Digging around the urban legend site Snopes, I came across a speech by a retired Air Force Officer. The speech was given in the fall of 2001, obviously from the text, after 9/11. Great speech. Brian Shul has flown 212 combat missions from Vietnam, and in the Cold War. Here’s what caught my eye:

And many years later, while fighting another terrorist over Libya, my backseater and I outraced Khaddafi’s missiles in our SR-71 as we headed for the Mediterranean…

I recall clearly that night in April, 1986, while aboard USS BIDDLE (CG-34), we had been told a “national asset” would be traversing our airspace. We gathered around the radar scopes in the Combat Information Center, switched on the SPS-48 air search display and proceeded to watch the SR-71 smoke by. We probably could see about 600 miles across (about 300 around the ship). As the radar rotated, we saw about 4 radar returns from one side of the area of coverage to the other. He was a real “fast mover.”

Now I know it was Brian Shul who flew by.