From the studios of Ave Maria Radio in Ann Arbor,
this is Veterans Radio. And now, here's your
host, Ken Rogge. And good morning and welcome
into veterans radio I'm really excited about
today's show and I got some help with the studio
here Dale Throneberry's Opposite me. Good morning.
Good morning and welcome and in a control room
We have in our intrepid Bob Gould screaming eagles
airborne. Oh There we go. Sounds like he's falling
out of an airplane jumping out of one. I think
he did And we have a, like I said, we have a
great show and I'm really excited about it. We
have one of America's most decorated officers
on the show today, Colonel Bud Day, retired United
States Air Force. And he holds every combat medal
available from the Medal of Honor on down, which
is an amazing accomplishment. He's the only officer
to ever do that. He was in the service for a
while, too. Well, he was. Yes, he was. But even
still, it doesn't matter how long he was in,
just to have all those medals is amazing. Just
an amazing feat. Well, I'm looking forward to
talking to him because it's going to be very
interesting. He's got stories that we won't believe
and I know our listeners won't believe. I know.
I read his biography. Wow, that's just awesome.
and uh... of course we have a special guest today
and uh... he's going to be calling in about ten
minutes after nine so uh... daily you get some
news stories for us we've got all kinds of things
going on as this as the sun comes out in the
sun starts to shine and it gets warmer with a
number of events going on in the local area specially
uh... in the an arbor area we've got a local
church sponsored to support our troops sunday
that's next sunday may twentieth at the saint
luke lutheran church in whitmore lake and they're
encouraging all veterans and those on active
duty invited to attend. There's going to be a
Boy Scout Honor Guard, a gathering of care packages
for soldiers in Iraq, Afghanistan, and local
veterans hospitals are going to be featured.
The guest speaker is going to be one of our good
friends, John Kinzinger, the past president of
the Washtenaw County Vietnam Veterans of America.
I'm a union guy. Chapter 310 and former Michigan
Veteran of the Year in 2003 -2004. For more information
on that, call 734 -426 -4006 or you can visit
www .livingwatermi .org. For more information
on the St. Luke Lutheran Church, support our
troops Sunday, next Sunday, May the 20th. Vietnam
Veterans of America Detroit chapter 9 is hosting
their annual Armed Forces Day picnic and chapter
reunion on Saturday, May 19th. That's 12 noon
and Where are they going to be? They're going
to be on Woodward and Right by Veterans Park.
Yeah Woodward and Temple Correct for more information
on that you can give their chapter president
Dave Trevino a call at five eight six four four
five two two zero six so you listen to veterans
radio next week and then you can go to a picnic
in downtown detroit which should be really fun
and then finally uh... thunder rolls in bellville
michigan their third annual uh... bike ride motorcycle
ride is going to be on memorial day monday may
twenty eighth and begins at eleven a m in downtown
bellville and i think it looks like a great opportunity
for all you bikers out there And we are going
to, for more information, you need to contact
the Brown Family Center at 734 -697 -5090. And
the Baptist Church on textile in Ypsilanti is
also having a special service on Sunday the 20th
at 11 o 'clock. to honor all veterans, police
officers, firemen, and EMTs, I believe. And we
will attempt to put all these up on our website
at veteransradio .net, click on events, and hopefully
I'll get those up there this afternoon for you.
We need to get into some news, and a couple of
big news items really are. Number one is that
Congressman Phil Harrah, a Democrat of Illinois
and member of the House Committee on Veterans
Affairs, has called on the VA Secretary Jim Nicholson
to resign amid reports that he approved a number
of bonuses for senior VA personnel shortly after
their faulty accounting practices resulted in
a one billion shortfall of the VA. It just never
seems to go away. According to the Associated
Press, the bonuses were awarded even after government
investigators had determined that the VA repeatedly
miscalculated, if not deliberately misled taxpayers
with questionable methods used to justify the
Bush administration's cuts to healthcare amid
a burgeoning Iraq war. Come on, guys. POW, here's
a good thing, POW Benefits Act has been introduced
by Gus Bilirakis, a Republican of Palm Harbor.
state that's from. But anyway, he has introduced
the Prisoner of War Benefits Act and what this
will do is it establishes presumptions of disability
compensation for several diseases including type
2 diabetes and osteoporosis for all former POWs
to claim these disabilities as being service
connected and will qualify them for disability
compensation. Good time. Very appropriate. I
think so. Overdue. I know. How am I doing on
time? You're doing fine. Okay. Our favorite vehicle
in the transportation department is the Humvee.
Well, you know, doors, you know, we've upgraded
these Humvees with armor and so on and so forth.
To protect the troops. Right. Well, now those
doors are jamming shut as a result of an attack
on an unintended consequence of our up -armoring.
Due to the jamming problem, records show that
the Army must fix the doors of some 18 ,000 armored
Humvees because they can't get the doors open
when they're attacked. One quick fix has been
to weld hooks on the sides of the Humvee door
so that another truck can rip them off to get
the troops out. Oh, no. Yes. The Humvee was a
good vehicle, a good utility vehicle, but I don't
think it was ever intended to go into combat.
No, I don't think so. And the Army plans to spend
an additional $284 million this year on Humvee
armor kits to protect our troops from obviously
from the roadside bombs. You've got to weld a
hook on the outside of it. That's unbelievable.
Alright, some good news for all of you out there.
This is from General Motors. This is something
that General Motors is doing right. From now
until the end of May, all active duty military
and reserves, military retirees and members of
eligible military households can take advantage
of a $1 ,000 private offer on select Buick, Pontiac,
GMC and Chevy models towards a purchase or lease
of any most new and unused 2006 -2007 cars. This
offer may be combined with most current incentives
and may be transferred to members of eligible
military households. So get on down to your GM
dealer and see what they can do for you. I think
that's a great deal. It is. It's a very good
deal. I think that's about it for today on the
news. Oh, come on. You've got to have more than
that. Well, I do, but how much do we want to
get into? You've got another half a minute. Oh,
I've got another half a minute? Sure. Well, all
right. A story that I'm going to be starting
to do more on is we're finding that a number
of veterans, or not veterans, but active duty
military personnel are having... severe reactions
to some of the vaccines that they've been given
to go to Iraq and Afghanistan. And in many cases,
some people have been a number of deaths as a
result of them, and severe reactions, kidney
failures, and so on and so forth. And there is
an ongoing investigation right now looking into
whether it was one of those things where the
troops were being given vaccines that they weren't
aware of and that they were doing a little bit
of testing on. So stay tuned for that story.
that's coming from military dot com and let's
go into our welcome home segment we shall welcome
home each week on veterans radio we welcome home
service men and women who have been stationed
around the world in the service of our country
number one is that secretary of defense robert
gates as well as hundreds of families and families,
friends, and members welcomed home 200 troops
on May 6th at the Dallas -Fort Worth International
Airport. These troops are coming home for R &R,
and I think this is great. This is an event that
is sponsored by the Welcome Home a Hero. program
that is going on at the dallas fort worth airport
and it looks like it's been instigated by the
vietnam veterans of america chapter ninety down
there well done guys that they do this to every
plane that comes into dallas fort worth welcoming
home the troops for them for their aren't ours
they have a great u .s. o center that report
i think i remember going there at one time was
great This is another example of a, this is a
Vietnam veteran of America chapter 983 greeted
104 sailors that were just passing through Rockford,
Illinois on their way home and refueling their
aircraft and they had banners and so forth to
welcome them home. The soldiers of the 175th
Quartermaster Company were honored in a welcome
home celebration that was held in Delaware, Ohio.
And this was put on by the, each veteran coming
back gets a welcome home warrior citizen's award.
I think that's terrific. Welcome home. And we're
back on Veterans Radio. Ken Rogge with Dale Throneberry
and we're going to be talking today with a retired
Air Force Colonel by the name of Bud Day, George
E. Day. very very decorated officer an amazing
man uh... i read his uh... uh... biography from
uh... written by robert quorum and uh... robert
quorum was supposed to be on the show but he's
out on a book tour i wonder what bookies he's
told i can't imagine i can't imagine either the
book is called american patriot and uh... it
uh... tells the story of uh... of bud day and
and uh... his uh... his uh... uh... accomplishments
and and we have uh... but day on the phone good
morning bud good morning bud but are you there
hello bud how are you okay we'll give you a minute
to go get another phone okay can you give me
a call back so i can answer on a different on
this uh... Master station is right by the coffee
pot, which is bubbling now. Oh, okay Pour me
a cup Okay, we'll call bud back and and get him
on his other phone and live radio So take a quick
opportunity here before we we're gonna do this
at the end of our but we'll do it at this time
We want to also say, you know Happy Mother's
Day, of course to all of our military moms and
all of our real moms because obviously without
you none of us would be here and uh... we want
to congratulate the especially the military moms
for what you're doing for us in our country and
and uh... we wish you all well in the second
was that they make uh... eighty week with the
there was a uh... uh... a woman on the other
uh... tv the other day is in uh... she's in kuwait
she's a lieutenant colonel and she has three
children back here in the states and uh... it's
just You see that. Your heart goes out to them
because it's so obviously painful to them to
be separated from their families. And I think
the mothers are more important to the kids than
the fathers. Probably. I mean, begrudgingly,
yes. Separation wise, I think it's more important
for the mother to be there than the father. Well,
we've addressed that issue. I mean, we did a
program, and for those of you that are interested,
if you go back into our archives at veteransradio
.net, there's a program where we talked to military
moms last year at this time. And I think that
they'll find it very interesting to see how they
feel. Yeah about you know being in them, you
know the dual job that they have between being
a mom and being in the military Well, we had
Christine cook on to who has had that experience
and yes, and I talked with her last week and
she was she was saying that You know now that
she's home, you know and seeing her children
growing she said I can't believe I was gone for
a whole year and Unfortunately as this thing
goes on it looks like they're that unit may be
called up again in a little while You know or
another year at six months to go back again Wow.
And they do recur. They keep going back. I think
Bud is back on the line. Bud, are you there?
Hi, I'm here. All right. That sounds better.
How are you this morning? Just fine. How are
you doing? Good. Welcome to Veterans Radio. We're
so glad to have you on. Thanks so much. I just
read, I don't know whether you heard, but I read
the book by Robert Corm, American patriot. And
it so happens, it's written about a guy by the
name of Bud Day. Yes. Have you read the book?
Yes, I have. I think it's a great book and a
lot of insight to who Bud Day is and his core
values and so on. I think it's an amazing book.
I want to ask you some things about your youth.
You grew up in Iowa in pre -World War II days.
What was it like back then? Well, life was really
pretty off there. We had the, I was born 1925
and roughly late 1929 the banks failed. 1930
we had the, and of course from the bank failure
came the depression and then the death storm
started in 1930 and we had almost a continual
drought from 1930 roughly until 1937 varied in
intensity, 30, 31, 32. 33 were the really, really
bad years. Dry, drought, all of Arizona, New
Mexico, southern Kansas was overhead in the air
all the time. Wow. And what was the patriotism
like back then? A very patriotic country, despite
the hardships that were going on. people were
really quite united. Franklin Roosevelt, when
he got elected in 1932, had a message of optimism
and hope. He was an inspiring president in that
he kept telling everybody things were going to
get better and he cranked up a lot of make -work
projects like the PWA, was a public works administration
and the WPA, the Works Progress Administration,
and they did flood control, blight sewer systems,
drainage, clean out forests, and put a lot of
people to work at a remarkably low wage, like
roughly a dollar and a half a day. Just think
about that today All right World War two began
in 1941 and then you went in the military sometime
after that. When did you go in? I went in December
of 1942 I was just 17 in February of 1942 so
I would have gone in then if my parents would
have permitted but they continued to Opposed
me and wasn't until December of that year that
I was able to wear them down. That's a good way
of putting it. And you went into the Marine Corps.
Yes. And you served where? Where did you go in
the Marine Corps? I served 30 months out in the
Pacific. As soon as I got out of boot camp, I
was sent out as a replacement. and headed southwest,
that's where all the action was. You were on
Johnston Island, I believe. Yes, I was. Yes,
so was I, but we had a few years between us.
I'll be darned. I was there in 1975 and 1976.
Well, I'll be darned. Well, what happened was,
you know, the 3rd Defense Battalion had been
at Lake Island, and when they got overrun, they
moved the third defense battalion to Johnson.
So we were maintaining Johnson, Midway, Palmyra,
Christmas Island. We had forces on all of those
places because at that time our intel was such
a low quality that no one had a real clue where
they were going to strike again. But those were
all refueling stops. in areas where you could
recover airplanes, resupply, do that kind of
stuff. And in fact, the Battle of Kwajalein,
they launched a lot of airplanes out of Johnson
Island to go strike Kwaj. We're talking to Colonel
Bud Day, one of America's most decorated officers,
who holds all the combat medals available from
the Medal of Honor on down, and we're pleased
to have him with us this morning. Following the
war, you returned to Iowa and got your bachelor's
and law degrees, and then you joined the Iowa
National Guard. Why? Oh, I'd been a reservist.
I joined the Army Reserve in 1946. I knew we
were going to war with Russia. It just – I had
no question in my mind that communism was such
an overarching evil, had a lot of aspirations
about running the entire world. They thought
that system was going to work, and of course,
they were having a lot of successes. It was working
in China, was working in that occupied countries
that they'd overtaken the whole Iron Curtain
out front of the countries. They had my hopes
and I was just positive that we were going to
be in a shooting war with them. So that being
the case, I felt that this time I was going to
go as an officer and I was going to stay ready.
And then you, after you got into the Iowa Guard,
you switched over to the Air Force. Yes. The
unit that I was attached to, the 185th Fire Brigade
in Sioux City, got called up and went to Banger
and I got called up just about the same time
so I went to pilot training. And then you stayed
on active duty after that? That's correct. I
had the good luck to be one of the very early
jet pilots. I flew the F -80 and most of the
succeeding fighters after that. You've had several
close calls in aircraft. In fact, to the best
of my knowledge, you're the only person to bail
out of a jet aircraft and survive without a parachute.
What happened? The airplane caught fire while
I was giving a guy a standardization check to
make sure he could do everything right. So I
was forced to try to land quickly. Things did
not work out very well. The fire kept progressing
up the aft end of the airplane, which I could
not see. All I could tell was that some lights
were on. And I tried to land it, and as I got
close to the ground, the engines started coming
apart and stick locked up on me. I had no control
of the elevator at all, and so I had to punch
it about roughly 300 feet. and I was only doing
about 170 knots. So the ship did not deploy and
I went ricocheting into a series of trees and
luckily I just continued to top trees until my
ship snagged up and slammed me to the ground.
Unbelievable. It truly was. You had some other
close calls. There was one about a T -33 and
the aft door closing and what was that one? I
had another fire on takeoff for some reason or
another. I had a propensity for fires. This was
a defect in the airplane, the original F -80,
the kind of a cap that it had on the fuel tank
was not very sound. When you pressurized the
drop tanks on the airplane, it created a lot
of very high pressure in the main fuel tank.
And this cap lid was not very refined. It was
sort of like screwing a lid on a fruit jar, except
not quite that fancy or secure. And so that air
pressure would force this cap to leak. And the
leak was right in front of the engine. And the
engine had a couple of doors on the top of the
fuselage right behind the fuel tank. So when
this stuff started to leak, it ran straight into
the engine and lit the airplane up, and that
was another miracle. How did you put it out?
I had thought about that. Don Gentile, a great
shooter back in World War II, had that same problem,
and his response was to pull a nose up and try
to land it. I thought that was the wrong idea,
so I slammed the nose down. trying to get those
doors closed and they closed at about 120 knots
plus. So sure enough that worked. I put it right
down into the treetops and got the speed as quick
as I could and as soon as I got to 120 knots
the fire went out. I had a very ginger landing
because I had a heavy airplane and didn't know
exactly what was going to happen. And interestingly
enough, when we pulled the airplane apart, the
elevator cables were burned so bad you could
snap them just with the jerk of the stick. That's
what they did. They took the stick, gave it a
jerk, and elevator cables failed. I've got to
ask you, are you a cat? That's amazing that you
were able to survive all of those accidents.
You had others too, didn't you? Yes, I did. The
last one I had was quite interesting. I was strafing
with a F -4. automatic target scoring system.
It was a manufactured thing with a big plate
on the bottom that caused it to sit flat, and
it was sort of like a big window. And as the
bullets would go through this window, it would
automatically score. But because they had to
secure the thing and get it level some way, they
had a huge steel plate that went across the bottom
of it. Then they buried that and covered it with
a huge amount of sandbags. And so I rolled in
and fired. And what I didn't know was that it
had a huge rainstorm between the last time we'd
been to the range. These sandbags had gotten
all shot up. The sand had leaked out. And when
one of my bullets hit the steel plate, it ricocheted.
And I took it right... In the eye level, in the
bulletproof glass right in front of my eyes,
I still have that windshield. Do you really?
Yeah, they took it out and gave it to me. Had
it not been for that bulletproof glass, I'd have
taken my head right off. Wow. And if it had gone
just four or five inches either direction to
the side, that glass was not bulletproof. So
had it come through there, it would have... Hard
to say what would happen, but one of the things
about it showed I was perfectly lined up. I had
an absolute 100 % perfect alignment on a target.
Did you fly in Korea? Mm -hmm. What did you fly
over there? Fly the F -84. As bombing missions
or...? We were doing a lot of stuff. Primarily
we were doing... Amazingly, with the 84, we were
doing air defense. We were also doing tracking
missions to divert the Russians up to the north
and tie down a bunch of their air force. And
these were missions where we'd take off, fly
up to high altitude, point ourselves at some
major port place in Russia, let down, and their
radars would track us. Then we had some Elan
airplanes out there that would listen to the
radio traffic and intercept the radar beams that
were coming out of Russia and Manchuria. And
so they would scramble airplanes to intercept
us and then we would continue, depending on what
was going on, either right into the periphery
of Russia or right up to the shores. So those
were real fascinating missions because there
were also several other kinds of airplanes doing
the same thing at the same time, and we wound
up keeping a huge amount of the Russian Air Force
out of Korea. And we sat nuclear alert there
also where we had some, at those days, small
atomic bombs about the size of those that leveled
Hiroshima. And so we're setting an alert, an
event that Russians should really get berserk.
Well, you've had a full life before you went
to Vietnam. So we want to pick up on Vietnam.
When we get back, we're going to take a short
break here. And we're going to have a segment
on that you might be interested in. It's called
the Medal of Honor. And each week we highlight.
Medal of Honor recipient and his accomplishments
We're talking to Colonel Bud Day America's Living
most decorated war hero who holds every combat
medal available and we're going to be right back
in Just a few moments. You're listening to veterans
radio The Medal of Honor is the highest award
for valor in combat given a member of the Armed
Forces of the United States There had been over
3 ,400 recipients of the nation's highest award
This is one of them. Torpedo men second class
Henry Brault closed a hatch on his sunken submarine,
trapping him and a shipmate. Details after this.
On the morning of 28 October 1923, the U .S.
Submarine 05 collided with a steamship and sank
in less than a minute. When the collision occurred,
Brault was in the torpedo room. Upon reaching
the hatch, he saw that the boat was rapidly sinking.
Instead of jumping overboard to save his own
life, He returned to the torpedo room to the
rescue of a shipmate whom he knew was trapped
in the boat, closing the torpedo room hatch on
himself. Brault and Brown remained trapped in
this compartment until rescued by the salvage
party 31 hours later. The Medal of Honor was
presented by President Coolidge at the White
House on 8 March 1924. The Medal of Honor series
is a production of Veterans Radio. Ed, we're
back on Veterans Radio Talk. I think we've lost
him. Let's get him back on the line. We've been
talking with Colonel Bud Day, one of America's
most decorated war heroes, who holds every combat
medal available. Can you imagine that? No. I'm
just amazed. I want to know how many flying hours
he had. I'd be interested in finding out what
medals that he received during World War II.
Not just as a Marine. He didn't receive any in
World War II. Because he was making up for lost
time, I guess, at some point along the way. As
a matter of fact, he didn't even get his good
conduct medal. He was a little bit of a bad boy.
Oh, is he back on the line? Colonel Day, are
you back? I'm back. All right, great. We lost
you there for a minute. Yeah, I think his phone
went dead. I picked up a different phone. Oh,
okay. All right. Did you hear the whole Medal
of Honor story? I heard most of it. Okay, good.
Just a little side note. Your story was the second
segment that we did when we started this show
three years ago. Oh, God. And the first one that
we did was just a kind of introduction to what
the Medal of Honor series was all about. And
yours was the second one that we did. So, we
have Colonel Day back on the air and we're talking
with him about his experiences and my cohort
here, Dale Throneberry, has some questions for
you, sir. Okay. Yes, sir. I flew helicopters
in the Vietnam Air and I was just curious about
how many flying hours do you have? Hello? Yeah,
I'm still here. Yeah, okay. I have about... Somewhere
between 8 ,000 and 9 ,000 hours. At the time
that I got shot down, I had 4 ,800 hours of single
-engine fighter time and about a total of around
5 ,000 hours. Wow. That's a lot of flying. As
a pilot, I know that almost all of us have lives
like cats. Just learning about your stories,
you haven't reached the end yet, which is good.
You know, last year at this time we had Don Shepard
on our show talking about the Misties. Tell us
about the Misties. Well, we cranked up in the
spring of 1967 to try to replace the slow -flying
O -1 FACs that were flying up in North Vietnam.
They'd moved the missiles down into central North
Vietnam and wound up shooting down. one of two
O1s that were doing forward air control work
up there. Forward air control work being finding
targets, getting some fighters armed up with
bombs and rockets and so forth and shoot up the
targets. So it became clear that the slow flyers
could not continue because of the surface to
air missile threat. So someone conceived the
idea of flying a fast -backed airplane. We picked
a 100 for several reasons. It was available,
was the best visibility and longest legs. Put
it to work and began really our major effort
was a mixture between SAM suppression, surface
killing the missiles and trying to stop the flow
of fuel. arms and supplies down the Ho Chi Minh
trail. So we got into that with the vigor and
it started working out pretty well. Initially
we were not too sure about how well we were going
to be able to find things in that jungle mess,
but it got better as we got a little more experience.
You were shot down on August 26, 1967. What happened?
Just going in to take a look at a surface air
missile site, this would have been the further
most south site that had ever been identified.
It would have actually only been about 30 miles
or so from the demilitarized zone. I really thought
in my heart of hearts that it was a flak trap.
pumped on in there to take a look at it. I had
a young kid from Iowa, Corrin Kippenham, in the
front seat. I was checking him out. If we had
gotten through that right okay, he was going
to move up to the front seat. He was an old one
back, one of several that we'd gotten to teach
us how to do that. It turned out that the site,
first time we flew over it, took a huge amount
of ground fire. either a flank trap or a good
site. We went back over into Thailand, caught
a tanker, pumped back up on gas, came back into
North Vietnam across the corner, Cambodia and
Laos, and as soon as we popped up over the karst,
got about four, five miles from the target. They
opened up on us again. Sun had moved. I could
see the shadow of a missile. I could see the
corner of a radar van this time, and just as
we got almost straight over the target, we took
a really bad hit in the aft section, shot the
controls out, let the burner, got the nose up.
We were doing about 540 or so, and as I got the
nose up going through about 4 ,500 feet, the
controls failed, and the airplane tried to do
an outside loop. If you imagine looking at the
moon and then going up and trying to circle back
underneath the bottom of the moon, that was a
path of trajectory we were on. I couldn't control
the airplane, so I told Kipper, punch it out,
punch this out. I busted my arm in three places,
injured my left knee, and damaged my eye when
my boxing mask did not separate right. So when
I hit the ground I was busted up and injured
and not in good shape to be captured. Young kid
within just a minute or two showed up. I had
gotten a call off to Airborne Triple ABC who
were the people that were aware of where we were
a lot of the time. Told them I got shot down.
Told them I'd seen kippers shoot. That part was
okay and just about that. time I got through
talking this kid popped through the brush with
a real old Russian rifle probably about 13 years
old and captured me. You escaped a week later
and you spent three weeks in the jungles we got
recaptured and then you spent five and a half
years as a guest of the NVA in the Hanoi Hilton.
Yes sir. Is it safe to say you didn't have room
service? That is safe to say. How were you treated
up there? Well, it was really barbaric. Their
theory was that we were criminals. The dingbat
left here in this country were telling them that
we were criminals. They were claiming this was
an illegal, immoral war. The Vietnamese were
echoing that. Fonda and Hayden and all of those
that I wore. types of the veterans against the
war were telling some outrageous lying stories
about what was going on with the communists and
how we were being treated and claimed that we
were being treated well. So the bottom line was
the food was just barely left to keep you alive.
You could plan on losing about a third of your
body weight within about three months. There
was basically close to zero medical care. The
rooms were very tiny, filthy, and no effort to
let you be clean, stay clean. They propagandized
us roughly 12 hours a day. We heard from every
nut dingbat that ever got on the radio back in
those years against the war, heard from a lot
of people in different countries who were also
telling us the war was illegal and immoral. And
there was a lot of torture to get you to try
to make radio releases right to the president,
right to Congress, back up these anti -war groups
like Fonda and that group. Vietnam veterans against
the war. They were perpetually trying to get
us to do propaganda for them. So a lot of torture
that went with that. Just by way of illustration,
I was beat with a fan belt right after an escape
from I think it was July 6th to October 14th.
I took initially about the first two and a half
days or so. I took over 300 strokes with the
fan belt across my south end. It just turned
me into a bloody mess and had big holes in my
knees from kneeling and the back of my ankles
were all cut from light irons. So when they got
through it, I was bleeding out both ends. Frankly,
I hoped they would kill me because it was so
awful. every day I went over there, it was just
more of the same. So that was kind of typical
of our treatment and this was why we were so
upset when John Kerry was over negotiating with
the Vietnamese delegation in the 1970s because
it prolonged our our imprisonment, caused several
of our people to get killed, and caused the death
of literally hundreds, maybe thousands of people
on the battlefield. That's terrible. Yeah, the
anti -war people's message was just hang in there.
The Americans will wear out. If you just keep
fighting, eventually the anti -war types will
win the day. And as you know, Finally, Congress,
particularly the Senate, cut the money off. Colonel,
I've got to catch you off. We have to take a
short break and we're going to come back and
we're going to talk a little bit more about your
imprisonment and your after -prisonment actions.
You're listening to Veterans Radio. And we're
back on Veterans Radio talking with Colonel Bud
Day, a Medal of Honor recipient and our guest
for the entire hour. Bud, throughout your imprisonment,
you never cracked. You never gave the NVA any
information. How did you hold out for that long?
Well, basically when you get down to saying I
never gave them any information, the bottom line
is I never gave them any information of any value.
The bottom line is that a determined torturer
can make you say some stuff. you'll hear some
noises come out of your body when somebody tries
to tear your arms off and say on that rope track
that you had no idea those noises were in you.
So you get to the point where you begin to deal
with them, basically have some kind of discussions
with them, but the bottom line is on all the
issues such as making propaganda for them or
all of those things, that part you refuse to
cooperate with. So I refused to cooperate, and
it cost me dearly. They wiped my arms out, and
when I came out of jail, my hands and fingers
were all rolled up, and had re -broken my arm.
They'd hung me. They'd done that whipping that
I told you about. So it was a high price to pay,
but worthwhile. You had a mantra that you had
kept in your mind when you were in the camp.
What was that? It was return with honor. And
where did that come from? It was the bottom of
the 31st Fighter Wing. It was also kind of a
family thing. My wife's family were Norwegians.
They were occupied by the Germans back during
World War II. All of the men in the family, the
young men, were either in a German prison camp
or out in the woods. in the underground, in the
resistance movement where they were sabotaging
and doing destructive stuff with the German supply
lines and roads and so on and eventually the
heavy water project. So the bottom line was that
I had to perform certainly as well as they did.
I had also been a little bit involved with the
code of conduct that had come out of Korea and
there was a lot of criticism about performance
of prisoners in Korea, which much of it was unjustified,
although I didn't know that at the time that
I went off to Vietnam, because that issue had
never been really cleared up. There were supposedly
some things that had happened in Korea that were
just unacceptable, and I'd made up my mind I
wasn't going to be a part of that, and if I had
a command, nothing like that was going to happen
in my command, and whatever the case was. I was
going to come out there with my head up or I
was not going to come back. The POWs held regular
worship services in the camp. How did the NVA
react? They were really upset about that because,
you know, in the communist system, when the communist
cadre got up to talk, everybody listened and
everybody did something. So they instantly assumed
that because we had someone standing up in front
of the group and talking, preaching that we must
be trying to crank up some kind of a revolt,
escape, something. And so they were really opposed
to that. We told them it was just going to be
a church service, but they don't know what church
services are because there is no church in a
communist country. So despite the fact, you know,
that they issue those platitudes about treating
people well and so on. They had no religious
background at all, so when we started having
the church service they got really upset and
told us that had to stop and we were going to
have to do a lot of different things. We had
a different idea about what was going to happen.
So we cranked up the church service and they
busted in the doors and grabbed Robbie Reisner
who was the preacher and the people who were
in the choir. started him out of the room and
I got up in the center of a concrete thing and
started singing the Star Spangled Banner. And
this just really triggered him off and all the
other rooms picked it up. At that time there
were about 350 prisoners in the downtown Hanoi
Hilton complex. So every room started picking
us up. Every room started singing with us and
so we sang the Star Spangled Banner. God bless
america my country tis of the california here
i have eyes of texas you name it we gave all
very quickly tell us the story about the flag
yes one of my people had manufactured a guy really
great young navy lieutenant commander named mike
christian from alabama had Stolen some little
piece of semi -red cloth and he had gotten some
pieces of semelan white thread out of a blanket.
Another guy had manufactured a nail out of a
piece of wire and Mike made this flag. So he
sewed it inside of his little kind of a t -shirt.
They were sort of a heavy cloth thing. He sewed
it inside the sleeve of his jacket. And every
day when the guards were sleeping in the afternoon,
they'd take a nap after they ate. We would get
that flag out, put it up in the center of the
room, face to the west, and say the Pledge of
Allegiance to the United States. It was a very
uplifting thing, one of those ways that sounds
kind of not so big a deal. when I'm talking about
on this phone, but it was a very important morale
issue. I wanted every day to make sure that everybody
understood that we were still Americans. So we
were still connected at the umbilical cord with
our country. And there wasn't a better way of
doing that than to say the Pledge of Allegiance
or sing the Star Spangled Banner. So we did that.
As a result of that, one day on a room inspection,
the V found that flag. So they took Mike out
and just broke him up. They just really pounded
him up. He came back and he was all dinged up.
I think he had a busted rib and several big bruises
on his face and a lot of black and blue marks.
So we still had the needle. And that night...
after he kind of he was gone for about 16 hours
they took him out the afternoon we didn't get
him back till late the next day and so that night
he was down on the end of the room and I looked
down there and here he is he's got another rag
and a piece of white thread and he saw another
flag. Wow that's amazing. What was the Fink release
program? We had about, I think it was a total
of 12 prisoners who got released early. It started
in February of 1968. Three guys got released.
They were all people who had never been tortured,
who had no visible bone breaks, anything like
that. People who had not lost a lot of weight
yet. And also it involved some people who didn't
have a hundred percent, what's the word I'm looking
for, personal conviction. And so the Vietnamese
started kind of dangling this release and the
idea from their standpoint was it could not violate
the code of conduct because they were just putting
them out of the country. And so that's a compelling
argument if you are not too motivated to do what
you're supposed to do. So they got three guys
to go home, and Jim Stockdale, who was the rankin'
Navy guy over in the Hilton, called that the
Fink release. Fink obviously has its obvious
meaning. You're not much of a, not a very good
human. And so that started and then it continued.
The first group of people went out, didn't really
say anything anti -American, but the second group
did and they started talking about the war being
illegal and immoral and so on and as a result
got released early. So that confirmed what Stockdale
had. commented calling it the Finc release because
they're obviously you were doing something to
get out of there that no one else is doing you
know if I'm getting tortured to make Tapes or
do something right to press or whatever it is
and somebody goes home Saying the Vietnamese
are treating us. Well One of us has got to be
lying so the guy who went home early and claimed
that he'd been treated well, obviously he was
lying, and he'd done something, he'd sold a little
piece of his soul to get out of there. So that
was a bad program, and unfortunately we had 12
guys who got involved in that. Then we had about
three or four senior, pretty senior guys of Marine,
Navy Commander, and Navy Lieutenant Commander,
and another guy who were actually doing propaganda
for the Gooks. Gerdo, we've got just about a
minute left, so I want to quickly go into your
actions after you retired. You took on another
battle, and that was the health care for life
for military retirees. Yes, the Clinton administration
kicked the World War II Korean retired military
veterans out of the hospital at age 65. They
had promised us as part of our enlistment contract,
free lifetime medical care for ourselves and
our family along with our pension. So they just
retracted a huge amount of our military benefits.
I sued them. Janet Reno was the Attorney General.
So I sued her and pursued that to a victory in
the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals. We had
a bill in the House and Senate. John McCain sponsored
our bill in the Senate. Who is your very, very
good friend. Yes. And Ronnie Shouse from Mississippi
sponsored the House bill. We got it passed before
I got the actual order out of the Federal Circuit
Court of Appeals where I'd won that case. And
so it's called Tricare for Life and restored
really about 95 % of those benefits that the
administration took away from us. Thank you very
much, Colonel. We have to get out of here. I
want to thank you for being on Veterans Radio.
You've got a fascinating life, and we wish you
many, many years ahead. God bless you all, and
keep doing what you're doing. Thank you, sir.
Bye -bye. Bye -bye. Colonel Bud Day, America's
most decorated living war hero, holds every medal
from the Medal of Honor on down. This, we got
to go. You're on Veterans Radio. Goodbye.