From PEOPLE Magazine Click to enlarge
Eleven days after safely landing his crippled reconnaissance plane on China's Hainan Island, where he and 23 crew members were held by the Chinese military, Lt. Shane Osborn, 26, returned home on April 12 a national hero. "He's got the quick thinking and the cool head that it takes to get out of a bad situation," says Osborn's buddy' Jim Morse, 27, a Navy pilot. But thanks to workouts with free weights five days a week, the South Dakota-born, Nebraska-raised Osborn also had the considerable muscle needed to wrest control of his plummeting aircraft after a midair collision with a Chinese fighter jet. "Although the Navy requires that we run some, I'm not a runner," Osborn says with a chuckle, admitting that at 210 lbs., he's 30 lbs. heavier than Navy guidelines for his 5'11" height. "But as long as my body-fat count stays down, I'm good to go." He's not bad to come home to either, according to his girlfriend of two years, Roxanne Faustino, 26, a dental hygienist with whom he lives in Anacortes, Wash., near his post at the Whidbey Island Naval Air Station. Faustino admits that Osborn isn't at his most attractive "in the morning, when his hair is sticking up all funny," but he makes up for it in other ways. "Shane is a gentleman. He holds doors, pays the check and does everything right for women," she explains, adding, "He looks great" in his flight suit. "I'm proud to wear it," declares Osborn. "I'm serving my country, and the uniform says that."