THEN & NOW: They Met 49 Years Ago on His POW Flight Home

Perhaps realizing that Lane could use a helping hand — the Air Force officer had barely seen a woman for almost seven years — his friend stepped in.

“Tommy, God bless him, played Cupid, and was bold enough to ask for her phone number, and she gave it to him,” Lane said. “And he gave that to me the next day.”

The rest is history

Lane called the number. After a few conversations, Ruth agreed that he should fly to Atlanta and that their first date should be a picnic in nearby Stone Mountain Park. When Lane arrived in Atlanta, he was met by a blonde with startling emerald eyes and wearing a green pantsuit.

At first, he didn’t recognize her. On the Charlotte flight, Ruth’s hair had been pinned up and those eyes had been obscured by a pair of glasses. This time, Lane remembered, “her hair was down, and she was just gorgeous.”

The couple’s second date was in Washington, D.C. “We were wined and dined on the South Lawn of the White House by President Nixon and his wife, had a grand time, and then the rest is history,” said Lane.

Mike Lane and Ruth Sweeney married just over six months later, one day short of the seventh anniversary of the day his F-4 had been shot down.

“I remember more those first few weeks, when we were getting to know each other, and how much he appreciated every single thing around him,” said Ruth. Lane would lie awake at night “in catch-up mode,” she said.

“He was reading voraciously, traveling every chance he got and experiencing everything. New cars, the way people dressed — everything about the country was different. I’ll never forget when he opened a bag of pretzels and stuck his whole head inside just to smell how good pretzels were.”

When their son started junior high school, Ruth went back to work as a flight attendant, and she continued in the job for some three decades. “Mike needed alone time to come to grips with things and not have somebody running interference all the time,” she said. “That worked for us.” Lane retired from the Air Force as a colonel in 1988 before working for McDonnell Douglas and then founding his own company.

‘It’s been a hoot’

“We both love to travel,” Ruth said. “So we’ve tried to see as much of the world as we can since retirement. We love just being together and with friends and family.”

Lane was awarded the Silver Star, and his citation states that when, in captivity, “the enemy resorted to mental and physical cruelties to obtain information, confessions and propaganda materials … [he] resisted their demands by calling upon his deepest inner strengths.”

Being a POW taught him personal integrity and empathy, Lane believes. “You can’t go lying. You have to truly listen to what people have to say and understand them.”

Mike Lane, 80, and Ruth, 75, now live near Melbourne, Florida, and will celebrate their 49th wedding anniversary in December. “Holy catfish!” he said. She laughed, adding, “It’s been a hoot.”

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Abraham Mahshie was previously the Pentagon editor for Air Force Magazine. As a journalist for two decades, he has covered national security and politics across the U.S. and Latin America and also worked as a defense contractor. The son of a Vietnam veteran, he grew up in Miami.