{"id":53120,"date":"2021-06-14T20:23:57","date_gmt":"2021-06-14T20:23:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/airforcetimes\/uncategorized\/2021\/06\/14\/last-air-force-pow-officially-retires\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T09:39:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T09:39:10","slug":"last-air-force-pow-officially-retires","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/airforcetimes\/off-duty\/military-culture\/2021\/06\/14\/last-air-force-pow-officially-retires\/","title":{"rendered":"Last Air Force POW officially retires"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Lt. Col. Rob Sweet, the Air Force\u2019s last-serving prisoner of war, retired June 6 after 33 years of service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On Feb. 15, 1991, Sweet and his flight commander, Capt. Stephen R. Phillis, crossed the northern border of Kuwait, further into Iraq than any A-10 pilot had gone before. Their mission was to eliminate Iraqi Republican Guard tanks about 80 miles past the border of Kuwait.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe left and found a pristine array of tanks that had not been hit, which shocked us because by that point everything had been bombed for the past 30 days,\u201d Sweet said in an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nellis.af.mil\/News\/Article\/2648942\/air-forces-last-serving-pow-retires\/\" target=\"_blank\">interview with Air Force Public Affairs<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The duo closed in. After dropping their bombs, however, a surface-to-air missile was released from an enemy launch site. As Sweet moved in to attack it, he felt a bump. Looking back, he saw the rear end of his right wing in flames.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In an interview with <a href=\"https:\/\/people.com\/archive\/oh-man-im-hit\/\" target=\"_blank\">People Magazine<\/a>, Sweet said his first thought was \u201coh, man, I\u2019m hit\u201d before racing to the border.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It was too late. Within minutes, he was forced to eject and landed 50 feet from the same tanks that shot him down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After crashing, 200 Iraqi soldiers ran towards him, shooting and yelling. They beat him, leaving him with a black eye among other injuries before taking him captive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For 19 days, Sweet experienced brutality as a prisoner of war. The constant beatings, starvation, disease and boredom in his 8-by-15-foot cell took a physical, mental and emotional toll. Despite his suffering, Sweet endured.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He was returned home in a prisoner exchange along with 15 other POWs on March 6, 1991.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He credits his military training, specifically his Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) school, with his survival.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThere were very few surprises in the jailhouse,\u201d he said. \u201cI knew what to expect.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Not everyone made it back. Phillips was killed while trying to draw fire away from Sweet and coordinate a search and rescue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cShortly thereafter, I found out my flight lead was killed,\u201d Sweet noted. \u201cI was not without psychological problems. I had survivor\u2019s guilt, and it took me a long time to get over that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Despite those feelings, Sweet found meaning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI don\u2019t regret going over there, fighting and getting shot down,\u201d Sweet said. \u201cThat\u2019s what I took an oath to do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He found a sense of purpose in mentoring and instructing young airman, particularly fighter pilots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Chief of Staff of the Air Force, Gen. Charles Q. Brown, commended Sweet during his retirement ceremony.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cRob, I want to take this opportunity to recognize your service to our nation and congratulate you on your retirement,\u201d said Brown. \u201cYou\u2019ve had an outstanding career that I know you, your family, friends and fellow Airmen are proud of. With your retirement it will be the first time in the history of our Air Force that we will not have a former POW serving. In closing, thank you for all you\u2019ve done.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sweet\u2019s advice to young airmen is to take every experience day by day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cBloom where you\u2019re planted,\u201d Sweet said. \u201cYou\u2019re going to have assignments you don\u2019t like, but make the most of them and move on.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lt Col. Rob Sweet, the last serving prisoner of war in the Air Force, retires.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":92672,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":70,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[101,24,88,89,70,16,26,17,67],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3291],"class_list":["post-53120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-news-roundup","category-home","category-left-column","category-middle-column","category-military-culture","category-news","category-newsletters","category-off-duty","category-your-air-force"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"KXS36E5QMNAJBJ52JVK2SKV44Y","arc_canonical_url":"\/off-duty\/military-culture\/2021\/06\/14\/last-air-force-pow-officially-retires\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.0 (Yoast SEO v28.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Last Air Force POW officially retires - Air Force TImes<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Lt Col. 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