U.S. Air Force Maj. Michael A. Blea, 480th Fighter Squadron assistant director of operations, assigned to the 52nd Fighter Wing at Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany, is awarded the Silver Star during a ceremony at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, March 3, 2026. (Alexandra Longfellow/U.S. Air Force)
KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany — Maj. Michael “Danger” Blea has a prized possession to take with him when he leaves Germany this month, a constant reminder of the seconds separating life and death and of his gratitude for the airmen who had his back.
At a ceremony this month at Ramstein Air Base, Blea was awarded the Silver Star for “extraordinary heroism in combat” during a Middle East deployment in 2025, U.S. Air Forces in Europe-Air Forces Africa said in a statement this week.
Blea and his fellow F-16 “Wild Weasel” pilot, Lt. Col. William “Skate” Parks, each earned a Silver Star for a harrowing mission they flew together on March 27, 2025.
U.S. Air Force Maj. Michael A. Blea, 480th Fighter Squadron assistant director of operations, assigned to the 52nd Fighter Wing at Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany, is awarded the Silver Star during a ceremony at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, March 3, 2026. Blea distinguished himself through conspicuous gallantry while engaged in combat operations against enemy forces. (Alexandra Longfellow/U.S. Air Force)
Fewer than 100 airmen have earned the military’s third-highest valor award, after the Medal of Honor and service Crosses, in the post-9/11 era, according to USAFE-AFAFRICA.
Blea and Parks were deployed with the 480th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron out of Spangdahlem Air Base at the time. Parks, the squadron’s former commander, received his Silver Star at the Pentagon in November, according to the Air Force.
Blea is also moving on. He has orders to Luke Air Force Base in Arizona, where he’s transitioning to the F-35, the Air Force’s most advanced fighter jet. He volunteered for the assignment, even though the F-16 will “forever hold a piece of my heart,” he said Wednesday. “It’s the jet that kept me alive and taught me to be a ‘Wild Weasel.’ ”
The Spangdahlem fighters train as “Wild Weasels,” a mission to suppress enemy air defenses that dates back to the Vietnam War and the one that Blea and Parks were conducting on the night they earned their Silver Stars.
The Air Force statement does not specify the enemy or country involved in the mission, but at least two public accounts of the event say the actions occurred against the Houthis over Yemen and the Red Sea. Blea said he could not confirm those details, either.
But he was able to describe what it looked and felt like when the ground lit up underneath him and Parks, the flight lead, on a moonless night as they prepared to head out while low on fuel.
“We were doing an escort,” Blea said, making sure the aircraft they were accompanying were “protected throughout the night.”
It was toward the end of the sortie, and Blea needed to get to the tanker since he was low on fuel.
“We turn around to start heading back,” he said. That’s when the night took a sudden turn.
“I look outside and just see the ground light up,” he said, the first indication the enemy was launching surface-to-air missiles under their location. “It’s pitch black, we’re on (night-vision goggles), the moon is completely obscured.
“The missile lighting up the ground is one of the images that will forever stick with me,” Blea said.
His medal citation says Blea’s “selfless decision to act as a decoy, drawing the full fury of the enemy’s integrated air defenses, including four radar-guided missiles and a barrage of anti-aircraft artillery, ensured the success of the critical bombing mission, which aimed to cripple enemy ballistic missile storage facilities.”
During the course of about 15 minutes, Blea used a combination of defensive measures and high G maneuvers to evade the missiles, which detonated within feet of his aircraft, his citation says.
Blea described one missile that sailed within 20 to 30 feet of him, so close the smoke plume behind it lit up his aircraft canopy and he watched it explode “just as it flies past me.”
While still within enemy territory, “Blea calmed his nerves and expertly rejoined on an emergency air refueling tanker operating lights out and in low illumination,” his citation reads.
Blea said he’s honored to receive the Silver Star but the award to him is recognition of the teamwork by his squadron during the entire deployment.
“Between the maintainers that gave us jets night in and night out that we never questioned were going to work to the tanker crews that we had, I owe them a huge debt of gratitude,” he said.
Another reward was being greeted by maintainers, a few pilots and other crew when he landed back at base that night. “I had so much support at my jet waiting for me,” he said.
The enormity of the moment, however, didn’t sink in until he opened the jet’s canopy and felt a rush of fresh air, he said. “That’s when it kind of hit me, that I’m safe, I’m on the ground; we lived through it and we had mission success.”
One of his good friends climbed up the ladder and put his hand on his chest, Blea said. “He said, ‘Dude, you’re back, take a deep breath.’ That’s the first time I realized I hadn’t taken a deep breath in the last three hours.”
In that moment, Blea said he felt “just the gratitude to be alive, and the rewarding feeling that the training worked and we were able to do what we set out to do.”
