Biography for Col. George E. "Bud" Day
Biography for Doris Marlene Day
Colonel George E. "Bud" Day, USAF (ret)
A native of Sioux City, Iowa, Colonel George E. “Bud” Day holds every significant combat award our nation can bestow. In a military career spanning 34 years and three wars, Day received nearly seventy decorations and awards. More than fifty of these awards were earned in combat, and they include the Purple Heart with three clusters, Bronze Star, the Bronze Star for Valor with clusters, the Air Medal with clusters, the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Legion of Merit, the Silver Star, the Distinguished Service Medal, the Air Force Cross, and the Medal of Honor. He is the second-most decorated officer in our nation’s military history, behind General Douglas MacArthur.
Born in February 1925 in Sioux City, Iowa, Day enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1942, and served for 30 months in the South Pacific during World War II as a non-commissioned officer. After the war Day returned home and entered the University of South Dakota law school. He also joined the Iowa Air National Guard and was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Guard in 1949. Called to active duty in 1951, he entered pilot training, and, upon graduation, was assigned as a fighter-bomber pilot in the Republic F-84 Thunderjet, and served two tours in the Korean War.
With twenty years of military service, Day could have retired from active duty, but, instead, he volunteered for a tour of duty in Viet Nam. In April 1967 he was assigned to the 31st Tactical Fighter Wing, Tuy Hoa Air Base, Republic of Vietnam. Shortly thereafter, he moved to Phu Cat Air Base where he organized and commanded the “Misty Super FAC” program, flying the North American F-100 Super Sabre. He flew more than sixty successful missions as a forward air controller.
On 26 August 1967, on his sixty-fifth mission, Day was shot down over North Vietnam and captured by the North Vietnamese. Despite a dislocated knee and an arm broken in three places, he escaped his captors and evaded the enemy as he traveled across the Demilitarized Zone back into South Vietnam, the only prisoner to successfully escape from North Vietnam. For two weeks Day attempted to signal friendly aircraft, but he was unsuccessful. Suffering from hunger and exhaustion in addition to his injuries, Day was eventually shot and recaptured by the Viet Cong within two miles of a US Marine base at Con Thien. He then suffered brutal treatment at the hands of the North Vietnamese for sixty-seven months, thirty-seven of those months in solitary confinement. He was finally released in March of 1973. At the time of his shoot-down, Day was one of the most experienced fighter pilots in the Air Force, with more than 4500 flight hours in fighters. For his gallant and heroic actions after being shot down, Day was awarded the Medal of Honor.
Following his retirement as a colonel in 1977, Day wrote an autobiography, Return with Honor, detailing his brutal captivity in Vietnam. Married to his childhood sweetheart, Doris, Day currently has a thriving law firm in Fort Walton Beach, Florida and remains very active in veterans’ affairs. In 1997 a survival school building at Fairchild AFB was named in his honor.
Doris was born in Sioux City, Iowa. She married her childhood sweetheart George E. Day on May 28, 1949 in Sioux City, Iowa.
She has been the President of the Officer's Wives Club in England, New York and Eglin AFB, FL. She started scholarship programs while Wives Club President at Niagara Falls, N.Y.
When her husband was shot down in 1967 she became involved in the MIA-POW group and organized the Phoenix Area Families and incorporated them. Later she became the Arizona Coordinator of the National League of Families of POW/MIA's with headquarters in Washington, D.C.
In 1970 she was chosen as "Military Wife of the Year" for the Tactical Air Command and also that year she was chosen as “Volunteer Of The Year" for the Tactical Air Command. In 1971 she traveled to Europe; Geneva, Switzerland; Paris, France and Stockholm, Sweden, to seek help for her husband and other POW's and MIA's. She met with the Communist North Vietnamese in Stockholm to seek better treatment for American Prisoners Of War and a list of POWs.
In 1972 she appeared on the Republican Presidential Platform Committee to urge full scale bombing of North Vietnam to release the POW's. It was this full scale bombing that secured the release of the POW's. She was chosen as one of six POW wives as "Military Wife Of The Year" over all commands.
She has been an active speaker and worker for patriotic causes and has appeared on numerous television and radio talk shows, including the Phil Donahue and the Regis & Kathy Lee Shows.
She is active in the Florida Federation of Women's Clubs. She is the past president of her local club, twice District One Director (over 8 Clubs in Northwest Florida), Florida State Safety Chairman , District 1 Talent Scout, Legislative and Public Policy Chairman for Florida and currently is International Affairs Chairman (Reaching Out Internationally) for Florida.
She works with her husband in his law practice as Office Manager and Bookkeeper in Fort Walton Beach, Florida.