{"id":22763,"date":"2026-04-05T21:34:04","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T21:34:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2026\/04\/05\/former-centcom-chief-drops-a-line-that-hits-at-the-heart-of-military-honor\/"},"modified":"2026-04-05T21:34:04","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T21:34:04","slug":"former-centcom-chief-drops-a-line-that-hits-at-the-heart-of-military-honor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2026\/04\/05\/former-centcom-chief-drops-a-line-that-hits-at-the-heart-of-military-honor\/","title":{"rendered":"Former CENTCOM Chief Drops A Line That Hits At The Heart Of Military Honor"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div style=\"position:relative\" data-narration-container=\"true\">\n<p>Former CENTCOM Commander and retired Marine Corps Gen. Frank McKenzie praised the efficiency of the American military\u2019s rescue operation to retrieve a downed weapon systems operator (WSO) after his plane went down in Iran.<\/p>\n<p>McKenzie spoke with CBS News anchor Ed O\u2019Keefe on \u201cFace the Nation,\u201d where he said it was important to note that U.S. military forces had been able to get to him first \u2014 even though the Iranian regime had offered a reward to anyone who could help them locate him before the United States was able to pull off a rescue mission.<\/p>\n<p><strong>WATCH:<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">The mission to rescue the missing U.S. airman In Iran was \u201cexecuted pretty effectively,\u201d former CENTCOM commander Ret. Gen. Frank McKenzie says.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt takes a year to build an aircraft and it takes 200 years to build a military tradition where you don\u2019t leave anybody behind.\u201d\u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/rZZy9OA0Us\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">pic.twitter.com\/rZZy9OA0Us<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/FaceTheNation\/status\/2040806763054645554?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">April 5, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>\u201cSo, it took just under 48 hours to find the missing weapon systems officer,\u201d O\u2019Keefe began, noting that the area where the plane had gone down was very remote and the terrain was uneven. \u201cWhat\u2019s your assessment of how the search and rescue operation went?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>McKenzie said that there were \u201ctwo lessons\u201d that he would take from the way the rescue operations had played out: \u201cFirst of all, the excellence of the joint force, our ability to rapidly pivot to look for a downed air crewman. We train for this endlessly, it\u2019s a part of every time we send air crew over enemy territory, we have detailed, elaborate plans to go get them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a very basic part of who we are as American fighting men and women,\u201d he added, saying that the plan had been \u201cexecuted pretty effectively\u201d as far as he could see.<\/p>\n<p>Acknowledging the planes that were lost in pursuit of the rescue mission, McKenzie argued that the man on the ground would always take precedence: \u201cIt takes a year to build an aircraft and it takes 200 years to build a military tradition where you don\u2019t leave anybody behind. You take the aircraft trade any day in a situation like this.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The second lesson, according to McKenzie, was one for Iran \u2013 that the people might not be as eager to help the regime as they had hoped. Even after a reward was offered for help in locating the missing American airman, the Iranian regime was unable to prevent the rescue mission from ending in success.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou can\u2019t be happy with that if you\u2019re a senior leader in Tehran this morning,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/former-centcom-chief-drops-a-line-that-hits-at-the-heart-of-military-honor\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former CENTCOM Commander and retired Marine Corps Gen. Frank McKenzie praised the efficiency of the American military\u2019s rescue operation to retrieve a downed weapon systems operator (WSO) after his plane went down in Iran. McKenzie spoke with CBS News anchor Ed O\u2019Keefe on \u201cFace the Nation,\u201d where he said it was important to note that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22764,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-22763","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-current-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22763\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}