Col. George “Bud” Day had been a prisoner of war in North Vietnam’s “Hanoi Hilton” for more than three years when armed guards burst into a cell where he and his fellow captives were holding a forbidden religious service. Day defied their rifle barrels by loudly singing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The then major “had an indomitable will to survive,” said Sen. John McCain, a cell mate. “He strengthened my will to live.”
Day was a decorated fighter pilot nearing retirement when his plane was shot down over North Vietnam in August 1967, said The New York Times. Captured by the Viet Cong, he escaped and wandered barefoot through the jungle for two weeks, searching for U.S. troops and “surviving on a few berries and frogs.” But Communist forces found him first, and “this time, Maj. Day could not escape.”
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Day practiced law in Florida after leaving the Air Force, said the Associated Press. In 2004 he was one of the “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth” who attacked Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry’s military record, comparing him to Benedict Arnold. “I probably could have been more tempered in some of my remarks,” he said. “But when they asked, I told them.”
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