COLONEL (DOCTOR) GEORGE E. "BUD" DAY (RETIRED)

Colonel George E. Day is a veteran of more than 30 years of service in the Armed Forces of the United States.

Colonel Day was born in Sioux City, Iowa on February 24, 1925. He holds a Bachelor of Science Degree and a Doctor of Humane Letters from the Morningside College in Sioux City, Iowa. He has also been awarded a Master of Arts degree from St. Louis University, a Juris Doctor from the University of South Dakota, and Doctor of Law from Troy State University. Colonel Day was admitted to the South Dakota Bar in 1949 and to the Florida  Bar in 1977.

Colonel Day joined the Marine Corps in 1942 and served 30 months in the South Pacific as a non-commissioned officer. He received an appointment as a Second Lieutenant in the National Guard in 1950.

Colonel Day was called to active duty in the Air Force in 1951 and entered jet pilot training. He served two tours in the Far East as a fighter-bomber pilot during the Korean War.

In April 1967, Colonel Day was assigned to the 31st Tactical Fighter Wing at Tuy Hoa Air Base, Republic of Vietnam. He later moved to Phu Cat Air Base where he organized and became the first commander of the "Misty Super FACs," a F-100 Squadron.

Shot down over North Vietnam on August 26, 1967, he spent 67 months as a Prisoner of War. Colonel Day was the only POW to escape from prison in the South. He is also credited with living through the first "no chute" bailout from a burning jet fighter in England in 1955.

At the time of his shoot-down, Colonel Day was one of the nation's most experienced jet fighter pilots, with 4,500 hours of single engine jet time, and more than 5,000 hours of flying time. He has flown all of the modern Air Force jet fighters including the F-80, F-84, F-100, F-101, F-105, F-4E, A-4J Mongosse, A-7, F-106, FB-111, F-15, F-16, CF-5, CT-33 and the CF-18.

Colonel Day holds every significant combat award and is the nation's most highly decorated officer, as well as the most decorated since General Douglass MacArthur. He holds nearly seventy military decorations and awards, of which more than fifty are for combat. Most notable are: the Medal of Honor, the Air Force Cross, the Distinguished Service Medal, the Silver Star, the Legion of Merit, the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Air Medal with Nine Oak Leaf Clusters, the Bronze Star for Valor with two Oak Leaf Clusters, the Bronze Star, and the Purple Heart with three Clusters. Colonel Day was presented Vietnam's highest medal by President Thieu, two Vietnamese Gallantry Crosses, and Vietnamese Wings, and wears twelve Campaign Battle Stars.

Colonel Day is a member of the Medal of Honor Society, Legion of Valor, was the first President of NAM-POW;s (the Vietnam POW organization), President of the MISTY SUPER-FAC Association, and a member of numerous military and fraternal organizations. Colonel Day was a member of the Code of Conduct Review Board established by the Department of Defense in 1976 to review POW conduct.

Colonel Day has taught World Politics, International Law and Political Geography at St. Louis University and Park College of Aeronautical Technology. He taught Constitutional Law, Politics of the Middle East, and Communism in Eastern Europe at Troy State University.

Colonel Day is a member of the Okaloosa/Walton Bar Association, Academy of Florida Trail Lawyers, American Bar Association, and American Trail Lawyers. He is a visiting lecturer at the Freedom' Foundation program at Valley Forge for both ST. Francis College and the University of Scranton, and lectures young officers at the Air University at Maxwell AFB, Alabama several times each year.

Bud is married to his childhood sweetheart Doris Merlene Sorensen of Sioux City, Iowa, and has four children. Steven Michael of Shalimar, Florida; Captain George Everette, Jr. (Class of 1985 Air Force Academy and F-16 pilot), twin daughters Sonja Smith of Fort Walton Beach, Florida, and Sandra Mathers of San Diego, California (whose husband is a Navy helicopter pilot). George Day has two grandsons Jacob and Joshua, three granddaughters Noel Elizabeth, Victoria Leigh, and Audrey Marie. He resides in Shalimar, Florida and has a law firm in Fort Walton Beach, Florida where he is a trail lawyer.

Colonel Day is a past Florida State Republican Committeeman, and a past member of the Board of Directors of the Medal of Honor Society. He is past National Commander of the Legion of Valor, and was a delegate to the Republican Conventions, Chairman of the Reagan Committee in Okaloosa County, Florida. In 1984, he was National Chairman of Veteran's for Reagan, and campaigned extensively for and with the President. He campaigned nationally for President Bush in 1992.

Colonel Day received the BUSINESS ASSOCIATE OF THE YEAR 1988 from the American Business Women's Association.

Colonel Day has published numerous articles on fighter performance, an article in the Saturday Evening Post, Air Force Magazine, and is the author of "RETURN WITH HONOR," his POW autobiography.

Governor Martinez appointed Colonel Day as Commissioner of Veterans Affairs. He is a past Secretary of Florida Veterans Affairs Commission.

Senator Connie Mack placed Colonel Day on the Defense Advisory Committee and he serves as a director of the Air Force Armament Museum.

He is a past advisor to the Air Force Association, Washington, D.C.