):
great country step up and do things like Captain Steve
did on that day, for his buddy, for his brother
in arms. And by the way, if you love the
story and want to know more, Brigadier General Demarest has
written a book called Five Nichols, The True Story of
the Desert Storm, Heroics and sacrifice of Air Force Captain
Steve Phyllis. Go to your local bookstore and order it,
(27:14):
or go to Amazon and the usual suspects. The story
of Captain Steve Phillis here on our American Stories
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories
to show where America is the star and the American people,
and send your stories to our American Stories dot com.
There's some of our favorites up next to story that
comes to us from an Air Force fighter pilot and
top gun graduate. Let's take a listen.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
My name is Brigadier General Jim Boots Demarest. I was
a classmate at the United States Air Force Academy of
God by the name of Captain Steve Phyllis. And I'm
going to tell the story about Steve and his life
and the heroic circumstances around his shootdown and untimely death
on the fifteenth of February nineteen ninety one during Operation
(00:54):
Desert Storm. Steve was a minute Western kid born and
raised in Rock Island, Illinois. He was the oldest of
five children and described by both his mom and his
dad as Dobson's strong willed child. Early on in his life,
his dad was in the Air Force. They had moved
(01:16):
to Wyoming, and Steve thought his parents so oppressive that
he decided to run away. So he packed all those
earthly belongings at age four and went out the front
door and his parents washed him walk all the way
to the parade field. He got underneath the bleachers and
had packed a peanut butter jelly sandwich and lasted about
six hours under the bleachers before coming back and realizing
(01:37):
that perhaps his mother and father's rules were not as
onerous as he originally thought. But as the oldest of five,
he was a leader within the family. And you know,
we hear that a lot about the oldest children, but
in Steve's case, one of the examples that I think
that kind of brings this out is that in Rock Island, Illinois,
the family lived in a neighborhood full of children, and
(01:58):
so there were constantly sports games going on outside. They
would play street hockey and flag football and soccer, and
as was often the case, the kids that were better
athletes tried to put themselves all on the same team
to compete against the kids that were not as athletic,
and Steve was the kind of kid that would be
(02:18):
almost always selected as a captain. And unlike most of
his peers, Steve would pick all the kids that nobody
else picked to be on his team, but he would
take a few minutes before the start of a soccer
game and coach them all up, and nine times out
of ten, the less athletic kids, through Steve's leadership and coaching,
(02:39):
would come up on top of the neighborhood sports games.
And it was kind of a testament to the kind
of guy he was. He was very much an informal
and a formal leader later in his life, but he
he was an inspiring kind of guy, very quiet as
a child, but kind of led by example and through action.
He was a high school football player. He played in
(03:00):
the marching band, but early on in his adult life
he determined that there was something more for him out there,
and he couldn't quite put his finger on it. But
as he approached his senior year in high school, it
became evident to him that a future in the military
would align with his organized, fastidious personality and also with
(03:22):
the fact that Steve felt a calling to serve. He
was an altar boy. He was a captain of whatever
sport he was on, and so in late nineteen seventy
seven he wrote a letter and applied to go to
the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. And
the letter that he wrote to his congressman is a
(03:43):
classic because unlike a lot of others who wrote their
congressman to talk about the free education and that, Steve's
letter to his congressman was very focused on the fact
that he felt that it was his duty as an
American citizen to serve in the military, and that the
Air Force Academy would provide him with the greatest opportunity
(04:03):
to serve. He also thought it might be neat to
be a pilot, which he mentioned in his application, but
it was much more about service and his obligation to
his country than for his own personal game. So in
the summer of nineteen seventy eight, Steve shows up in
Colorado Springs with fifteen hundred of his new friends to
attend the United States Air Force Academy, and his parents
(04:26):
made the trip that many parents do. They loaded up
the family station wagon with all of Steve's worldly possessions
the other four children, and they made the long drive
from Rock Island, Illinois to Colorado Springs. Were on a sunny,
bright morning in June of nineteen seventy eight, Steve was
dropped off and in short order taught to march and
(04:47):
marched off with a group of a dozen or so
of his new classmates. So when he graduated from the
Air Force Academy on June tewod of nineteen eighty two,
he was one of four one hundred and fifty classmates
off to undergraduate pilot training. And Steve went off to
pilot training with one goal in mind, and that was
(05:08):
to be fighter qualified and to fly the A ten
Warthog as an Air Force fighter pilot, and his single minded,
focused and determination drove him through the fifty two week
pilot training program. He excelled academically. He was always extremely
well prepared, He was a cool character under pressure, and
those things in the military aviation world translated to success,
(05:33):
and so on assignment night in late nineteen eighty three,
Steve was fortunate enough to get his first choice, got
assigned the A ten Warthog and was on his way
to Alex Louisiana to Suan Airbase in the Republic of Korea.
After being in Suan for a while becoming upgrading to
(05:54):
instructor pilot, it became clear to Steve that he wanted
to excel in the A ten and that means that
he wanted to compete to attend the prestigious Air Forces
Fighter Weapon School Now many may know the Weapon School
is Top Gun from the Navy movie, but the Air
Force Fighter Weapon School was more than just a place
to do great flying. Steve got over two hundred hours
(06:15):
of instruction and platform instruction to make him not only
a great fighter pilot, but a great instructor. And he
loved to teach and he loved to learn about the
A ten. And so while at Suan, he was selected
for and attended the prestigious Air Force Fighter Weapon School,
where he graduated as a distinguished Graduate, returning to Suan
(06:36):
Airbase to complete his two year assignment in Korea.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
And you're listening to Brigadier General Jim Boots Demrists tell
the story of Captain Steve Phillis, and you're learning about
a profile in character and a profile of some of
the men and women who serve this nation, and particularly
the ones that go to our academies. And that's at
West Point in Annapolis and in Colorado. That's the Air
(07:01):
Force Academy West Point, of course, the Army and the
Navy in Annapolis, Maryland. When we come back more of
the story of Captain Steve Phillis here on our American Stories,
(07:30):
Leehabib here and I'd like to encourage you to subscribe
to Our American Stories on Apple Podcasts, the iHeartRadio app, Spotify,
or wherever you get our podcasts. Any story you missed
or want to hear again can be found there daily again,
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(07:51):
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continue with our American Stories and bring it to your general.
(08:13):
Jim Boots Demrist telling the story of Captain Steve Phyllis.
Let's pick up where we last left off.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Then it was time for another assignment, and Steve was
lucky enough to get a third assignment to fly the
A ten, this time in a much different environment as
he was shipped from Korea to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina,
and Steve's cruising along like the rest of us until
summer of nineteen ninety when Saddam Hussein's Republican Guards roll
(08:44):
south from Iraq into a little country that at that
time none of us had heard of, called Kuwait, and
Myrtle Beach was part of a quick reaction force at
the time, such that as soon as armor came south
into Kuwait. Myrtle Beach was put on recall and told
to get ready to deploy, and Steve as the weapons
(09:06):
officer and tactical leader of the Panthers, who were designated
to be the first squadron out the door within a
few weeks of the invasion, are loaded on a C
five and sent to Saudi Arabia, to a little air
base in the middle of nowhere. So they land and
the door comes down on the transport airplane, and Steve
(09:28):
and the others on the airplane are greeted by one
hundred and twenty degree blast of heat from the desert,
the likes of which they had never felt before, and
they quickly prepared for the arrival of a squadron of
twenty four A tens, which when they landed had half
a load of fuel. The only weapons they had on
board were gun and they were the only things standing
(09:49):
between the Republican Guards and Saudi Arabia. And I think
what people have to remember is at the time that
Iraq invaded Kuwait had the fifth largest standing army on
the face of the earth. They had just come out
of ten years of combat operations with Iran, so they
were very experienced. They were equipped with some of the
(10:11):
most modern and sophisticated Soviet built aircraft and surface to
air missiles that the world had seen. And so while
we know in the end that Desert Storm was a
stunning victory, that was anything but assured in the summer
of nineteen ninety and so the build up during Desert
(10:32):
Shield was all about getting people ready. Now, in the
prelude to the war, Steve had been promoted out of
being the weapons officer and now was the commander of Seaflight,
and a flight commander is essentially the officer in charge
of about twelve other pilots in the squadron, and one
of Steve's important pre war taskings was to make what
(10:55):
we call combat pairings. And the idea here is that
you would take your most experienced pilot and pair him
with the least experienced pilot to average out the experience
of the flight so that as we went out there,
it increased the survivability of the squadron overall. And so
as Steve, as the high time a ten pilot in
his flight, decided to select as his combat wingman a
(11:20):
Lieutenant Rob Sweet.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
What we have seen is a redoubling of Sadam Hussein's
efforts to destroy completely Kuwait and its people. I have
therefore directed General Norman Schwarzkow, in conjunction with Coalition forces,
to use all forces available, including ground forces, to eject
(11:47):
the Iraqi Army from Kuwait.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
So Desert Storm kicks off, and Rob and Steve are
going to fly twenty nine of their first thirty combat
missions together. And it is everything from benign attacks of
unmanned targets to being shot out by surfaced air missiles
and anti aircraft artillery. And they had an incredible experience
back and forth. But the story really that I want
(12:12):
to focus on surrounds their thirtieth combat mission. On February
fifteenth of nineteen ninety one, Steve and Rob were tasked
on what was by far their most dangerous mission of
the war. They were tasked to fly one hundred miles
north of the Kuwait Saudi border and attack Saddam's elite
(12:34):
Republican Guards, the same units that had spearheaded the initial
invasion and who were equipped with the raq's most modern equipment.
So they're tasked against the Republican Guards, but not just
any Republican guards. They happened to get tasked against the
Medina Division, which later became famous for the Battle of
(12:55):
Medina Ridge. They proved themselves throughout the war to be
the most ferocious and dedicated fighters of any unit in
the Iraqi Republican Guards, and the mission was very straightforward,
to prepare the battle space for an upcoming invasion. They
were to target artillery, armor and military equipment. What would
(13:16):
make this mission even more difficult was that the Republican
Guards had concentrated their forces, so this unit of about
ten thousand elite Republican Guard troops were amassed in a
circle about three miles wide and six miles across, and
the idea behind that was to spread the equipment out
enough to make it hard to target, but to provide
(13:38):
overlapping fields of fire for the over one hundred and
fifty pieces of mobile anti aircraft artillery and the twenty
four SA thirteen batteries. Now the SAY thirteen was the
most modern and sophisticated surface to air missile that the
Iraqis owned. It was Soviet built and designed, and unlike
(13:59):
other systems, it did not rely on radar. It would
track in the infrared and the electro optical spectrum, meaning
that the aircraft would get no electronic warning that it
was being shot, and it was a raid with overlapping
fields of fire throughout this Republican Guard unit. So Steve
and Rob launched for their afternoon mission at about two
(14:22):
pm Local. They go up, they conduct a pre strike
refueling to top off on fuel, and they take their
fully loaded a tens one hundred miles north to try
and find military targets against the Republican Guards, and targets
they find. Steve is getting ready to roll in and
do a strafing pass and Rob is in an orbit
at ten thousand feet And the way that they ran
(14:45):
the tactics here is that one guy would roll in
an attack and the other fighter in a supporting role
would orbit overhead to look out for anti aircraft, artillery
and surface to air missile launches. So Steve rolls in,
comes off target, and as he looks up, he notices
that a surface to air missile has been launched at
(15:06):
Rob's sweet and Steve keys the mic and calls enfield
break SAM launch, and about the same time Rob looks
out and sees the surface to air missile has been launched.
A thin trail of white smoke, and the missile is
stationary on this canopy, a sign that it is tracking
toward him, not moving left or right is track and
(15:27):
toward him, So Steve calls out the break. Rob dispenses
chaff and flares, does a high G maneuver and successfully
defeats the first surface to air missile that Robin had
experienced in his Desert Storm missions. At this point, perhaps
it was time to leave, but the atens had decided
(15:48):
early in the war that if anybody on the ground
shot at them, they were going to immediately return lethal fire.
They were trying to discourage these SAM operators from shooting
at coalition aircraft, and there's no better way to dissuade
someone from shooting than to shoot back at them. So
consistent with their tactics, Steve rolls in, comes off a
(16:09):
strafing pass, starts to make a turn, and now it's
Rob's turn to roll in and deliver lethal fire against
the surfaced air missile launch site. At that moment, Steve
sees that a second surfaced air missile launch from a
different location is guiding on Rob's airplane, calls for the
break too late, Sweet doesn't see it. And he's in
(16:32):
his left hand turn when he feels a little bit
of a thump and this airplane is now rolled wings level.
It's not a violent explosion, there's no big bang. And
he looks down and there's a bunch of lights on
in the cockpit now, and he looks out to his
right wing and sees a big hole where the right
wing used to be. Most of it is gone. There's
some residual fire from the fuel and hydraulic lines, and
(16:55):
now all sorts of lights start to come on in
the cockpit indicating that there's a your malfunctions going on
in the airplane.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
And you're listening to Brigadier General Jim Boots Demeris tell
the story of Captain Steve Phyllis and his raid from
a base in Saudi Arabia one hundred miles north, coming
in contact with the Medina Division, the most ferocious division
of Sodom. Hussein's what happens next, Well, we'll continue with
(17:23):
this story. We'll continue with Jim Demeris story of Steve
Phyllis here on our American stories, and we continue with
(18:09):
our American stories and with Brigadier General Jim Boots Demors
telling the story of Captain Steve Phyllis in a raid
that cost him his life in nineteen ninety one. Let's
return to Brigadier General Demors with the rest of this story.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
The controls are not responding, and so he reaches down
and pulls the ejection handles and now is under parachute,
descending on top of the troops that he and Steve
just got done bombing. Sweet takes off his helmet checks
(18:48):
has got a good parachute. He can hear bullets whizzing
by his head as he's making this five minute parachute descent,
low on fuel alone, orbiting at ten thousand feet in
a slow moving airplane over ten thousand emboldened Iraqi troops.
After about a minute following Sweet's ejection, Steve has earned
(19:12):
the right to leave, Yet the thought of leaving never
crosses his mind. So he gets back on the radio
after getting the search and rescue started and starts to
call other A tens in the local area and connects
with a flight called pac Meyer three and four and
begins to talk to the flight lead. And what I
(19:32):
think it's important to understand is that the A ten
is not equipped with a radar, and so in order
for A ten piles to find some then they have
to visually acquire it. There's no radar or other g
whiz equipment that helps him find each other. So Steve
is on the radio, orbiting in a left hand turn
at ten thousand feet. Everybody on the ground with a rifle,
(19:54):
with an anti aircraft artillery or with a SAM system
is now shooting at Steve. Steve is trying to talk
this flight of A tens to come over his position
to help provide additional firepower and support because he's not
willing to concede the fact that Sweet's going to get captured.
Three minutes after Sweet ejects, Steve is still orbiting over
(20:17):
the target, and unfortunately, the inbound atens are unable to
find Steve and locate Sweet's position, and so, in an
act that can only be considered selfless and heroic, Steve
reaches down and purposely dispenses high visibility pyrotechnic flares. His
intent there is to use those as a visual signal
(20:39):
to get the A tens eyes on. What in fact
it also does is that anybody on the ground that
had not yet seen Steve now season three minutes and
forty five seconds after Sweet ejects an eternity in a
combat zone, orbiting over an entire division of Iraqi troops,
(21:02):
Steve's A ten is struck by an SA thirteen, and
he quickly identifies the fact that it's mortally wounded. What
does he do? The first thing he does is he
gets on the radio and tells the guys that are inbound, Hey, guys,
it's too hot here. You should not come then, and
(21:25):
only after making sure that his inbound friends are safe,
he turns the airplane south to try and put additional
distance between himself and Rob's ejection location. Knowing that search
and rescue forces are on their way to Rob, Steve
makes it about fifteen miles south, his airplane falling apart.
(21:49):
He keys the mic on his way out of the area,
and in a voice as cool and calm as I'm
telling the story today, using the code word for the
day for aircraft down, keys the mic and says Enfield
thirty seven is bagged as well. Just a few minutes later,
(22:12):
unbeknownst to his friends, his fellow fighter pilots, his wingman,
his family, his A ten is struck by another surface
to air missile shot from a different Republican guard unit
that knocks the tail off of his A ten, and
the mortally wounded airplane cartwheels into the desert, killing Steve
(22:33):
Phyllis on impact. Rob sweet lands fifty meters from a
Russian built T seventy two tank and is swarmed by
dozens of Iraqi soldiers, beating him with fists and rifle butts.
(22:56):
Had it not been for a couple of Iraqi officers
that came out and drug him out of there, he
may not have survived his first minute on the ground.
He has taken to an underground facility. He's transferred to Baghdad.
He is beaten and tortured and interrogated. But nineteen days
after he was shot down, the Coalition Air Force has
(23:22):
got word that Iraq was going to liberate all the
prisoners of war, and at the time, Steve was awarded
and earned the Silver Star and the Purple Heart for
his heroism. That day, Air Force Magazine wrote a great
(23:44):
article summarizing Steve's heroics and making the case and asking
the question, what does it take for a fighter pilot
to earn the Medal of honor? He goes, although we've
been in aerial combat for the last thirty years. No
fighter pilot has earned the Medal of Honor since Vietnam.
And look, Steve is a hero because the Silver Star
(24:07):
recognizes gallantry and action, and the Medal of Honor standard
is very high, as it should be. But to be
awarded the Medal of Honor, a member has to display
conspicuous gallantry at the risk of life, above and beyond
the call of duty, so conspicuous as to clearly distinguish
(24:28):
the individual from his comrades. It must have involved risk
of life, and it has to be against a military
enemy and a named operation. And so when you look
at those standards and the heroism of the story that
I just told, I think that Steve Phyllis and his
heroics check all those boxes. And I'm not the only one.
(24:52):
I've been able to garner the support of not only
our entire class, but Steve's wing commander, now tired Major
General Sandy Sharp, who was a colonel at the time
and indirectly involved in Steve's combat Valor award, agrees that
upon further review of the evidence, that Steve's heroics are
(25:13):
worthy of the Medal of Honor, But the Medal of
Honor upgrade process is difficult and long, and there's a
political component to it, meaning that after we assemble all
this evidence as to what Steve did and all these
sworn statements, a member of Congress has to come forward
and endorse the fact that they support the upgrade of
(25:35):
the Combat Valor Award. And I am very pleased to
announce that. While I cannot mention the name of the
United States senator quite yet, a prominent senator has stepped
up and said that they intend to endorse the package
and put Steve Phillis's award forward to upgrade his Silver
Star to the Medal of Honor. And whether it gets
(25:58):
upgraded or not is be on my control. But what
is in my control is to share Steve's story of
heroics in any way that I can. And I think
that sentiment is best expressed by the dedication of the
book five Nichols, because I made the dedication to my children,
to Gabby and Chad, so that you will know a
(26:20):
true hero when you see one, and that is the
story of Air Force Captain Steve Phillis.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
And a great job on the production by Greg Hangler,
and a special thanks to Brigadier General Jim Boots Demris.
We're telling and sharing in the story of heroism of
Captain Steve Phyllis and his work during the Gulf War
in nineteen ninety one, and history repeats itself again and
again and again and again. Men and women in this
(26:51):
great country step up and do things like Captain Steve
did on that day, for his buddy, for his brother
in arms. And by the way, if you love the
story and want to know more, Brigadier General Demarest has
written a book called Five Nichols, The True Story of
the Desert Storm, Heroics and sacrifice of Air Force Captain
Steve Phyllis. Go to your local bookstore and order it,
(27:14):
or go to Amazon and the usual suspects. The story
of Captain Steve Phillis here on our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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