STORY BY RANDY ROUGHTON
The pilot from the Bush administration no longer wears his Air Force One jacket, and the plane he flies today is considerably smaller than the blue and white Boeing VC-25 with the presidential seal and American flag on the tail.
As Presidential Airlift Group commander, retired Col. Mark Tillman was in command of the modified Boeing 747 on Sept. 11, 2001, the only day that rivals what were previously the most historic days for an Air Force One aircraft. In June 1963, President Kennedy’s C-137C Stratoliner carried him to Germany for his famous “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech, and to Dallas the following November. President Johnson took the oath of office as the 36th president on board after the assassination.
On 1,675 flights from 2000 to 2008, Tillman took President George W. Bush to every state except Vermont and also became the first pilot to fly a U.S. president into a war zone when he flew him into Iraq for Thanksgiving in 2003.
In August 2003, Bush told his chief of staff, that he wanted to fly to Iraq on Thanksgiving Day to have holiday dinner with the troops. His staff tried to arrange a visit to Afghanistan or Iraq earlier, but couldn’t work out a trip that the Secret Service felt would be safe.
“President Bush’s mission was simple,” Tillman said. “He wanted to have Thanksgiving dinner with the troops to let them know how much he, as well as the American people, appreciated what they were doing.
“It was simple, but crazy. We were to take the president of the United States into the country, keep him there for about two and a half hours, let him have dinner with the troops, get him out of the country and take him back [home] — all without anybody knowing it.”
President Bush was picked up at his Crawford, Texas, ranch and flown into Iraq on Air Force One, which landed in Baghdad with lights off.
“The biggest challenge was our own people,” Tillman said. Some of the Secret Service who guarded him day in and day out couldn’t even know. The reason we used Air Force One, as opposed to a C-17 [Globemaster III], was Air Force One had better capability against a ground attack, and if I kept it within my own crew, I didn’t have to tell anybody about anything until the day of execution.”
The troops didn’t know they would be sharing Thanksgiving dinner with the president until he appeared to read his holiday message to them. They only knew to expect a visit from a VIP.
“They had no idea it was the president of the United States, but they didn’t have to know,” Tillman said. “They were given a job, and they executed it perfectly. Those troops who got to have dinner with the president were rewarded for what they do day to day. I think the president was happy with it, and so were the troops.”
Tillman began his Air Force career after college as a rocket propulsion engineer in the Foreign Technology Division at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. After he completed pilot training, Tillman flew C-130 Hercules at Pope Air Force Base, N.C., and returned to train as a T-37 Tweet instructor pilot. He was eventually accepted as a pilot with the 89th Airlift Wing at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., and flew the Gulfstream III before he was hired for Air Force One.
Tillman was selected to fly then-Vice President Al Gore and eventually worked his way up to deputy presidential pilot before becoming the 12th presidential pilot when Bush took office. Other highlights during his eight years as Air Force One pilot included a surprise visit to Afghanistan and the funerals of former Presidents Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan.
What Tillman remembers most fondly is the connection between Bush and the military. Whenever Air Force One landed, a wounded service member would often be waiting to shake the president’s hand at the bottom of the stairs. Tillman remembers one Marine who had lost both legs and had limited use of his arms. When the president appeared, the Marine sat at attention in his wheelchair and rendered a salute with his left hand.
“These were military men and women whose lives had changed completely as a result of being injured, but who still had tremendous respect for the president of the United States,” Tillman said. “The best part was that President Bush had tremendous respect for them.
“I had the opportunity to fly with President Clinton, another great man who took care of the country and the military, but there was an immediate bond between President Bush and the military.”
During his tenure, Tillman led his crew in a “zero fail” philosophy on Air Force One. He cited an incident early in 2009 when the VC-25 flew low and caused a scare in Manhattan.
“That was not the fault of the Air Force One crew,” Tillman said, “but it shows how a simple process can be taken out of context and can completely destroy or take away from the president’s message. Everyone has to understand that when you’re flying the president of the United States, anything you do that puts you on CNN or Fox News takes away from the president’s message.
“So when I say ‘zero failure,’ I mean we have to do everything perfect to make sure there’s nothing that can take away from the president’s message of the day, or the image of the president of the United States.”
After President Obama’s inauguration in 2009, Tillman flew the last mission for Bush and himself as pilot of Air Force One. People who served in the early days of the president’s administration flew on Special Air Mission 28000 from Andrews Air Force Base, Md., to Midland, Texas. Those who served in the latter days of the administration flew with Bush from Midland to Waco, Texas.
Tillman then flew his last flight on the VC-25 when he took it back to Andrews, where what he calls “the greatest thing ever for a military man” awaited him.
All 300 Air Force One members stood at attention in uniform and saluted as he deplaned. Col. Scott Turner, now Obama’s pilot, then removed Tillman’s Air Force One jacket and gave him a baseball cap for the Scottsdale, Ariz., tire company that he currently serves as the CEO’s pilot.
“I know I got a lot of credit for things that happened on Air Force One, but it wasn’t just me,” Tillman said. “There were 300 folks who worked Air Force One, and more importantly, thousands of military men and women who supported us day in and day out to help keep the president safe.”
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