The publication is reproduced in full below:
HONORING MR. MOHAMMAD HOSSEIN MEHRMAND
______
HON. JAY OBERNOLTE
of california
in the house of representatives
Wednesday, July 21, 2021
Mr. OBERNOLTE. Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor Mr. Mohammad Hossein Mehrmand, a constituent of mine and a former Lieutenant-General of the Imperial Iranian Air Force. Prior to 1979, Iran, was a very different country than it is today. Iran and the United States were close friends and cooperated in both trade and military affairs.
Because of this close cooperation between our two nations, Iranian military officers like Mr. Mehrmand had the opportunity to visit U.S. military installations and work closely with American servicemembers to train on U.S.-built fighter jets that were operated by the Imperial Iranian Air Force.
While the Imperial Iranian Air Force operated a number of U.S. fighter jets, they were the sole foreign operator of one aircraft, in particular, the F-14 Tomcat. As a result of this program, Khatami Air Base was constructed by the Iranian government near the city of Isfahan in the early 1970s to cater to their new fleet of F-14s with support facilities built specifically for the Grumman Corporation. In fact, the entire region around Isfahan was booming for the American defense industry with other defense contractors like Raytheon, Lockheed, Boeing and Hughes Aircraft working on lucrative projects for the Shah's government.
As a result of the massive presence of American enterprise in the region, Isfahan was home to at least 1,200 American military members and 8,000 civilian advisers at its peak in the mid-to-late 1970s. This presence could be felt quite evidently by the massive amount of new construction marketed towards the Americans working in the region.
All of this changed in 1979 as revolutionary fundamentalists began to take over Iran. At the time, there were over 5,000 Americans living in Iran with many residing around Khatami Air Base. As the situation in the country began to deteriorate, the U.S. Embassy in Iran advised all Americans to leave the country.
At the time, Lt. General Mehrmand was the tactical commander of the Imperial Iranian Air Force and he had received information that many within the Iranian military had begun to go rogue and side with the fundamentalist revolutionaries, with many of these rogue units attempting to prevent Americans from leaving Iran.
Lt. General Mehrmand took action on behalf of our citizens and met with the rogue units to successfully negotiate the American exodus from Iran. He additionally made arrangements to allow for twenty-five special American passenger planes to enter Iranian airspace to begin evacuating all Americans from Iran. As a direct result of his efforts, nearly 5,000 Americans were safely and successfully evacuated out of the collapsing country.
Within weeks of the evacuation flights, the Imperial Iranian government collapsed, and the fanatical government of Ayatollah Khomeini took over Iran. Under the new government, Lt. General Melmnand was branded a traitor for securing the exodus of the American people and had his property, assets, and retirement pension confiscated. Fortunately, Mr. Mehrmand was able to escape persecution in Iran and found refuge here in the United States.
Mr. Mehrmand, despite not being an American citizen, had the boldness and courage to stand up against fanaticism in the name of freedom for the American people. Today, Mr. Mehrmand is 92 years old, and a proud American citizen living happily in California. I am delighted to have this opportunity to recognize his patriotic actions and I want to express my profound gratitude to him for his service to our country and to our national interests.
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SOURCE: Congressional Record Vol. 167, No. 128
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