He was alone, armed with a handgun, and worth $60,000 dead or alive. For nearly two days, a downed US pilot hid in the cold Iranian mountains while, as Trump claims, “thousands” closed in. Then came the strange radio message that sounded all wrong — four words that made US officials fear a deadly Ira… Continues…

Trump’s account of the rescue paints a picture of a pilot abandoned to the harshest odds: stranded behind enemy lines, hunted by Iranian forces and even civilians allegedly promised cash to turn him in. US drones circled overhead, striking at threats creeping too close, buying him hours he wasn’t sure he had. Every movement in the dark could have been his last, every sound in the rocks a signal that the hunt had reached him at last.

The tension spiked when his first radioed words — “Power be to God” — sounded, to some, like a trap crafted to mimic a Muslim fighter. For a moment, suspicion collided with duty: was this really their man, or bait? Only when people who knew him confirmed his deep faith did the mission surge forward. Found wedged in a mountain crevice and airlifted to safety, his survival became, for Trump, proof that even alone in hostile territory, he was “never truly alone.”