In an extended interview with 60 Minutes correspondent Norah O'Donnell, Bravo, an Air Force colonel, provided new details about his fight to survive behind enemy lines in Iran, and the rescue operation that brought him and crewmate "Alpha" back home.
Page A2From§Eachthe early evening edition — 13 September 2026
Pentagon touts 'historic' devastation of forces that shot down a US F-15 and hunted its colonel two days.
As it ran on the front
The message from this administration has been consistent since April: Secretary Hegseth told 60 Minutes last month that the campaign against Iran produced "historic" devastation to its military capabilities, that "we have all the control in the world" over how it ends. That's the line. That's — well, that's the line as delivered to Norah O'Donnell, for a segment that turned out to be about something else.
It was about an Air Force colonel, call sign Dude 44 Bravo, whose F-15E Strike Eagle was shot down over Iran in April, by the military we'd just described as historically devastated. So the capability claim holds, in the sense that — no, it doesn't hold, not if the aircraft that supposedly can't be touched gets touched. Bravo ejected with a damaged parachute, free-fell believing it might not open, and prayed. He landed with a broken back, a broken arm, a broken shoulder, then evaded Iranian forces on the ground for two days before the rescue video CBS aired this week.…
…(cont) Energy Secretary Chris Wright made the companion argument September 6, on ABC, calling the war worth it because it "resets" the Middle East and keeps Iran from a nuclear weapon. Worth it is doing a lot of work in that sentence — worth it to Wright, on a Sunday show, in Washington. Whether it reads the same to a colonel with three broken bones lying still in the dark so a patrol won't hear him is a different question, one CBS gave eight segments to this week without quite asking.
Iran's health ministry says the same bombing and blockade have left the country short on medicine, a shortage Iranian officials count at roughly 800 items — a number that didn't make the CBS package, maybe because "modern-day miracle" and "medical crisis" don't share a lower third.
Historic devastation. Worth it. A colonel spent two days hiding from a military we'd declared finished, while a health system strains on the other side of that same finish line. Both descriptions came from this administration. Only one survived contact with the footage.
“They tell you the war's basically won, then some full colonel is laying in an Iranian ditch with three broken bones playing hide and seek from the same army that's supposedly wiped out — that's not devastation, that's a marketing department with a flight suit. And they run eight segments about the miracle rescue so nobody sits with the 800 medicines that ran out on the other side of that same bombing campaign. The stakes are simple: somebody's kid gets called a hero on television, somebody else's kid can't get the pill they need, and both bills came from the same war.”
“Look — "historic devastation" is a technical assessment, it means the capability was degraded, it doesn't mean every single aircraft is safe forever. Okay, one aircraft. An F-15E. Shot down by the capability we'd just finished degrading. But the pilot survived, so if anything that's proof the rescue apparatus works, that's actually the success story here — wait, why am I selling the shootdown as the good part.”
The receipts
In his first interview, Bravo, an Air Force colonel who was shot down in Iran, told 60 Minutes his story of survival and provided new details about the rescue operation.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told Norah O'Donnell last month that "we have all the control in the world" on the outcome of the Iran war and touted "historic" devastation to Iran's military capabilities. O'Donnell sat down with Hegseth for a story airing on "60 Minutes" about the U.S. Air Force officer shot down in Iran in April, who…
A senior Iranian health official on Tuesday accused the United States of deliberately targeting Iran's medical infrastructure amid a worsening shortage of critical medicines as President Donald Trump's illegal US-Israeli war of choice against Iran drags on. Iran's pharmaceutical system is straining under US bombing, blockade, and…
Dramatic video, obtained first by 60 Minutes, shows the rescue of two Air Force officers shot down over a mountainous desert region of Iran back in April.
Dramatic video, obtained first by 60 Minutes, shows the rescue of two Air Force officers shot down over a mountainous desert region of Iran back in April.
Badly wounded and alone in Iran's desert, downed U.S. Air Force officer Dude 44 Bravo evaded capture for days as the Iranian forces and the U.S. military searched for him.
Bravo, the code name for the Air Force officer shot down over Iran, survived for 48 hours on the ground with a broken back, broken arm and broken shoulder.
The US Air Force colonel rescued from Iran in April revealed Sunday that the “most terrifying moment” of surviving nearly two days on enemy lines was plummeting to earth with a damaged parachute after his F-15E Strike Eagle was shot down.
Dude 44 Bravo was part of a two-man U.S. Air Force crew shot down over Iran in April. He describes a terrifying ejection, how he evaded Iranian forces for two days, and what he said to his rescuers.
· Wright says Iran war worth it to 'reset' Middle East from the morgue, 6 Sep 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.