"Good to go"

by Mary Pat Kelly

So perfectly executed was the mission to rescue Capt. Scott O'Grady that it amazed even the men responsible. Just, five hours after radio contact was first made with Basher 52 - O'Grady's call sign - the Air Force captain was safely on board the USS Kearsarge. The downed F-16 fighter pilot's rescue from a Bosnian mountainside by Col. Martin Berndt's 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit electrified the nation in June 1995 and renewed many Americans' faith in the military. This book tells the story of the mission in the words of the men who commanded, planned, and carried it out. To get the inside account, Mary Pat Kelly traveled throughout Europe to conduct more than one hundred interviews, visiting U.S. ships and bases and UN posts in Croatia and Bosnia where participants were stationed. Adm. Leighton W. Smith Jr., commander in chief of U.S. naval forces in Europe and head of NATO forces in the Southern European theater, provides the framework with his day-to-day commentary on the efforts to