OCEAN SPRINGS, Mississippi -- Prior to August 2015, had someone searched online for the name Michael McCormick in Ocean Springs, they would have learned he is a decorated officer in the United States Air Force with four tours of combat flying duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.

They would have read that during his 14 years of military service, McCormick has been awarded, among several decorations, the Bronze Star with Valor. At that time, he was a Lieutenant in the USAF and has since been promoted to Captain.

But on Aug. 14, 2015, all that changed.

It was on that day McCormick was charged with kidnapping after he drove to Valdosta, Ga., to retrieve his then 5-year-old daughter, who had been taken from her school on the Mississippi coast by her mother, Andrea Hope Smith, with whom McCormick shared equal custody rights pending a hearing scheduled for later that month.

With that incident began a two-year ordeal which saw McCormick incarcerated for 20 days, lose his USAF flying duties, and physically separated from his daughter for nearly two years. He also had to travel to Valdosta 12 times for court appearances.

McCormick, 35, was charged, in addition to kidnapping, with criminal attempt to commit a felony/interstate interference with custody, disrupting public school, and three counts of simple battery, which are misdemeanors.

More than a year after his arrest, the two felony charges were dismissed. Parental kidnapping had long ago been abolished as a crime in Georgia, while interstate interference with custody only occurs when a parent attempts to take a child from another parent who has primary custody, which was not the case with McCormick and Smith.

McCormick had been charged with disrupting public school because he went to his daughter's school in Valosta to retrieve her. That charge was dismissed in April of this year. The three simple assault charges -- levied because of a false accusation he had pushed a teacher down at the school -- were dismissed last month.

Simply put, there was no evidence to support any of the charges levied against McCormick. So it begs the question: How can something like this happen to a decorated combat officer like Michael McCormick?

"Malicious prosecution," McCormick told The Mississippi Press this week. "The (Lowndes County, Ga.) Assistant District Attorney, Meredith Brasher, was basically out to get me. The truth is, she really didn't care. When they arrested me, they knew I was a legal, equal custodial parent. They knew I had filed for custody and the mother had taken the child.

"They knew everything. They didn't care."

According to court documents, at the time of the incident, McCormick's daughter had resided with him more than half her life. In March 2015, McCormick filed an action in Harrison County Chancery Court seeking to establish custody, support and visitation for the child.

Under Mississippi law, parents have equal custody of a child until or unless a court rules otherwise.

In late April 2015, Smith, who also serves in the USAF, drove to Biloxi and attempted to take the child and move to Valdosta. McCormick refused and Smith called police, who declined to get involved because they understood the two parents had equal custody rights. McCormick's daughter remained with him.

A hearing on the custody issue had been scheduled for Aug. 28, 2015, but on July 23, Smith drove to the Cedar Lake Christian Academy in Biloxi, where the girl was enrolled, entered the school from a side door or rear door, took her daughter and left, headed to Valdosta.

The school immediately contacted McCormick, as well as law enforcement, but once again police would not get involved. McCormick, however, was advised he would need to bring his daughter back from Valdosta for the Aug. 28 custody hearing, leading McCormick to believe he had the legal right to retrieve his daughter and bring her back to Mississippi, just as Smith had taken her from her school in Biloxi.

According to McCormick's attorneys, Smith had refused to inform McCormick where she and their daughter were residing, nor where the girl was enrolled in school.

McCormick and a friend flew out of Ocean Springs Airport on a private plane. He researched the different elementary schools in Valdosta and ultimately determined she was at Westside Elementary.

His daughter was on the playgound when McCormick arrived and she ran and jumped in his arms upon seeing him. He informed one of the teachers he was her father and was going to check her out of school.

Three times, however, the teacher attempted to pull the child from McCormick. All three times McCormick turned away from the teacher. At no time, McCormick said, did he push the teacher, nor anyone else, much less knock someone down. Not one of the numerous witnesses to the incident said McCormick had touched the teacher at all, yet he was charged with three counts of simple assault.

"The video surveillance of me going on that playground was reviewed by the Lowndes County Sheriff's Department and then, when we asked for a copy of it, it had been 'lost,'" McCormick said. "You can't make this stuff up."

A series of bond orders issued by a Lowndes County court suggest prosecutors began to realize they had no case.

The initial bond order which released McCormick from jail after 20 days ordered that he leave the county and not have any contact with his daughter, Smith, or others involved in the incident.

The first bond modification allowed for McCormick to speak with his daughter via telephone or FaceTime no more than three times a week, with a limit of 15 minutes each time.

A second bond modification allowed McCormick to have "full and complete contact" with his daughter, but he was still not allowed to return to Lowndes County except for a court appearance.

A third and final bond modification, issued in March, allowed McCormick to travel to Lowndes County to have contact with his daughter.

At the time of his arrest, McCormick's daughter was five years old. The next time he was able to put his arms around her, she was seven.

"That's a tough one to explain," McCormick said when asked if he could describe the difficulty in being separated from his daughter, while knowing he had done nothing wrong. "If anything else, it's a complete loss of confidence in our justice system and in the people who hold the power to do the right thing.

"Specifically, Meredith Brasher has gone above and beyond to cause this," he continued. "The difficulty I experienced is one thing, but people always talk about the child -- the child is the most important thing. Knowing good and well I wasn't guilty of what they were accusing me of, how can (Brasher) sleep at night knowing that little girl didn't see her dad for two years?

"For what? So you could flex your muscles? Boy, (Brasher) really showed me, didn't she? But I'm not the problem. It's that little girl. (Brasher) beat up on a five-year-old. Good job."

A message left at Brasher's office was not returned Friday.

"While I am greatly relieved by the outcome of this case, I am equally regretful of how long it took to resolve it," said McCormick's attorney, Nick Bajalia, in a statement, "and for the amount of personal, emotional, financial, and parental stress this entire ordeal placed upon Captain McCormick, his daughter, and his entire family."

The story does have a happy ending, however. The Mississippi custody hearing, originally set for Aug. 28, 2015, was ultimately held and McCormick was awarded primary physical custody. He and his daughter reside together in their Ocean Springs home.

It is clear, however, in speaking with McCormick, that he is bitter and angry over the false accusations against him and the price he paid for those accusations. He says had circumstances been different, the outcome might have been, as well.

"I'm a father, not a mother," he said. "Had I been the mother, I think things might have been a little different."