Fox Guest Chokes Up While Revealing Her Own Experience as Military Spouse After US Fighter Jet Shot Down

Political pundit and former Republican Senate candidate Tiffany Smiley teared up on Fox News as she revealed her own experience as a military wife after a U.S. fighter jet was shot down over Iran on Friday.

The emotional moment came as Smiley and other Outnumbered panelists discussed the plight of the fighter jet that went down, sparking a frantic hunt by U.S. forces for the crew members, whose families are now anxiously waiting for news about their loved ones.

One has since been rescued.

At one point, co-host Emily Compagno turned it over to Smiley, asking her to share her experience as a military wife.

“This is the hard — as a family member who’s gone through this, to see this and witness this time now,” Smiley said. “Because I know the real implications. I know how these family members are feeling.”

She then shared that her husband, Scott Smiley, was stationed in Mosul, Iraq, when a Saudi medical student walked into a mess hall during lunch, and detonated a suicide vest.

Tiffany Smiley teared up as she described the agonizing wait for news.

“For days, you wait. You worry. You pray. You understand,” she said while fighting back tears. “The sacrifice for this country is real. And I know a lot of Americans maybe don’t have exposure to it or don’t fully understand it. But we do not have this country without that. And it’s not just the service member. It’s the whole family. You know, you wait for that knock on the door. You watch cars coming down your driveway. You don’t know if it’s the mail lady or somebody delivering a package or someone to come tell you that your family member is dead and you’ll never see them again, or even devastating news of their life.”

Scott Smiley survived the mess hall attack, but was blinded in a suicide car bombing in April 2005.

Read the conversation here:

EMILY COMPAGNO: For a moment, I’m going to bring it back to the couch because as we talk about the families, Tiffany, your husband served and deployed to Iraq. Can you share what went through — what that all was like?

TIFFANY SMILEY: Yeah, this is the hard — as a family member who’s gone through this, to see this and witness this time now. Because I know the real implications. I know how these family members are feeling. In December of 2003, a medical Saudi — a medical student from Saudi Arabia — walked into the mess hall in Mosul and blew himself up, killing hundreds. That’s where my husband was based out of at the time. And we didn’t know if they were dead or alive. For days, you wait. You worry. You pray. You understand. The sacrifice for this country is real. And I know a lot of Americans maybe don’t have exposure to it or don’t fully understand it. But we do not have this country without that. And it’s not just the service member. It’s the whole family. You know, you wait for that knock on the door. You watch cars coming down your driveway. You don’t know if it’s the mail lady or somebody delivering a package or someone to come tell you that your family member is dead and you’ll never see them again, or even devastating news of their life. We don’t know if they’re going to survive. I remember calling people and just saying, “Can you look at the list? Can you look at that manifest? Who’s on it? Who’s dead? Who’s alive?” That’s real, and that’s what’s happening right now for these families in real-time. It’s a deep, deep sacrifice. And, you know, they shut down communication, so all communication gets shut down. You have no way of contacting them. They have no way of contacting you. It all goes to official — officials to handle it. And it’s something I would never want anyone to experience.

Watch above via Fox News.

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