Hometown hero O’Grady stumps for Bush at picnic in Spokane

Retired Air Force Capt. Scott O’Grady, known nationally for surviving six days behind enemy lines after being shot down over Bosnia in 1995, wrapped up a Spokane homecoming visit Monday with some presidential politics.

O’Grady, 38, came for his 20th Lewis and Clark High School reunion and stayed over to share his views on who should be commander in chief.

That person is George W. Bush, O’Grady told about 150 people at a Republican picnic Monday evening in Riverfront Park.

“He’s a strong commander in chief because he says what he means, and he means what he says,” O’Grady said.

“I really think that he’s the man for that job.”

O’Grady, who now makes his living as a motivational speaker, volunteered his time this summer to stump for Bush in states where voters are teetering between Bush and Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry.

“I know that he is a veteran, and I respect that,” O’Grady said of Kerry, who earned three Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star and a Silver Star on a gunboat as a Navy lieutenant in Vietnam.

But O’Grady said he was “disturbed” by the fact that Kerry protested the war in Vietnam after coming home.

More recently, O’Grady charged, Kerry voted as a U.S. senator from Massachusetts to send servicemen to war in Iraq and “then he turned his back on them by refusing to give them the funds they needed.”

Spokane resident Kathleen Hyslop said she found O’Grady’s account of evading capture for six days in Bosnia “inspiring.”

“I thought it was interesting to hear what he had to say about Kerry because Kerry is a veteran also,” Hyslop said, adding that she was surprised by O’Grady’s views.

Hyslop said she would want more information before deciding who to vote for, “but, at this point, I would probably vote for Bush.”

Of course, Bush will have to wait a couple of years to lock up Hyslop’s vote. She’s 16.

Mary Entman of Spokane Valley was already in the president’s camp when she arrived at Monday’s Republican Party picnic.

But her husband, John Entman, was swayed by O’Grady’s talk.

“I was kind of undecided,” John Entman said.

“I’m definitely going to vote for Bush now.”

Entman said he is a member of the Sheet Metal Workers Union, which “has been pushing us to vote Democratic.”

Most of O’Grady’s address was devoted to the six days he spent eluding hostile soldiers and civilians when his F-16 fighter was shot down over Bosnia in 1995.

“Those six days were the most positive six days I have had in my life,” but definitely not because of the $150 in hazard pay he collected, O’Grady said.

He said he prayed the whole time he was there, sometimes with enemy soldiers passing within six feet of his hiding place. His love of God, family and country inspired him to survive, O’Grady said.

After to the hostile forces searching for him, lack of water was O’Grady’s biggest problem. When his water ration ran out, he captured a bit of rainfall and later wrung the sweat out of his socks.

He said he caught ants mostly for entertainment because he found just a few of them quite filling.

O’Grady said he never doubted that Americans would keep looking for him, but he had to risk exposure and climb a hill so his radio could make contact.

The Marine Corps helicopters that came to his rescue taught him that a hero “is someone who does something to help somebody else,” O’Grady said.

Three of the four choppers were hit by gunfire, including the one he was in, O’Grady said.

He recalled a bullet that penetrated the cabin and bounced around before landing, spent, at the foot of a young Marine.

The Marine pocketed the slug as a souvenir.

O’Grady returned to flying and other assignments, including a stint as a survival school instructor at Fairchild Air Force Base.

After 12 years of active and reserve duty, he decided “it was just time to do something else with my life.”

He’s now living in Dallas, and is about one-third of the way to a master’s degree in biblical studies at Dallas Theological Seminary.

He’s thinking about going for master’s degree in history after finishing his theological studies.

“I’ll determine what I want to do when I grow up,” O’Grady said in an interview.

He was, after all, still reliving his high school days. The reunion was “fantastic,” he said.

“The women all got prettier,” said O’Grady, who is still looking for the “right lady.”

His high school buddies also “looked sharp – fit and lean,” O’Grady said. “It surprised me.”

Even the old LC high school building looked good, O’Grady said after getting his first view of the historic building’s multimillion-dollar renovation. He particularly liked the basement library with skylight shafts for natural light.

“I wished I could go back to school there,” O’Grady said.