Hero Pilot

After surviving on a diet of insects, grass and rainwater for six days behind hostile enemy lines after his F-16 Fighter had been shot down in Bosnian Serb territory, Captain Scott O’Grady made radio contact and was dramatically rescued at dawn on June 8th of last year. All of America was waiting for the hero’s return, but O’Grady wanted to make one quick stopover – at Ireland’s Shannon Airport to visit his Irish cousins. O’Grady said: “Ireland is my second home. I consider myself an Irish American and I’m proud of it.” 

Captain O’Grady’s paternal grandmother, Rose Briarty, emigrated from Country Longford to New York and married fellow Irish immigrant, Joseph O’Grady. Scott credits his interest in Ireland to his close childhood relationship with his grandmother. 

Born in Brooklyn on October 12, 1965, he moved with his family to California, to New Jersey and finally to Spokane, Washington. Scott attended Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Arizona, earned a BS Aeronautical degree in 1989 and was commissioned through the Air Force Reserve Training Corps program in April of that same year. In October of 1995 he began his present position as an F-16 pilot assigned to the 466th Fighter Squadron Fighter Wing, at Hill Air Force Base, Utah. 

Captain O’Grady’s book, Return With Honor, was published in November, 1995. “When all the hype dies down,” he said, “I really want to come back to Ireland and spend some more time with my family and see more of the country.”