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The
son of an American diplomat and a Chinese mother, Patrick A.
Davis spent most of his childhood living in a variety of countries,
including Pakistan, Sudan, Liberia, Thailand, South Korea, the
Philippines, and Vietnam. When Pat was sixteen, his father
retired from the Foreign Service and the family moved to Washington
State.
After
graduating from Sequim High School, Pat attended the United
States Air Force Academy, receiving his commission
as a second
lieutenant in 1979. He earned his wings a year later and
spent his initial assignment flying C-130 transports, becoming
the youngest evaluator pilot on the base.
In 1986, he was selected as an ASTRA—a prestigious designation
where the Air Force identifies
young officers to be groomed for senior leadership and transferred
to the Pentagon. Following this staff assignment, he returned
to the cockpit to pilot the secret U-2 spy plane.
The missions were
long and challenging, and while Pat never enjoyed the restrictions
of working in a space suit, he loved the sensation of floating
seventy thousand feet above the earth. During the first Gulf
War, he helped plan and direct U-2 surveillance operations
and was credited
with 11 combat sorties.
Once the war was over, Pat, now a major, was sent for a year
of advanced military studies at the Army Command and General
Staff
College in Leavenworth, Kansas. Upon completing the course,
he was faced with accepting an extended tour as a staff officer.
Still desiring to fly, he made the painful decision to separate
from
the military and applied for a pilot job with a major airline.
In 1992, he was hired by American Airlines...and subsequently
furloughed ten months later.
Deciding to treat the furlough as a sabbatical, Pat used his
time off to hone his writing skills. Three years and countless
drafts
later, Pat was recalled to American Airlines. In 1997, an agent
agreed to read one of his novels and within weeks, had signed
a two-book deal.
The
General, a military murder thriller, was released in
hardback in 1998 and cracked several bestseller lists,
including reaching
number one in the Dallas Morning News. In 2000, The
Passenger followed, making the New
York Times and USA Today extended
lists in paperback. The Colonel and The Commander were subsequently
published in 2001 and 2002, earning stellar reviews.
In 2002, Pat signed as a lead author with Pocket Books, a division
of Simon and Schuster, and his eighth book, Deception Plan , was published in December 2006. Recently, he collaborated
with Dallas screenwriter Michael Farris on screenplays based on
three of his novels and is working on his ninth novel. In addition, Pat has two television projects under consideration, along with several made-for-tv movies.
Pat is married to the former Helen Roche and lives in Alexandria, Virginia.
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ARTICLES
Hawaii Tribune - Herald,
"SPY PLANES THE UNSUNG
HEROES OF THE GULF WAR"
Edith M. Ledener,
Associated Press, April 29, 1991
WASHINGTON - The Air Force's U-2 and TR-1 spy
planes were one of the Gulf War's best kept secrets: They began
tracking Iraqi troops and equipment in August and are still in the
region providing intelligence.
"I think
that they were extremely important," said an Air Force source,
who spoke on the condition he not be identified.
The U-2s and TR-1s were used extensively for everything
from monitoring Iraqi equipment and troop concentrations to hunting
Scud missiles and assessing the impact of allied bombs, the source
said.
Yet, the single-engine
planes, which can fly at altitudes above 70,000 feet, aren't mentioned
in an Air Force white paper issued this month that described the
performance of every other aircraft in the allied victory over Iraq.
The report says
only that the large investments in intelligence to provide information
for all coalition forces "were wise expenditures of taxpayer
money."
A U.S. media
pool that visited an air base in western Saudi Arabia during the
43-day conflict saw U-2s and TR-1s taking off and landing. But the
reporters were barred by the military from even mentioning their
presence in the gulf.
The Pentagon
only reluctantly agreed to acknowledge their role now.
The Air Force
source said publicizing the presence of the planes could have made
it easier for the Iraqis to keep tabs on their takeoffs and landings
and conceal equipment or operations the Americans wanted to observe.
The military
also still appears sensitive to the international furor created
in 1960 when the Soviets shot down a U-2 over Russia with a surface-to-air
missile.
The incident,
which exposed the CIA's spy flights over the Soviet Union, caused
the collapse of a Big Four summit and cancellation of a visit to
Moscow by President Eisenhower.
The U-2 pilot,
Francis Gary Powers, spent 21 months in a Soviet prison before being
exchanged in 1962 for master Soviet spy Col. Rudolph Abel, who had
been arrested in New York. Powers was killed in a 1977 helicopter
crash.
Asked whether the 1960 incident
still colors the public perception of the plane, the Air Force source
said, "Yes, I do - unfortunately."
Americans inevitably
ask if it's the one that was shot down, he said, and then they say,
"You mean they're still flying?"
The U-2, with
long, straight wings and glider-like characteristics, made its debut
in 1955 and has been used for worldwide strategic reconnaissance.
The TR-1, which
uses the same basic air frame, was designed for NATO and flew its
first mission in 1981. Its main job was to seek out targets and
tell NATO fighter-bombers where to strike.
The U-2, modernized
with a new engine and advanced avionics, is virtually the same as
the TR-1 except for "minor, technical differences," the
source said.
"It's been
one of the good buys the government has made," he said.
In the gulf
campaign, the source said, the Air Force "made a giant leap"
and used both planes interchangeably. In some cases, he said, the
planes flew over the same area 24 hours a day.
Intelligence
from the U-2s and TR-1s was combined with information from satellites
and other aircraft, the source said.
The Air Force
was reluctant to disclose precise details of their missions.
The spy planes
are still flying over Iraq, presumably keeping track of Saddam Hussein's
army and the flow of refugees.
"Generally
speaking, as long as we have American troops there, we will keep
some support," the source said.
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