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Me#1You#10
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Joined: 06 May 2004
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 Posted: Tue May 15, 2007 3:04 pm Post subject: American Patriot: The Life and Wars of Colonel Bud Day |
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A new book on Col. Day has just been published, American Patriot: The Life and Wars of Colonel Bud Day by Robert Coram.
The reviews at Amazon are very positive thus far.
Read an excerpt here.
...and here's a nice bit of coverage from the start of the book tour...
| Quote: | Author will sign book on Col. 'Bud' Day
By Jenny Welp
Journal staff writer
May 15, 2007
After working for 3.5 years on a biography of Col. George "Bud" Day, Robert Coram will be signing books at Barnes & Noble on Saturday.
"I have truly enjoyed my many trips to Sioux City," Coram said. "This is probably the last time I'll ever be out here. I wanted to come back one more time to start the tour here in Bud's hometown. I've made some good friends out here and gotten familiar with a new part of the country, and I'm going to miss it."
Coram is the author of four nonfiction books and seven novels. He was twice nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for his work as a reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
He said he first heard about Day at a book signing.
Since then, Coram has learned how, early in his military career, Day walked away from several incidents that had killed older and far more experienced pilots. He found out how Day's jet blew up, he punched out, his parachute didn't open and yet he survived.
"He's a very spiritual man, like a lot of people in uniform, and out of those instances came the belief that God put him on Earth for a purpose -- that he had a job to perform and until that job was completed, he would be protected," he said.
Coram said that when Day came home from Vietnam, he thought his leadership during 67 months as a prisoner of war at Hanoi was the job God put him on earth to do.
But Coram said that 20 years later, President Bill Clinton took from retirees over age 65 the medical benefits that had been promised to them for serving 20 years in the military. He said that's when Day realized he had one more mission. He sued the U.S. government.
Coram said an article about the lawsuit ran in a few small newspapers in northern Florida, southeast Alabama and southwest Georgia, and that the next morning, several men, independently of each other, showed up at Day's office wanting to help.
"You've got to have a mental picture of those guys," Coram said. "They're old and some of them are on walkers. They are bald. Some of them have respirators and they're on crutches or walking sticks. Physically, they might be shot to hell, but they still have that spirit that was with them when they stormed the beaches of Normandy or the islands in the Pacific or froze in Korea. And they were ready to march again. They had to go against the government they had served for most of their lives, and I think it broke their hearts."
Coram said Day's leadership helped restore about 95 percent of the benefits Clinton had taken, but even after that, Day took on another mission during the 2004 presidential election.
"Bud Day was directly involved in defeating John Kerry, and my editor thinks that's far and away the most important chapter of the book."
He said to understand Day's campaign against Kerry, one needs to get on the Internet and read Kerry's testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in the spring of 1971, where Kerry compared Vietnam soldiers to Genghis Khan.
Coram starts Day's story in Sioux City. He said he could tell Siouxland still means a lot to the 82-year-old man.
"I've seen Bud is different when he is out here," he said. "He and I were riding one day. He was showing me some back roads between here and Vermillion that he used to ride before the interstate when he had his dog Curly and they were road hunting. His face is transformed, and just a look of bliss and absolute peace comes over him, and he just drives slower and slower."
Coram will be doing a private signing of "American Patriot: The Life and Wars of Colonel Bud Day" on Saturday morning for the 185th Air Refueling Wing of the Iowa Air National Guard. Then he will begin signing books at Barnes & Noble at 3 p.m. on Saturday, and he'll stay there as long as needed to sign everyone's books.
The author will leave on Sunday morning to go to Day's home in Fort Walton Beach, Fla. Then they will sign books together on Monday and Tuesday. Later there is a signing at the Pentagon, which Coram said is almost never done -- because of security problems if nothing else.
"The man is venerated to a degree in the military that civilians find difficult to understand because there's no equivalent in the civilian world for the veneration in which heroes are held in the military," he said. "Bud is the most decorated living American officer. When he comes into a room, it's like seeing George Washington step out of a painting and start telling people what to do. This is holy writ when Bud Day talks."
Sioux City Journal |
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mtboone
Founder
Joined: 10 May 2004
Posts: 470
Location: Kansas City, MO.
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| Posted: Tue May 15, 2007 6:04 pm Post subject: |
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I was fortunate to have met Bud and the filming of "They Served" ad and then again in Orlando at our celebration of Kerry not being elected. He is a true hero in every sense of the word. It was a great honor for me to meet him and I will buy his book.
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Terry Boone PCF 90
Qui Nhon 68-69
Last edited by mtboone on Tue May 15, 2007 6:53 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Harvuskong
Seaman
Joined: 17 Oct 2004
Posts: 174
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| Posted: Tue May 15, 2007 6:20 pm Post subject: |
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I think that a purchase of the book for donation to a public or school library should be very helpful to informing or educating the younger generation about things that seem to be ignored today.
I am sure that there is a better, less awarkward way of stating what I just said, but I am a bit short on time at the moment. |
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Me#1You#10
Site Admin
Joined: 06 May 2004
Posts: 6503
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| Posted: Sun May 20, 2007 2:53 pm Post subject: |
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| The VVLF website now contains a photo montage of Col. Day's monument in Sioux City. |
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streetsweeper95B
PO2
Joined: 25 Nov 2004
Posts: 365
Location: Texas
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| Posted: Tue May 22, 2007 3:41 am Post subject: |
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Very cool #1, thanks!
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Me#1You#10
Site Admin
Joined: 06 May 2004
Posts: 6503
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| Posted: Fri May 25, 2007 3:09 pm Post subject: |
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I like the sound of Brigadier General Bud Day...
| Quote: | Chamber campaigns to get Bud Day a promotion
By John Quinlan, Journal staff writer
May 25, 2007
Col. George "Bud" Day returned from North Vietnam after five hellish years as a POW in the infamous Hanoi Hilton to a hero's welcome, especially from the folks in his hometown of Sioux City.
The jet fighter pilot returned as the most decorated Air Force officer in U.S. history. His awards include the Medal of Honor. But due to a number of factors beyond his control, mostly politics (both military and partisan), Day never received the promotion to brigadier general that would have capped off his three-service, three-war military career.
To fix what it views as a terrible miscarriage of justice, the Siouxland Chamber of Commerce has launched a campaign to get Day that promotion, an honorary one, to brigadier general. It is "honorary" because Day retired from the service years ago to set up a law practice in Florida which he still runs at the age of 82.
Sioux City Journal - cont'd |
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Leeman
PO3
Joined: 08 Nov 2004
Posts: 265
Location: Connecticut
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| Posted: Tue May 29, 2007 6:54 pm Post subject: |
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I saw the author speak on Book TV on c-spann this weekend if it's run again don't miss it. Of course I will buy the book !!! What a story !! What a guy !!!!
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Leeman
"We are all Ghost now"
"But once we were men"
from an unsigned diary recovered from Cabanatuan Camp |
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