Jim "Boots" Demarest

“I thought to myself ‘this is it – I’m a dead man.’”

As Lt. Col. Rob Sweet, the last serving Air Force prisoner of war, approached retirement on June 6, he recalled the moment during Operation Desert Storm when his A-10 Thunderbolt II aircraft was shot down by enemy forces southwest of Basra, Iraq.

It is shade past five a.m. on a rain-soaked, late-May morning.

I sit at the corner of Rock Island’s 40th Street and 11th Avenue, staring at a sign that reads: “Capt. Stephen Phillis Drive.’’

Air Force Lt. Col. Rob Sweet says he knew what to expect after he was shot down in his A-10 Warthog near Basra, Iraq, in the minutes before he was captured by enemy forces.

It didn’t stop him from thinking, “I’m a dead man,” he said in a news release recalling the mission.

The Chief of Staff of the Florida Air National Guard, Brigadier Gen. Jim Demarest, is starting a campaign to award the Medal of Honor to the late Capt. Stephen Phillis, Alert5 says.

Jim met Stephen Phillis at the academy. Together, they shared a bond over boxing, both being left-handed- or southpaws.