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Marketing a hero requires some clever strategizing. Last week Air Force officials offered to put some of the Marines who rescued O'Grady on the David Letterman show along with him. "But we learned that the invitation to us for Letterman was only to sweeten the pot," a senior Marine officer said. "Because O'Grady already was slated to go on Leno, Letterman wouldn't take him unless the Pentagon could offer something extra, so the Air Force invited us to tag along to use as leverage to get Letterman to take him." The Marines refused to entertain the offer. It's gone that way all along between the two services as O'Grady's glory has been parceled out. The Marines admire the pilot himself but resent the Air Force's refusal to let them fly O'Grady from the Kearsarge to his home base in Aviano, Italy. Instead the Air Force insisted they bring O'Grady ashore, where an Air Force jet picked him up.
None of this ruckus was O'Grady's idea; this hero has his heart in the right place. He has repeatedly expressed his bewilderment at the treatment he has received and has given all credit to the Marines. Last Wednesday was the first night since his plane was shot down that he got a decent night's sleep. The attention "just kind of wore him out," explained his father. "He wants his identity back. He wants to be a normal human being." But the spinmeisters, the public and the media may not allow that, and they are harder to escape than the Serbs.
--Reported by James Carney and Mark Thompson/Washington