{"id":71719,"date":"2023-12-18T14:36:48","date_gmt":"2023-12-18T20:36:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/?p=71719"},"modified":"2023-12-18T14:36:48","modified_gmt":"2023-12-18T20:36:48","slug":"in-memoriam-robert-bob-pardo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/2023\/12\/18\/in-memoriam-robert-bob-pardo\/","title":{"rendered":"In Memoriam: Robert “Bob” Pardo"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/h1>\n

Air Force legend Robert \u2018Bob\u2019 Pardo, famous for \u2018Pardo\u2019s Push\u2019 maneuver, dead at 89<\/a><\/h1>\n

 <\/p>\n

US Air Force legend Robert \u201cBob\u201d Pardo, known for his selfless action known as \u201cPardo\u2019s Push\u201d during the Vietnam War, has died Dec. 5 in College Station, Texas.<\/h2>\n

He was 89.<\/h2>\n

On March 10, 1967, Pardo, then a US Air Force captain, and weapons officer 1st Lt. Steve Wayne were deep in enemy territory on a bombing run in Vietnam.<\/h2>\n

Flying alongside another F-4C Phantom airplane, piloted by Capt. Earl Aman and 1st Lt. Robert Houghton, the pair of jets tasked with eliminating North Vietnam\u2019s only steel mill, which was heavily fortified with anti-aircraft guns and artillery.<\/h2>\n

Both aircraft started taking enemy fire from the ground, damaging both Pardo\u2019s and Aman\u2019s Phantoms.<\/h2>\n

\u201cWe took at least one hit, maybe two, right in the belly of the airplane,\u201d Pardo\u00a0recounted<\/a>\u00a0in a 2015 interview with the Air Force Veterans in Blue program.<\/h2>\n

After taking the initial enemy contact, Aman\u2019s airplane was hit again and lost too much fuel to get out of enemy territory and return to base safely.<\/h2>\n

\u201cI knew if I didn\u2019t do anything, they would have to eject over North Vietnam into enemy territory, and that would have resulted in their capture for sure,\u201d Pardo said. \u201cAt that time, if you were captured by civilians, you were probably going to be murdered on the spot.\u201d<\/h2>\n

In a selfless act to save his fellow airmen, Pardo pushed Aman\u2019s jet using the nose of his aircraft against Aman\u2019s tailhook \u2014 a retractable hook on the underside of the plane used to assist with landing.<\/h2>\n

RTWT.<\/a><\/h2>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Air Force legend Robert \u2018Bob\u2019 Pardo, famous for \u2018Pardo\u2019s Push\u2019 maneuver, dead at 89   US Air Force legend Robert \u201cBob\u201d Pardo, known for his selfless action known as \u201cPardo\u2019s Push\u201d during the Vietnam War, has died Dec. 5 in College Station, Texas. He was 89. On March 10, 1967, Pardo, then a US Air…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3675,6789,1286,5016],"tags":[9281,4667,763,766],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71719"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71719"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71719\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71721,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71719\/revisions\/71721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}