ABOUT COLONEL KEN CORDIER
Kenneth W Cordier (born February 16, 1937) has had a distinguished career both in the military and in the private sector. He was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force through the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps. He flew 175.5 combat missions over N. Vietnam and Laos until he took a direct hit from a missile forcing him to eject. He was captured immediately and held in four different prisons in and around Hanoi for six years and three months until his release on March 4, 1973.
Col. Cordier culminated his Air Force career as Air Attaché to the United Kingdom. After retiring from the Air Force in 1985, Ken returned to the U.S., where he represented British Aerospace in Washington, DC, as Director, Military Aircraft. Since moving to Dallas in 1993, Ken has been self-employed as a management consultant and has served in leadership positions in several veterans’ organizations. Col. Cordier currently resides with his wife Barbie in Dallas, Texas.
GUARDIAN EAGLE: A Fighter Pilot’s Tale
“We’re hit! Eject!”
I yelled to Mike Lane, my backseat copilot. I knew the plane was going down. Both engine fire lights were flashing, and the plane was out of control. Mike didn’t respond, so I pulled the ejection handle and popped out of the F-4 Phantom like a cork out of a champagne bottle. The enemy had fired two Surface-to-Air Missiles (SAMs) at us. The second one blew up right below me. I saw this red, orange, and black fireball growing, looking like the gates of hell. Headed right for it, I had just enough time to close my eyes and hold my breath before I felt the hot flash and fell through the center of the fireball.
In the blink of an eye, Captain Cordier went from “hot shot” fighter pilot at the top of his game to enduring more than six years in cruel, North Vietnamese prisons. Like Job in the Bible, he would lose everything: possessions, family, friends, and freedom. But God would not forget him. In due course, he’d be lifted out of this pit to an abundant new life—one full of purpose and meaning, beyond what he could ever have imagined.