MEDAL of HONOR RECIPIENT “BUD” DAY On Real Torture vs. Waterboarding
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I got shot down over North Vietnam in 1967, a Squadron Commander. After I returned in 1973 . . . I published 2 books that dealt a lot with “real torture” in Hanoi. Our make-believe president is branding our country as a bunch of torturers when he has no idea what torture is.
As for me, I was put thru a mock execution because I would not respond . . . pistol whipped on the head . . . same event. Couple of days later . . . hung by my feet all day. I escaped and a couple of weeks later, I got shot and recaptured. Shot was OK . . . what happened afterwards was not.
They marched me to Vinh . . . put me in the rope trick . . . almost pulled my arms out of the sockets. Beat me on the head with a little wooden rod until my eyes were swelled shut, and my unshot, unbroken hand a pulp.
Next day hung me by the arms . . . rebroke my right wrist . . . wiped out the nerves in my arms that control the hands . . . rolled my fingers up into a ball. Only left the slightest movement of my L forefinger. So I started answering with some incredible lies.
Sent me to Hanoi strapped to a barrel of gas in the back of a truck.
Hanoi . . . on my knees . . . rope trick again. Beaten by a big fool.
Into leg irons on a bed in Heartbreak Hotel.
Much kneeling – hands up at Zoo.
Really bad beating for refusing to condemn Lyndon Johnson.
Several more kneeling events. I could see my knee bone thru kneeling holes.
There was an escape from the annex to the Zoo. I was the Senior officer of a large building because of escape . . . they started a mass torture of all commanders.
I think it was July 7, 1969 . . . they started beating me with a car fan belt. In first 2 days I took over 300 strokes . . . then stopped counting because I never thought I would live thru it.
They continued day-night torture to get me to confess to a non-existent part in the escape. This went on for at least 3 days. On my knees . . . fan belting . . . cut open my scrotum with fan belt stroke. Opened up both knee holes again. My fanny looked like hamburger. I could not lie on my back.
They tortured me into admitting that I was in on the escape . . . and that my 2 room-mates knew about it.
The next day I denied the lie.
They commenced torturing me again with 3- 6- or 9 strokes of the fan belt every day from about July 11 or 12th . . . to 14 October 1969. I continued to refuse to lie about my roommates again.
Now, the point of this is that our make-believe president has declared to the world that we (U.S.) are a bunch of torturers . . . thus it will be OK to torture us next time when they catch us . . . because that is what the U.S. does.
Our make-believe president is a know nothing fool who thinks that pouring a little water on some one’s face, or hanging a pair of women’s pants over an Arabs head is TORTURE. He is a meathead.
I just talked to MOH holder Leo Thorsness, who was also in my squadron, in jail . . . as was John McCain . . . and we agree that McCain does not speak for the POW group when he claims that Al Gharib was torture . . . or that “water boarding” is torture.
Our president and those fools around him who keep bad mouthing our great country are a disgrace to the United States. Please pass this info on . . . free to use it to point out the stupidity of the claims that water boarding . . . which has no after effect . . . is torture.
If it got the Arab to cough up the story about how he planned the attack on the twin towers in NYC . . . Hurrah for the guy who poured the water!!
George Everett ” Bud ” Day(born February 24, 1925) is a retired U.S. Air Force Colonel and Command Pilot who served during the Vietnam War. He is often cited as being the most decorated U.S. service member since General Douglas MacArthur, having received some seventy decorations, a majority for actions in combat. Day is a recipient of the Medal of Honor.
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Wild Thing’s comment………
I am afraid every day we will not get Obama out of office. Our country has been so blessed to have such Heroes, men like Bud Day and others. Our Veterans and all these Heroes deserve so much better then the likes of Obama. All of us as Americans do too but especially those that have served our country, they sacrificed so much, so very much to keep us the land of the free.
….Thank you Tom for sending this to me.
Tom
1st Aviation Brigade, US Army
RVN, Sep66-Mar68
US Army Special Forces
1970-72
— America’s finest —
American Patriot : The Life and Wars of Colonel Bud Day
by Robert Coram,
Little, Brown and Company, 2007.
More here:
http://www.airforce-magazine.com/MagazineArchive/Pages/2005/December%202005/1205day.aspx
So much blood, effort and sacrifice has been spent to make America great and successful. It shatters my heart and soul to see the greedy, narcissistic and amoral amongst us use the freedoms and opportunities, paid for by others, to rise to power and abuse that power for purely self serving purposes. As Colonel Bud Day had the moral and physical courage to help buy America’s freedoms and greatness, obama has had the amoral gall to rip off those freedoms and abuse America’s greatness to serve himself and push a philosophy that is both alien and cancerous to America’s moral soul.
Carlos, thank you for the link.
Tom, beautifully said …thank you for the post and what you said.