At Kandahar Air Base, Captain Delaney Thomas was often underestimated—a young, soft-spoken Irish pilot dismissed as “too emotional” for combat. But that perception was about to be shattered.
When encrypted transmissions revealed that 381 Navy SEALs were trapped in a kill zone in the Korengal Valley, her warnings ignored by superiors, Delaney acted. Ignoring orders and authority, she took off in her A-10 Warthog, a flying tank armed with the GAU-8/A Avenger cannon, determined to save the soldiers below.
Flying into near-zero visibility and under heavy enemy fire, Delaney executed a series of precision maneuvers she had secretly mastered, strafing fortified enemy positions and carving a corridor of fire. In just three passes, she destroyed fourteen bunkers, clearing the way for the SEALs to escape. Her plane returned riddled with bullets, but every life she had risked hers to protect had survived.
Though initially facing potential court-martial, the SEALs’ safe extraction silenced critics. Delaney’s “Thomas Maneuver” became standard A-10 training, and she was awarded the Silver Star. The pilot once called “too emotional” had turned empathy and courage into decisive action, proving that intuition and determination could save hundreds in the most impossible circumstances.