Mitchell Gant

Mitchell Gant is a fictional character in a series of books written by Craig Thomas. His first (and best known thanks to a successful film adaptation) appearance occurs in the 1977 novel Firefox as a US Air Force major that steals a Russian MiG-31 Firefox fighter aircraft prototype. The prototype uses experimental interfaces between pilot and plane to allow for "thought-activated" flying and combat solutions. Gant, however, has to think in Russian to enable the technology to work. Character biography Gant grew up in Clarksville, a small town in rural America and found himself drawn to flight when as a child after seeing a small airplane land at a local gas station in need of fuel. With few happy memories of Clarksville, Gant found his way into the United States Air Force, becoming a fighter pilot. While flying combat during the Vietnam War, Gant's F-4 Phantom II was shot down by a surface-to-air missile. Gant ejected and was immediately captured, apparently by guerrillas. The arrival of allied aircraft saves Gant, but also traumatizes him - napalm dropped by one of the aircraft incinerates a young girl travelling with the enemy soldiers. The experience left him with post-traumatic stress disorder, causing him to have frequent flashbacks. He suffers from a recurring nightmare about himself being a Vietnamese and burning in napalm dropped by US aircraft. After the war, he leaves the military and is recruited by the CIA and works for some time in a menial job in a Los Angeles pizza restaurant while shadowing a KGB cell. Later, he becomes a handyman, a drunk and a hobo. Eventually he is re-recruited by the CIA for their Firefox operation, supposedly because of his knowledge of Russian, his combat experience in Vietnam and his knowledge of flying Russian aircraft; he is already fluent in Russian (his mother was Russian) therefore only requires 3 months of training, learning to fly a replica MiG-25 as well as a simulator of the Firefox.