{"id":37775,"date":"2013-09-30T17:31:16","date_gmt":"2013-09-30T21:31:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=37775"},"modified":"2013-09-30T17:31:16","modified_gmt":"2013-09-30T21:31:16","slug":"retired-af-doctors-story-declassified","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=37775","title":{"rendered":"Retired AF doctor’s story declassified"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hondo sends us a link about Col. (Dr.) James Ruffer\u2019s mission prior to Operation Just Cause. According to the article in The Army Times<\/a>, Col. Ruffer spent time as a Marine pilot in Vietnam, a Navy flight surgeon and an Air Force doctor during his thirty years of service. But he earned a Bronze Star with a “V” for his work in Panama;<\/p>\n

I worked with Delta Force as I planned the rescue of Kurt Muse from my vantage point within the prison. (The regime had been forced by President George H. W. Bush to allow an American doctor to provide care for the hostage.) … [I] was to know where Muse was being held and where his intended assassin was located; for Muse was \u201cpromised\u201d death by the regime. With my help, Delta Force would be looking for the intended assassin\u2019s location upon entering the prison on the night of 19\/20 December 1989. … Kurt Muse was rescued without the loss of an American life.<\/p>\n

During the Modelo Prison mission I was always at some risk of being detained either upon my approach to the prison within Panama City\u2019s squalorous Chorillo District or within the prison during the visit or upon my departure. A gun was directed to my head, during one departure, along with the voiced declaration of the guard, \u201cI\u2019d like to blow your head off.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yeah, I know Carcel Modelo pretty well, but my stay there was measured in days rather than months. I was there for kidnapping, but when the Canal Zone Provost Marshall told the Panamanians that the person who I supposedly kidnapped was in custody in the CZ, they let me go. But, it’s not a very friendly place. My toilet was a quart-sized milk carton, my bed was a couple of sheets of newspaper spread out on the concrete floor. Breakfast was a small roll and a cup of warm brown-colored water that they called coffee. Lunch was usually fish head soup, with real a fish head to prove it. So I have a sense of the conditions that Colonel Ruffer confronted. It was pretty scary and I wasn’t an undercover spy or anything. <\/p>\n

So congratulations on your award, Col. Ruffer. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hondo sends us a link about Col. (Dr.) James Ruffer\u2019s mission prior to Operation Just Cause. … Retired AF doctor’s story declassified<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[130],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-real-soldiers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37775\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}