Scott Speicher
Template:Short description Template:Use American English Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox military person
Michael Scott Speicher (July 12, 1957 – unknown) was a naval aviator in the United States Navy who was shot down over Iraq during the Persian Gulf War becoming the first American combat casualty of the war. His fate was not known until 2 August 2009, when the U.S. Navy reported that Speicher's remains had been found in Iraq by the United States military. The official cause of death was "homicide by undetermined means" and forensic examination determined he survived his crash while dental records were used to confirm his identity. He is also the most recent American to have been shot down in air-to-air combat.
Early life and education
Michael Scott Speicher was born in Kansas City, Missouri, on 12 July 1957.<ref name="fsview"/><ref name="nyt121495"/> Scott and his sister went to Lakewood Elementary School and Eastgate Middle School<ref name="kcs2"/> before attending Winnetonka High School.<ref name="apkc"/>
When Speicher was 15, his family moved to Jacksonville, Florida, where he attended Nathan Bedford Forrest High School.<ref name="fsview"/><ref name="apkc">Template:Cite newsTemplate:Dead link</ref> After graduating from high school, he then attended Florida State University (FSU). Speicher graduated from FSU in 1980 with a bachelor's degree in accounting and business management.<ref name="fsview"/><ref name="kcs2"/> While at Florida State, he met Joanne, whom he eventually married, and they had two children. Eighteen months after Speicher went missing in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, friend and fellow U.S. Navy pilot Buddy Harris married Joanne. They had two children.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Speicher's father had been a fighter pilot in World War II. Speicher went on his first airplane flight when he was five years old.<ref name="kcs2">Template:Cite newsTemplate:Dead link</ref> Speicher was a cadet member of the Civil Air Patrol as a teenager.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Upon graduation from FSU, Speicher joined the U.S. Navy and attended Aviation Officer Candidate School at Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida. After flight training at various bases, he was designated as a naval aviator and spent several years as both a fleet squadron aviator in the A-7 Corsair II and F/A-18 Hornet and as a flight instructor on the F/A-18.<ref name="kcs2"/>
By the early 1990s, Speicher had attained the rank of lieutenant commander and was stationed at NAS Cecil Field near Jacksonville, Florida.<ref name="nyt121495"/> He was assigned to Strike Fighter Squadron Eighty One (VFA-81 Sunliners), deploying with Carrier Air Wing 17 (CVW-17) aboard the aircraft carrier Template:USS.<ref name="nyt121495"/> At the time of his deployment to the Iraq theater, Speicher and his wife had a 3-year-old daughter and 1-year-old son.<ref name="fsview"/><ref name="nyt121495"/><ref name="kcs2"/>
Loss incident
Speicher was flying an F/A-18 Hornet fighter, BuNo 163484, when he was shot down by Iraqi Air Force (IQAF) aircraft 100 miles west of Baghdad,
in the early hours of 17 January 1991, the first night of Operation Desert Storm.<ref name="fsview">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="nyt121495"/> His plane crashed in a remote, uninhabited wasteland<ref name="nyt121495"/> known as Tulul ad Dulaym at Template:Coord.<ref name="CIA_summ"/> He was the first combat casualty for American forces in the war.<ref name="nyt121495"/>
The U.S. Navy maintained in a 1997 document that Speicher was downed by a surface-to-air missile.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> However, an unclassified summary of a 2001 CIA report suggests that Speicher's aircraft was shot down by a missile fired from an Iraqi aircraft,<ref name="CIA_summ">"Intelligence Community Assessment of the Lieutenant Commander Speicher Case" (27 March 2001). CIA. Accessed 10 September 2006 via FOIA Electronic Reading Room. Archived 17 October 2004 at the Wayback Machine page-by-page (p. 1, p. 2, p. 3).</ref><ref>Atkinson, Rick (1994). Crusade: The Untold Story of the Persian Gulf War. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, p. 47. Template:ISBN</ref> most likely a MiG-25,<ref name="nyt121495">Weiner, Tim. "With Iraq's O.K., a U.S. Team Seeks War Pilot's Body." Template:Webarchive The New York Times, 14 December 1995: A1.</ref> flown by Lieutenant Zuhair Dawoud Al-Tamimi, 96th squadron of the IQAF.<ref>Sadik, A., Zampini, D. "Tretij Den' (i posledujuschie...)" ["The Third Day (and beyond...)"]. Aviacija i vremja (Aviation and Time) No. 6 (2005) Template:Webarchive Template:In lang</ref> Speicher was at 28,000 feet and travelling at 0.92 Mach (540 knots) when the front of the aircraft suffered a catastrophic event. The impact from the R-40 missile threw the aircraft laterally off its flight path between fifty and sixty degrees with a resulting 6 g minimum load.<ref name="CIA_summ"/> A pilot on the same mission stated: "I'm telling you right now, don't believe what you're being told. It was that MiG that shot Spike down."<ref name=Waters2003_p83>Template:Cite book</ref>
Status and investigations
1990s
The day after the shoot-down, Speicher was placed on MIA status.<ref name="dod-2001"/> On 22 May 1991, after the end of the Gulf War, Speicher's status was changed to killed in action, body not recovered (KIA/BNR).<ref name="dod-2001"/> Navy Commander Buddy Harris,<ref name="spt-timeline">Template:Cite news</ref> who was a friend and fellow naval aviator of Speicher's,<ref name="fsview"/> became a strong advocate for searching for Speicher, often meeting with U.S. officials.<ref name="spt-timeline"/>
In December 1993, a military official from Qatar discovered the wreckage of a plane in the desert, which was subsequently identified as Speicher's aircraft.<ref name="spt-timeline"/> The canopy was a good distance from the rest of the aircraft, suggesting Speicher had tried to eject.<ref name="kcs2"/> In April 1994, a U.S. satellite photographed apparent human-made symbols on the desert floor near the wreck's location, which might possibly be Speicher's E & E (Escape and Evade) sign, suggesting that Speicher might have survived the crash.<ref name="spt-timeline"/> A covert American operation to inspect the site was considered, but rejected by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General John Shalikashvili, as too risky.<ref name="spt-timeline"/>
In December 1995, working through the International Committee of the Red Cross, investigators from the U.S. Navy and U.S. Army's Central Identification Laboratory went to Iraq and conducted an excavation of the crash site.<ref name="dod-2001"/> Bedouin nomads gave investigators a flight uniform that was likely Speicher's, with his name supposedly cut out of it, but the investigators concluded it had been planted there.<ref name="spt-timeline"/> Other evidence led investigators to further conclude Speicher had likely ejected, and was not in the plane at the time it crashed.<ref name="spt-timeline"/> In September 1996, the Secretary of the Navy in a new review reaffirmed the presumptive finding of death.<ref name="dod-2001"/>
In 1997, a U.S. Department of Defense document leaked to The New York Times showed that the Pentagon had not been forthcoming with information previously requested by U.S. Senator Rod Grams of Minnesota. Senator Grams publicly accused the Pentagon of misleading him, and joined with Senator Bob Smith of New Hampshire in calling for an investigation by the Senate Intelligence Committee.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The Speicher case was taken up by the National Alliance of Families, which had been quite active in the Vietnam War POW/MIA issue.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Speculative theories were developed as to the circumstances of Speicher's shoot-down, and assuming he was still alive, why the U.S. military might not want to find him and why Iraq might not want to return him.<ref name="nro">Template:Cite magazine</ref>
2000s
In January 2001, the Secretary of the Navy changed Speicher's status to "missing in action".<ref name="dod-2001">Template:Cite press release</ref> This was the first time the Defense Department had ever made such a change.<ref name="csm080209"/><ref>Ritter, Scott. "Missing in Iraq: The United States has not found Scott Speicher either" Template:Webarchive, Harper's Magazine June 2004: pp 75–77.</ref> In conjunction with the change in classification, Speicher was promoted to commander,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> in accordance with U.S. Navy practice for POWs held a long time. The 2001 CIA report stated that he may have survived by ejecting.<ref name="CIA_summ"/> Rumors from Iraq said that Speicher was captive, walked with a limp, and had facial scars.<ref name="spt-timeline"/> In July 2002, Speicher was further promoted to Captain.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Speicher's possible situation became a more high-profile issue in the build-up to war. In March 2002, the Washington Times ran five successive front-page articles about it, National Review Online ran a long piece on it,<ref name="nro"/> and on 12 September 2002, President George W. Bush mentioned Speicher in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly as part of his case for war against Iraq. Senator Bill Nelson of Florida also took a strong interest in the case.<ref name="cnn042303"/> Speicher's status was changed again to "missing/captured" on 11 October 2002, one day after the United States Congress authorized the use of military force in Iraq. Then-U.S. Secretary of the Navy Gordon R. England said, "While the information available to me now does not prove definitively that Commander Speicher is alive and in Iraqi custody, I am personally convinced the Iraqis seized him sometime after his plane went down. Further, it is my firm belief that the government of Iraq knows what happened to Cmdr. Speicher."<ref name="spt-timeline"/>
Upon the 2003 invasion of Iraq in March 2003, a major investigation on the ground began, that also further increased public attention to the matter.<ref name="csm080209"/> In April 2003, Speicher's possible initials were discovered in a cell at Hakmiyah prison in Baghdad.<ref name="cnn042303">Template:Cite news</ref> Investigators did not think it was significant because a similar carving of "MJN" was found directly above the "MSS" scrawl. Subsequent tests on hair found in the cell's drain did not match Speicher's DNA. Senator Nelson went to Iraq to visit the prison personally.<ref name="td080309"/> Speicher's name was also found on a document in Iraq, dated January 2003, that had the names of prisoners being held in the country. Officials stated that the 90-page document offered no evidence of whether Speicher was alive and might have been written either to provide an accounting of former Iraqi POWs or to confuse the U.S. military.
Over time, as the U.S. occupation increasingly gained control over Anbar Province, the Pentagon said that Speicher probably was not captured.<ref name="csm080209"/>
On 5 January 2009, the U.S. Navy held a review board to consider officially closing the case. The review board recommended that the Pentagon continue investigating what happened to Speicher. The recommendation went to Secretary of the Navy Donald C. Winter who had the final decision. Speicher's family believed and was worried that would change the status of Captain Speicher to KIA and declared they would oppose such action.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
On 10 March 2009, the Secretary of the Navy declared that Captain Speicher's status was changed from "Missing/Captured" back to "Missing-in-Action."<ref>Template:Cite press release</ref>
Discovery and positive identification
On 2 August 2009, the Navy reported that Speicher's remains were found in Iraq by United States Marines from 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marines. <ref>Marines from Task Force Personnel Recovery (TF MP) of Multi-National Force-West conduct recovery efforts at the crash site of U.S. Navy Capt. Michael Scott Speicher</ref> His jawbone was used to identify him after study at the Charles C. Carson Center for Mortuary Affairs at Dover Air Force Base.<ref name="nyt080209">Template:Cite news</ref> According to local civilians, Speicher was buried by Bedouins after his plane was shot down.<ref>Template:Cite press release</ref> Senator Nelson attributed the delayed finding to the culture of the locality: "These Bedouins roam around in the desert, they don't stay in one place, and it just took this time to find the specific site."<ref name="csm080209"/><ref>Hess, Pamela, (Associated Press) "Truth, Distrust, Error Snarled Long Search For Missing US Pilot", Arizona Daily Star, 29 November 2009; "Twists, turns snagged search for Speicher Template:Webarchive', Military Times, 28 November 2009.</ref>
Speicher's family expressed gratitude that the Defense Department had stayed with the case and that closure was now available.<ref name="csm080209">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="nyt080209"/> The Christian Science Monitor termed the case "a veritable saga punctuated with hope, uncertainty, and despair for the past 18 years."<ref name="csm080209"/>
Legacy
Florida State University named its tennis center after Speicher, an avid player. The $1.2 million Scott Speicher Tennis Complex was completed in 2003.<ref name="td080309">Template:Cite news</ref> In 2018, FSU President John Thrasher joined members of Speicher’s family to unveil a new memorial honoring Speicher. The memorial, located at the entrance of the tennis facility named after him in 1993, features a bronze Navy pilot’s helmet and oxygen mask and will eventually include a bronze Navy G-1 flight jacket and naval officer's khaki garrison cap similar to what Speicher would have worn.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
A memorial statue and plaque were erected on Naval Air Station Cecil Field and dedicated to him. The Naval Air Station has since been deactivated but the facility remains in operation as a joint civil–military airport.
A memorial head marker dedicated to Speicher stood in Section H of Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia as of 2002. The memorial markers are erected when there are no identifiable remains for an individual whose death has been substantiated. Cemetery policy states that if remains are later recovered, the head marker will be interred with the coffin.<ref>Template:Cite web. Arlingtoncemetery.org. Retrieved on 19 June 2013.</ref>
In effort to honor Speicher, a former Iraqi air base in the northern Iraqi city of Tikrit was renamed COB Speicher.
A U.S. Navy F/A-18 Hornet on display outside the Naval Aviation Schools Command at NAS Pensacola, Florida, was dedicated to the Speicher family in May 2009. The aircraft was painted in the markings of United States Navy squadron VFA-81 "Sunliners" and Template:USS, which was Speicher's squadron and ship when he was shot down. A front-page story in the 7 August 2009 issue of the Naval Air Station Pensacola newspaper Gosport describes how Speicher's remains were discovered and identified after 18 years. The story has a photo of Speicher's children talking with a member of VFA-81 next to the plane.
On 13 August 2009, the remains of Captain Speicher arrived in Florida 18 years after having been shot down in the Persian Gulf War. The plane containing his remains touched down at Naval Air Station Jacksonville at 3 p.m. Thousands of friends and family gathered for his burial. Captain Speicher's final resting place is at the Jacksonville Memory Garden located in Orange Park, Florida.
On 7 September 2009, Captain Speicher was honored at the start of the Florida State University football game against the University of Miami at Bobby Bowden Field at Doak Campbell Stadium when a flight of F/A-18s performed the missing man formation.
On Memorial Day 2010, an American flag and a wooden cross bearing his name were commissioned, adding him to the Clay County Florida Parade of Flags.
Family
Speicher was married to JoAnne and they had two children.
In the early months and years after Speicher's incident over Iraq, JoAnne Speicher was supported by Speicher's friend, "Buddy" Harris. Eventually, the two became a couple and married. Harris took her two children as his own, after which the couple had two more children. Harris was a significant voice for action to settle the details of Speicher's death, and has been an ongoing voice for POWs and MIAs. <ref name="Buddy">Albert "Buddy" Harris Template:Webarchive, POW/MIA Memorial, accessed 8 August 2022</ref>
See also
- Missing in action
- Operation Desert Storm
- Mortuary Affairs
- Charles C. Carson Center for Mortuary Affairs
References
Bibliography
External links
- POW Network – Bio on Scott Speicher, with information relating to his service.
- Template:FAG
- Fallen Warrior Scott Speicher honored, Clay County Florida Parade of Flags.
- Pages with broken file links
- 1957 births
- 1991 deaths
- Florida State University alumni
- Military personnel from Jacksonville, Florida
- Military personnel from Kansas City, Missouri
- United States Navy officers
- United States Naval Aviators
- United States Navy personnel of the Gulf War
- Military personnel missing in action
- Military personnel killed in the Gulf War
- American military personnel killed in action
- Aviators killed by being shot down
- Burials at Arlington National Cemetery