Retired Air Force Colonel George E. "Bud" Day, with his black-or-white views, wouldn’t survive an old media profile, but then I’m sure the eighty-three-year-old Vietnam combat veteran wouldn’t want one. He’s famous enough among his peers without the MSM’s ministrations, and their interleavened hymns to liberal politics and political correctness.
This 2007 biography, warts and all, is much better, anyhow, and worth the read just to find out how this fighter-pilot leader of the Vietnam War’s surviving "hard-ass resister" POWs–with the help of one honest journalist–helped defeat John Kerry for president. Of course the liberals, who can’t stand Day, like to lump him with Kerry’s Swift Boat critics. But Day’s group was altogether different: the 1973-returning Nam POWs, who consider Kerry not merely a phony hero, as the Swifties do, but a traitor who made their captive lives worse after his 1971 congressional testimony slandering all Vietnam combat veterans as murderers.
But there’s lots more to the Heartland, Iowa-raised Day in Robert Corum’s fine book, including his service in World War II and his years of flying before his 1966 shootdown over North Vietnam, and, of course, his command of the famous Misty FACs. You’ll also see why Day and John McCain are very close despite differences on some issues–and why you’ll undoubtedly see Day campaigning for Mac.
THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER 