It was Christmas Day 1997.
The beach at Vandenberg Air force Base was deserted, and the ocean water was cold. Vandenberg Air Force Base Commander Colonel Paul Sowada, along with his wife Brenda, son Phillip and extended family members were taking a walk on the empty beach.
“Phillip was home on Christmas leave from his second year at the Air Force Academy and had insisted on going to the beach because he had never seen the Pacific Ocean — even after we had told him the water was too cold to swim.” Col. Sowada said. “While walking, a woman ran up to us shouting for help. She was barely coherent, but we were able to understand that her niece and husband were drowning. Her niece had gone out into the ocean but was unable to swim back to shore because of a rip tide, and her husband who had swum out to get her was now also unable to swim back to shore.”
Brenda Sowada chimed in: “Paul ordered Phillip to go into the ocean to rescue the swimmers. I was about to protest, as I didn’t want to lose Phillip, and as I turned around, Paul was stripping off his clothes as well. I realized I could lose both.”
“I was in civilian clothes, but fortunately I was carrying ‘the brick’ — a portable radio telephone,” Col. Sowada said. “I used it to call the security cops and an ambulance. It wasn’t easy, as radio reception on the beach was terrible, but I got through.”
“One of the military police who arrived was Master Sergeant Brown,” he continued. “He was six-foot-four, about twohundred and fifty pounds of muscle. I thought, ‘Hot Dog! Just what we need!’ Master Sergeant Brown and I joined Phillip in the water and, after several exhaustive attempts against the rip tide, the three of us finally managed to bring both the niece and husband back to shore.”
By the time the trio brought the struggling swimmers in, the husband was so exhausted that he had to be physically carried out of the water and into the ambulance, according to Col. Sowada.
“Had the ambulance not been there, both the niece and husband would have died of hypothermia,” he said. “Both the niece and husband had also swallowed a lot of seawater, which isn’t good for you.”
Col. Sowada attributed the success of the rescue to a combination of unlikely factors. “It was a series of events,” Col. Sowada said, “that enabled those distressed swimmers to survive: that Phillip had insisted on visiting the beach on that cold day, that I was carrying ‘the brick’ and was able to call in for help, that there were able swimmers on the deserted beach that day and that the emergency services were able to respond so quickly.”
For their heroism, both Col. Paul Sowada and Air Force Academy cadet Phillip Sowada received the Airman’s Medal. The medal is awarded to an airman who “has distinguished himself or herself by a heroic act, usually at the voluntary risk of his or her life but not involving actual combat.” This is the only known case of a father and son receiving the Airman’s Medal for the same act of valor.
Master Sergeant Brown also received the Airman’s Medal.
Col. Sowada and his wife Brenda moved to Dripping Springs in 2017 when Brenda retired from the civil service. He is a 1976 graduate of the Air Force Academy. His son, Phillip, graduated from the Air Force Academy in 2000.
