Frank Cromwell

"I saw you take off. And then I saw four months of my life disappear in some stinking Iraqi prison!"

- Jack O'Neill

Frank Cromwell, often referred to simply as Cromwell, was a Tau'ri Colonel who served in the United States Air Force. He was once good friends with fellow Air Force Colonel Jack O'Neill. They fought side-by-side in Iraq during the Gulf War. During a skirmish, O'Neill was injured by insurgents, and believing he was killed, Cromwell put his team first priority, and left him behind. O'Neill would spend the following four months captured in an Iraqi prison. When he discovered O'Neill did survive, their friendship was over, despite Cromwell's regret of leaving him behind.

In 1998, he was assigned to Cheyenne Mountain as part of Special Operations, and was made aware of the Stargate's existence. He and his team were sent by the Pentagon after they lost contact with Stargate Command for several hours, which was infact caused by an expanding time dilation field after the activate the Stargate to P3W-451, a planet facing destruction from a black hole. He thought the base faced a possible alien incursion, and stormed the SGC. After encountering O'Neill, he was made aware that it wasn't a hostile incursion. After the Pentagon ordered the base destroyed to possibly stop the increasing time dilation field, Cromwell and O'Neill volunteered to stay behind and activate the self-destruct. During that time, Cromwell asked O'Neill to forgive him, though O'Neill doesn't give it to him.

They are stopped from launch the self-destruct, as it wouldn't work. During the hours of thinking, Carter came up with an idea to use a shaped charge to jump the wormhole to another planet. Cromwell and O'Neill repel to the Stargate and activate the bomb for the plan to work. However, on the way, a piece of glass was lodged on his rope, and after the iris gave way, and the rope snapped, he held on to O'Neill. Knowing a single rope won't hold the two of them, Cromwell willingly lets go; the black hole's gravity pulls him through the Stargate and to P3W-451. His sacrifice however, did no go in vein, as the plan did work, and the shaped charge sent the wormhole to P2A-270.