Brigadier General Saeed Mehdiyoun

An old account (2004) by Mahmoud Ghaffari on late Brigadier General Saeed Mehdiyoun.


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Top gunned down
Mastermind of the Nojeh coup attempt

Mahmoud Ghaffari
July 22, 2004

His left eye was gouged out, leaving an empty socket, his body was riddled with bullets, and his entire torso was black and blue from torture. This was the scene the wife of the late Brigadier General Saied Mehdiyoun saw, when she was summoned to reclaim the body of this great patriot. In fact she had to pay a dollar for every bullet used to murder him, so that his executioners could replace their inventory!

This is the scene replayed thousands of times in the Great Islamic Republic of Iran, during the first few years of the revolution and ominously still continuing to today.

Last week is the 24th anniversary of the Nojeh coup attempt, masterminded by this outstanding highest ranking officer of the Imperial Iranian Air force and many other patriots who lost their lives in the clutches of the Islamic fundamentalists. Any one, who remembers the events of those days, can only draw one conclusion; that the events of the world for the next twenty years were shaped by such animalistic and terrorist acts. We all kept quiet, solemnly dowsed in our own sorrows for the lost lives, but could never imagine, that a group of about 2000 backward clerics, can do such damage and cause so much mayhem, because of their blind and unsubstantiated faith in religion.

Heroes like Mehdiyoun are not amongst us any more, but imagine what Iran would be like today, had the heroic acts of this man and the hundreds like him who tried to save Iran from the clutches of abysmal tyranny would have succeeded.

Mehdiyoun was the son of a wealthy Tabriz merchant. He started his professional life as a dentistry student and for some reason or another switched over and joined the Imperial Iranian Air force. He moved through the ranks and became one of the handful of "Top Gun" F-4 Phantom fighter pilots. Schooled at a US Air Force base in Alabama, during the late 50's and early 60's, his star was on the rise through out his military career.

He was one of the few that the Imperial sovereign could trust. He was considered one of the top 5 commanders of the Air Force. His tenure in the Air Force took him to command positions for the Shahrokhi 3rd tactical air base in Hamadan, and Vahdati 4th Tactical air base in Dezful. His final command position was Commander of the Air Defense Command, or "Padafande Havaie".

Mehdiyoun was a loyal officer, one who had taken an oath to protect and serve the unity of Iran and serve his sovereign to the last drop of blood. This concept unfortunately is foreign to the zealots running Iran to the ground at the moment. Such loyalty and sacrifice stems back to the time of the Great Persian Empire and the Immortal guards of Cyrus the Great.

When His wife was signing the papers to release his lifeless body, a revolutionary guard present at his execution recounted that he never renounced his beliefs. When he was asked to kneel and get ready for his execution, he responded with, "I will never kneel in front of you ..."

Right or wrong, good or bad, we have to agree that commitment, dedication to excellence and the love of Iranian soil drove many of these heroes of Iran's great past. They may never be duplicated and until such time that the Islamic Republic is ruling Iran the armed forces will never be restored to its glorious level it had attained under the leaders of the past. We can concur, that if the Freedom Fighting Forces of the US decide to liberate Iran, many if not all the officers currently serving the regime will abandon their posts in a fraction of the time it took the Arab thugs to do so in Iraq.

I had the honor of knowing this man and experienced first hand his devotion to his oath of office. He was always forthright and candid, and I think that had to do with his Azeri upbringing, and it was his assertiveness and command of those reporting to him, that made the Monarch take a liking to this man.

I have been a sideline observer of the events inside Iran. Now in the post 9/11 world, I can see why actions by the likes of Mehdiyoun are so much part of world history -- not only Iran's. Had his heroic effort been successful, it would have propelled the world and its inhabitants into a much more benign existence. All of us, be it Americans, Iranians and members of other national boundaries, should salute these heroes, as they were set to change the face of history in a more positive wake.