WEBVTT - Bud Day: A POW’s Incredible Story 0:00:01.440 --> 0:00:04.480 Hey everyone, We've put together a survey for listeners of 0:00:04.519 --> 0:00:06.760 Medal of Honor and we want to hear from you. 0:00:07.280 --> 0:00:09.240 Tell us what you love about the show, what we 0:00:09.280 --> 0:00:12.760 can improve on, or stories you think we've missed. We're 0:00:12.760 --> 0:00:15.840 committed to making this show even better and you can 0:00:15.920 --> 0:00:19.960 help to take the survey. Visit bit dot lee slash 0:00:20.239 --> 0:00:27.320 MH survey. That's bit dot l y slash mh survey. 0:00:27.840 --> 0:00:41.479 The link is also in our show notes below. Pushkin 0:00:47.400 --> 0:00:51.040 dusk was falling in the Jungles of North Vietnam. It 0:00:51.120 --> 0:00:55.480 was late August nineteen sixty seven. An Air Force Colonel 0:00:55.640 --> 0:00:59.200 bud Day was lying in a muddy pit about the 0:00:59.240 --> 0:01:04.040 size of a He had been there for days. One 0:01:04.040 --> 0:01:07.839 of his arms was broken in three places, his left 0:01:07.920 --> 0:01:11.200 knee was badly damaged, and he couldn't see out of 0:01:11.240 --> 0:01:16.080 his right eye. Bud Day had been captured in enemy territory. 0:01:16.160 --> 0:01:19.280 He was a prisoner of the North Vietnamese Army, but 0:01:19.360 --> 0:01:23.679 he wasn't in a prison. This was a little militia 0:01:23.800 --> 0:01:27.400 camp in the middle of the wilderness. His guards were 0:01:27.440 --> 0:01:30.760 a couple of teenage boys with rifles, and like most 0:01:30.800 --> 0:01:35.759 teenage boys, they were getting bored in the short amount 0:01:35.760 --> 0:01:38.280 of time that Bud had been in the camp, he 0:01:38.319 --> 0:01:43.480 had already been tortured again and again, but he followed 0:01:43.520 --> 0:01:47.360 a code of conduct, the same code of conduct that 0:01:47.440 --> 0:01:51.120 the US military required of every person who becomes a 0:01:51.120 --> 0:01:57.040 prisoner of war. Give away no information except no special 0:01:57.080 --> 0:02:02.960 favors from the enemy, and make every every effort to escape. 0:02:03.160 --> 0:02:07.320 Bud hadn't told his captors anything, even when they strung 0:02:07.400 --> 0:02:10.679 him up by his ankles and he could feel the 0:02:10.720 --> 0:02:16.960 bones in his broken arm stretched further apart. Special favors 0:02:17.000 --> 0:02:21.800 certainly didn't seem forthcoming, not that he would have accepted any. 0:02:21.919 --> 0:02:25.480 His sense of honor would never allow it. But then 0:02:25.520 --> 0:02:28.960 there was a part of the code about escape that 0:02:29.400 --> 0:02:35.560 Bud thought was something he had to try. Darkness crept closer. 0:02:36.120 --> 0:02:38.679 The two kids who were supposed to be watching him 0:02:38.880 --> 0:02:43.040 wandered a little further from the pit, chatting and laughing 0:02:43.160 --> 0:02:47.800 about something. Using his good hand, Bud worked away at 0:02:47.800 --> 0:02:51.040 the rope that was wound around his legs. He had 0:02:51.080 --> 0:02:54.280 convinced his captors that he was unable to walk, so 0:02:54.320 --> 0:02:57.840 the rope was only tied in grandy knots easy to 0:02:57.880 --> 0:03:02.560 get out of. Even with Bud knew this would be 0:03:02.600 --> 0:03:06.280 his only chance. They were planning to move him to 0:03:06.360 --> 0:03:10.600 a real prison, and that would be impossible to escape. 0:03:10.960 --> 0:03:15.720 He quickly untied one knot, and then another and another. 0:03:17.000 --> 0:03:20.600 He loosened the ropes around his legs, and he listened 0:03:20.639 --> 0:03:25.480 to the boy's distant laughter. His mind flashed to his wife, Dorry, 0:03:26.120 --> 0:03:29.880 and four little kids waiting back in Arizona. He sent 0:03:29.960 --> 0:03:35.040 a silent help me father up to heaven, and then 0:03:35.120 --> 0:03:40.720 Bud Day crawled out of the bunker and into the night. 0:03:42.720 --> 0:03:47.720 I'm Jr. Martinez and this is Medal of Honor Stories 0:03:47.880 --> 0:03:51.760 of Courage. The Medal of Honor is the highest military 0:03:51.800 --> 0:03:56.440 decoration in the United States, awarded for gallantry and bravery 0:03:56.600 --> 0:04:00.400 and combat at the risk of life, above and beyond 0:04:00.440 --> 0:04:04.000 the call of duty. Each candidate must be approved all 0:04:04.040 --> 0:04:06.960 the way up the chain of command, from the supervisory 0:04:07.040 --> 0:04:10.640 officer in the field to the White House. This show 0:04:10.760 --> 0:04:15.280 is about those heroes, what they did, what it meant, 0:04:15.680 --> 0:04:18.320 and what their stories tell us about the nature of 0:04:18.480 --> 0:04:23.880 courage and sacrifice. Bud Day would be the only American 0:04:23.920 --> 0:04:28.320 serviceman ever to escape from a North Vietnamese prison and 0:04:28.400 --> 0:04:32.240 make it all the way to South Vietnam. He would 0:04:32.279 --> 0:04:37.120 stumble for days through the jungle with no shoes, no food, 0:04:37.279 --> 0:04:43.599 and terrible injuries, passing within inches of enemy soldiers, knowing 0:04:43.720 --> 0:04:46.400 all the while that if he were captured again, he 0:04:46.440 --> 0:04:50.480 would have to fight like hell to stay alive and 0:04:50.560 --> 0:04:54.719 to keep the code of conduct. Bud's story is one 0:04:54.760 --> 0:05:00.200 of toughness and grit and fortitude, the kind afforded two 0:05:00.279 --> 0:05:03.960 that can only come from a deep set faith in 0:05:04.080 --> 0:05:10.040 country and family and in the concept of honor. While 0:05:10.040 --> 0:05:13.400 this episode is about that stoic silence in the face 0:05:13.440 --> 0:05:17.960 of brutal enemy pressure, it's also about the power of 0:05:18.080 --> 0:05:22.760 speaking out. Because while Bud stayed mute to protect his 0:05:22.880 --> 0:05:28.080 fellow aviators, his wife Dory was shouting from the rooftops, 0:05:29.000 --> 0:05:33.040 using her voice to win freedom for prisoners of war. 0:05:34.640 --> 0:05:39.040 As Americans, we take free speech for granted. How Bud 0:05:39.120 --> 0:05:43.039 and Dory Day used their voices, frankly, how this whole 0:05:43.080 --> 0:05:46.920 country used their voices during the Vietnam War, proves just 0:05:47.000 --> 0:06:06.840 how powerful that right really is. The morning of August 0:06:06.920 --> 0:06:12.039 twenty sixth, nineteen sixty seven started as usual for Bud Day. 0:06:12.839 --> 0:06:15.240 He woke up at the Air Force base in Fukat, 0:06:15.920 --> 0:06:20.520 just south of the demilitarized zone in South Vietnam. The 0:06:20.640 --> 0:06:24.920 day would have been hot and muggy. As always, he 0:06:24.960 --> 0:06:27.720 recorded a message to be sent to Dory and the kids. 0:06:28.320 --> 0:06:32.000 The couple had two boys and two girls, three of 0:06:32.040 --> 0:06:36.480 them under the age of five. At four am, Bud 0:06:36.480 --> 0:06:41.120 had breakfast and then he got ready to fly. But 0:06:41.360 --> 0:06:45.040 had been flying over North Vietnam for several months, one 0:06:45.160 --> 0:06:49.480 of the most dangerous and top secret missions of the 0:06:49.680 --> 0:06:54.280 entire war. He was commander of a team of supersonic 0:06:54.400 --> 0:07:00.560 jet pilots flying over territory dotted with anti aircraft art artillery. 0:07:01.560 --> 0:07:03.679 Here he is talking about it. 0:07:03.680 --> 0:07:08.039 It was Arali Harry mission because probably sixty percent of 0:07:08.120 --> 0:07:09.960 the time that you were in the north you were 0:07:09.960 --> 0:07:14.120 getting shot at, and so I lost forty two percent 0:07:14.160 --> 0:07:16.680 of my airplanes in the first six months we operated. 0:07:18.760 --> 0:07:22.320 He had been born to a poor, hard scrabble family 0:07:22.440 --> 0:07:25.520 in Iowa and grown up during the worst of the 0:07:25.560 --> 0:07:30.080 Great Depression. He served in World War Two, then Korea. 0:07:31.200 --> 0:07:34.240 One time he built out of an airplane and his 0:07:34.360 --> 0:07:40.480 parachute didn't open, but he survived. He finished seven years 0:07:40.560 --> 0:07:47.520 of schooling college plus a law degree in only four years. 0:07:48.160 --> 0:07:52.760 He was just tough and discipline and driven beyond belief. 0:07:53.600 --> 0:07:57.280 So to him, this morning in August was nothing special. 0:07:58.120 --> 0:08:02.600 He sized up his aircraft, not his favorite. The hardness 0:08:02.680 --> 0:08:05.960 in the back was lonky. He settled at the controls 0:08:05.960 --> 0:08:08.560 in the back of the plane, and a pilot named 0:08:08.640 --> 0:08:12.239 Kip was at the front. Bud was older than Kip, 0:08:12.640 --> 0:08:17.120 but then he was old for Vietnam. He had volunteered 0:08:17.160 --> 0:08:21.040 to go at the age of forty one, a farewell 0:08:21.160 --> 0:08:24.800 tour at the end of a long career, one more 0:08:24.880 --> 0:08:27.520 round before he hung up his flight suit for good. 0:08:29.760 --> 0:08:32.840 He'd initially been assigned to the three hundred and nine Squadron. 0:08:33.400 --> 0:08:39.160 Bud loved their motto return with Honor, but pretty quickly 0:08:39.559 --> 0:08:46.000 he'd been given this insanely treacherous, top secret mission. As commander, 0:08:46.400 --> 0:08:48.520 it was up to Bud to pick the code name. 0:08:49.240 --> 0:08:53.640 Other units were called things like gun Smoke or Typhoon 0:08:54.400 --> 0:08:58.199 or Tiger, not Buds. 0:08:58.000 --> 0:09:01.439 Or callsign was a Misty. That was a song of life, 0:09:01.520 --> 0:09:02.840 and so that was our call sign. 0:09:03.720 --> 0:09:05.800 And in case this doesn't ring a bell for you, 0:09:06.720 --> 0:09:11.600 Misty is a romantic ballad by the crooner Johnny Mathis. 0:09:13.160 --> 0:09:22.000 Look at me, I'm as helpless as as a hippy tree, 0:09:25.160 --> 0:09:29.480 as helpless as a kitten up a tree. It doesn't 0:09:29.559 --> 0:09:32.240 quite scream We're gonna shoot you out of the sky, 0:09:33.040 --> 0:09:37.280 does it. But it totally works. Maybe it's because Bud 0:09:37.440 --> 0:09:42.600 was an older guy a classic, or because he missed 0:09:42.640 --> 0:09:46.679 his wife, or maybe it just goes to prove when 0:09:46.720 --> 0:09:50.800 you're as famously tough as Bud Day, you can call 0:09:50.920 --> 0:09:57.400 your unit anything you want. Soon, Kipp and Bud were 0:09:57.480 --> 0:10:01.040 ripping through the sky over North Vietnam at almost five 0:10:01.280 --> 0:10:04.559 hundred miles per hour, but when they were about a 0:10:04.679 --> 0:10:08.840 mile away from their planned target, explosions ripped through the air. 0:10:09.600 --> 0:10:13.960 Bud couldn't remember when he'd seen so much anti aircraft artillery. 0:10:14.840 --> 0:10:18.480 It was like the sky was on fire. They made 0:10:18.520 --> 0:10:22.720 it through the barrage somehow without being hit. Bud told 0:10:22.800 --> 0:10:25.520 Kip to take another pass over the target, so they 0:10:25.640 --> 0:10:30.120 flew over it one more time. Their plane was hammered 0:10:30.160 --> 0:10:35.000 with explosions again and again. Still it looked like they 0:10:35.040 --> 0:10:39.560 were gonna make it out, and then Bud saw the missile. 0:10:40.800 --> 0:10:44.880 He knew what was coming. The aircraft took a direct hit. 0:10:45.640 --> 0:10:48.880 Every warning light on the instrument panel lit up, and 0:10:49.000 --> 0:10:56.760 Bud yelled eject eject. They parachuted down. They were deep 0:10:56.960 --> 0:11:02.160 in enemy territory, falling into the uncle. Bud blacked out 0:11:02.240 --> 0:11:04.839 during the fall, but he came to with a jolt 0:11:05.200 --> 0:11:06.160 of searing pain. 0:11:06.960 --> 0:11:11.320 My arm was fractured, damaged by name. The Marsham mask 0:11:11.600 --> 0:11:15.920 didn't separate right and hipp any eye and damaged my eyes. 0:11:16.000 --> 0:11:17.839 So I wound up on the ground. 0:11:18.800 --> 0:11:22.800 Bud broke his arm in three places, a bone was 0:11:22.880 --> 0:11:26.880 sticking through his skin. He had dislocated his knee, and 0:11:27.040 --> 0:11:29.160 he couldn't see out of his right eye. 0:11:30.080 --> 0:11:33.199 Just got my radio off and got a call off 0:11:33.240 --> 0:11:35.000 and told him I was on the ground alive, and 0:11:35.840 --> 0:11:38.839 young Zanda May just popped to the bush and captured me. 0:11:40.360 --> 0:11:45.040 His message had gotten through just in time. Help was 0:11:45.160 --> 0:11:48.720 on the way, but he was surrounded by teenage boys 0:11:48.840 --> 0:11:52.640 with rifles, and they pulled him further into the jungle, 0:11:53.600 --> 0:11:57.800 further away from where his parachute was left, further away 0:11:57.840 --> 0:12:00.439 from Kip, whom they hadn't spotted. 0:12:00.920 --> 0:12:02.959 A few minutes later, or was there moving. A long 0:12:03.160 --> 0:12:06.719 helicopter came in and tried to rescue us, and I 0:12:06.920 --> 0:12:07.319 was gone. 0:12:08.440 --> 0:12:11.319 The chopper got so close that he could see Kip 0:12:11.400 --> 0:12:15.400 in its doorway, but the boys had their rifles trained 0:12:15.559 --> 0:12:20.040 on Bud. He couldn't go anywhere. He watched as the 0:12:20.120 --> 0:12:25.679 helicopter dipped then lifted away. The teens were euphoric. They 0:12:25.840 --> 0:12:32.240 had their prize. Bud was heartsick. He had been paraded 0:12:32.400 --> 0:12:36.120 into a village that had been destroyed by American bombardments. 0:12:36.880 --> 0:12:39.800 From there into the makeshift militia camp that you met 0:12:39.880 --> 0:12:44.040 him in, he could see rice patties, and just beyond 0:12:44.640 --> 0:12:48.719 a dense expanse of jungle, he was pushed into a 0:12:48.840 --> 0:12:52.760 muddy bunker, just a hole in the ground, really barely 0:12:53.000 --> 0:12:57.959 larger than his wiry five foot nine inch frame. His 0:12:58.120 --> 0:13:02.079 captors tied him up with a row, and Bud started 0:13:02.160 --> 0:13:06.079 coming up with that escape plan almost immediately. 0:13:07.280 --> 0:13:10.599 So I decided because it was obvious my eye was 0:13:10.640 --> 0:13:15.199 all bloodshot, I was blind, and my knee was pretty big, 0:13:15.679 --> 0:13:18.280 and of course my arm was bustard, and. 0:13:19.760 --> 0:13:23.200 So they concluded I was not throughout. 0:13:24.320 --> 0:13:26.439 And when I tried to get me to move around 0:13:26.600 --> 0:13:29.240 or do anything, I faked that I couldn't move at all, 0:13:30.080 --> 0:13:31.200 and I began to. 0:13:31.200 --> 0:13:34.760 Buy the A doctor arrived and set his arm in 0:13:34.880 --> 0:13:38.400 a makeshift cast, but Bud could tell the bones weren't 0:13:38.400 --> 0:13:44.120 properly aligned. Things got progressively worse from there. The soldiers 0:13:44.280 --> 0:13:49.400 wanted him to talk, to give them intel. They beat 0:13:49.520 --> 0:13:54.640 him with rifle butts. They staged a mock execution, holding 0:13:54.800 --> 0:13:57.920 a gun to his head. They hung him from his 0:13:58.160 --> 0:14:05.200 ankles for hours. To them, he wasn't an enemy combatant 0:14:05.520 --> 0:14:07.520 protected by the rules of war. 0:14:08.360 --> 0:14:14.080 The Vietnamese never recognized as Geneva Convention, so their possession 0:14:14.360 --> 0:14:17.040 was that you were a criminal. They could do anything 0:14:17.120 --> 0:14:18.480 to you they wanted to do. 0:14:19.800 --> 0:14:22.720 Bud knew the torture would get worse when the real 0:14:22.960 --> 0:14:28.320 soldiers arrived, and they were coming soon. One of his 0:14:28.480 --> 0:14:31.800 jailers had drawn a jeep in the mud and said 0:14:31.800 --> 0:14:37.440 a word that Bud understood. Hanoi the capital city of 0:14:37.640 --> 0:14:42.680 North Vietnam. So he decided he had to run that night, 0:14:43.800 --> 0:14:46.920 loosening the rope on his leg, waiting for his teenage 0:14:46.960 --> 0:14:48.280 guards to look the other way. 0:14:48.960 --> 0:14:51.760 First time, both of them were facing a different direction. 0:14:52.320 --> 0:14:55.120 I slept out of this hole over the price patty. 0:14:55.960 --> 0:14:59.880 He was dressed in only his undershorts, He had no shoes, 0:15:00.520 --> 0:15:04.280 and he was weak from hunger. He ran towards the jungle, 0:15:04.560 --> 0:15:06.480 his bare feet sliding on the mud. 0:15:07.040 --> 0:15:10.440 My foot hit the bottom of thatsel, just like stopping 0:15:10.480 --> 0:15:14.120 out up banana piil. My feet went out from under men. 0:15:14.200 --> 0:15:18.160 I landed right on the bus door, and I'd almost 0:15:18.280 --> 0:15:21.120 bet my tongue off. The came from screaming when I 0:15:21.240 --> 0:15:24.200 hit the deck, so I couldn't wave it and hear it. 0:15:25.920 --> 0:15:28.520 Wait at a bout a minute a minute happened nothing, 0:15:29.920 --> 0:15:32.480 so I thought. I got up and headed south. 0:15:33.960 --> 0:15:37.160 He would have to travel roughly thirty miles to get 0:15:37.200 --> 0:15:41.480 to South Vietnam and safety. He was just beginning to 0:15:41.560 --> 0:15:44.920 pick his way through the jungle when a shrieking sound 0:15:45.160 --> 0:15:50.239 cut the air. American B fifty two's were soaring overhead, 0:15:51.240 --> 0:15:54.560 not to look for Bud, but to drop bombs on 0:15:54.680 --> 0:15:59.600 the enemy encampments. One landed one hundred yards from Bud. 0:16:00.440 --> 0:16:04.680 He was hit with shrapnel. Now his bare feet were 0:16:04.800 --> 0:16:09.920 lacerated and bleeding. The next day brought another bomb and 0:16:10.080 --> 0:16:14.120 his ear drums were ruptured. Still he pressed on. 0:16:15.280 --> 0:16:18.520 I survived basically on water because there was no food. 0:16:19.000 --> 0:16:21.200 The best I could do was capture a couple of 0:16:21.240 --> 0:16:21.880 these frogs. 0:16:21.920 --> 0:16:24.520 I ate him. That's not a good deal. 0:16:27.120 --> 0:16:29.600 After several days in the jungle, he made it to 0:16:29.680 --> 0:16:34.440 the river that separated North and South Vietnam. He crept 0:16:34.520 --> 0:16:38.600 down the bank and lowered himself into the water, fighting 0:16:38.680 --> 0:16:41.640 the current to make it to the other side. His 0:16:41.840 --> 0:16:48.040 fingers touched the far bank. Unbelievably, he had reached South Vietnam. 0:16:49.240 --> 0:16:52.920 By then, he was so starving that he was delusional. 0:16:53.720 --> 0:16:57.400 I lost track of time. I lost my ability to 0:16:57.680 --> 0:16:58.520 start things out. 0:17:00.040 --> 0:17:03.240 He saw two Marine Corps helicopters in the sky not 0:17:03.440 --> 0:17:07.960 too far away. There were replenishing supplies. It could only 0:17:08.080 --> 0:17:12.600 mean one thing. A base was nearby. He could get there, 0:17:13.040 --> 0:17:18.919 he knew it. He got closer and closer, hobbling and stumbling. 0:17:19.640 --> 0:17:20.400 I was so left done. 0:17:20.400 --> 0:17:25.600 About a mile of Marine Corps base at Contens popped 0:17:25.640 --> 0:17:26.280 out of the brush. 0:17:27.320 --> 0:17:31.520 At this point bud Day could barely walk. But he 0:17:31.640 --> 0:17:33.360 was also bud Day. 0:17:34.000 --> 0:17:36.240 I just said to myself, I'd come this far and 0:17:36.400 --> 0:17:39.160 sawnd her to these last years. So I took off front. 0:17:41.240 --> 0:17:45.240 He ran as best as he could, but the NVA 0:17:45.480 --> 0:17:48.639 fired at him. Bud took a bullet in the left 0:17:48.720 --> 0:17:54.199 eye and the left hand, and he collapsed. His escape 0:17:54.400 --> 0:17:59.040 was over. He was going back to North Vietnam. He 0:17:59.160 --> 0:18:02.840 had been close to freedom. He wouldn't be that close 0:18:02.920 --> 0:18:22.879 again for five and a half years. It was nineteen 0:18:23.000 --> 0:18:27.239 sixty nine, two years since Bud's capture. He had been 0:18:27.320 --> 0:18:31.720 moved from prison camp to prison camp, beaten and starved, 0:18:32.480 --> 0:18:39.520 his broken arm purposely rebroken, and time and time again interrogated, 0:18:40.560 --> 0:18:43.920 he refused to give any information other than what the 0:18:44.040 --> 0:18:49.520 Code of Conduct stipulated, his name, his rank, his date 0:18:49.600 --> 0:18:51.840 of birth, and his serial number. 0:18:52.600 --> 0:18:55.560 They really tortured me, hung by the arms and crippled 0:18:55.600 --> 0:18:58.320 me pretty badly. Both my hands were curled up. I 0:18:58.480 --> 0:19:01.240 can feed myself if I couldn't do anything. 0:19:02.920 --> 0:19:06.560 He told himself. He had to keep the faith he 0:19:06.680 --> 0:19:11.119 couldn't break. It was better to die than to say something, 0:19:11.560 --> 0:19:14.760 even the name of his unit Misty, that might harm 0:19:14.840 --> 0:19:19.440 the aviators that were still flying over Vietnam. He remembered 0:19:19.440 --> 0:19:24.720 the motto of his first squadron, return with honor. He 0:19:24.960 --> 0:19:29.639 was determined to do just that. Every night, he prayed 0:19:29.680 --> 0:19:32.480 for strength, and he prayed for Dorry and the kids. 0:19:33.480 --> 0:19:37.560 He hoped they knew he was still alive. Bud spent 0:19:37.720 --> 0:19:40.960 most of his time in a prison in Hanoi, nicknamed 0:19:41.240 --> 0:19:46.720 the Hanoi Hilton. It housed hundreds of POWs and it 0:19:46.840 --> 0:19:47.520 was miserable. 0:19:48.320 --> 0:19:51.080 It was just absolute twelth. You know, of lats all 0:19:51.119 --> 0:19:55.680 over the place and rat droppings and there, so everybody 0:19:55.800 --> 0:19:59.080 had dysentery. In Diarhta, we were all about seven other 0:19:59.240 --> 0:20:02.760 calories of day. So you're all eva shaded and big 0:20:03.240 --> 0:20:06.919 stomachs and big sunken eyes on your health was very 0:20:07.040 --> 0:20:07.679 precring us. 0:20:08.520 --> 0:20:11.439 The lovely conditions were just really at the bottom. 0:20:13.400 --> 0:20:17.560 The prison was a series of long, interconnected brick buildings. 0:20:18.359 --> 0:20:21.960 The windows were covered with batting, so light barely crept 0:20:22.000 --> 0:20:27.480 in the air was trapped in stale. The heat was unbearable. 0:20:28.600 --> 0:20:34.000 Bud spent months in solitary confinement as punishment for not talking, 0:20:35.040 --> 0:20:39.240 and those cells were as small as six by six feet. 0:20:40.760 --> 0:20:44.000 When he wasn't in solitary, he shared his cell with 0:20:44.119 --> 0:20:49.040 the young John McCain. Bud and another pilot had nurse 0:20:49.119 --> 0:20:51.760 McCain back to health when he first arrived in prison, 0:20:52.400 --> 0:20:56.320 broken and close to death. That was one of the 0:20:56.400 --> 0:21:01.680 ways prisoners resisted their terrible situation. They took care of 0:21:01.760 --> 0:21:07.240 each other. Another way was by being organized. The prison 0:21:07.280 --> 0:21:11.200 guards forbade organization of any kind, but the men in 0:21:11.280 --> 0:21:16.399 the Hanoi. Hilton were military pilots. Hierarchy gave them a 0:21:16.560 --> 0:21:20.840 sense of normalcy, and because of his rank, Bud was 0:21:20.880 --> 0:21:25.320 a commander within the prison. This meant he was dealt 0:21:25.640 --> 0:21:29.879 even harsher punishments. The first to feel the wrath of 0:21:29.960 --> 0:21:35.000 the guards. Second problem, to get organized, you have to 0:21:35.119 --> 0:21:39.000 be able to communicate. But the POWs weren't allowed to 0:21:39.080 --> 0:21:45.199 talk between cells, and to disobey meant torture. So they 0:21:45.280 --> 0:21:48.720 developed a tap code. It's kind of like a Morse code. 0:21:49.280 --> 0:21:52.359 Each letter of the alphabet except K was given a 0:21:52.520 --> 0:21:56.399 short set of two taps. They would spell out words 0:21:56.600 --> 0:22:01.600 letter by pains, taking letter. It was life's blood for 0:22:01.680 --> 0:22:02.600 the POWs. 0:22:03.600 --> 0:22:07.439 So despite where they might have you, unless I had 0:22:07.560 --> 0:22:10.040 you so wrapped up in irons that you absolutely could 0:22:10.119 --> 0:22:12.280 not move, while you could communicate, you could tap. 0:22:12.960 --> 0:22:14.600 That's sorry, always know what was going on. 0:22:17.119 --> 0:22:21.000 Every Sunday morning, Bud, as commander of his prison unit, 0:22:21.640 --> 0:22:25.960 used his knuckles to tap out C C, which stood 0:22:26.080 --> 0:22:30.840 for Church Call. That same tap would be sent down 0:22:30.960 --> 0:22:35.119 the whole line of cells in his section. Then the 0:22:35.240 --> 0:22:39.199 men stood in their cells, said the pledge of Allegiance, 0:22:39.720 --> 0:22:43.240 the Lord's Prayer, and prayed for the safety of their 0:22:43.320 --> 0:22:47.840 fellow POWs, Bud and his men had to keep the 0:22:47.920 --> 0:22:52.399 faith somehow. At the Hanoi Hilton, there was a total 0:22:52.600 --> 0:22:55.520 lack of contact with the outside world. They had no 0:22:55.640 --> 0:22:58.159 way of knowing what was happening in the war or 0:22:58.240 --> 0:23:00.000 how close they might be to freedom. 0:23:01.119 --> 0:23:03.000 I believed that the country was going to come and 0:23:03.080 --> 0:23:03.359 get me. 0:23:03.640 --> 0:23:08.240 I never ever came to the conclosure that my country 0:23:08.280 --> 0:23:10.720 had just got to dunk me, like some years to AMMO. 0:23:11.960 --> 0:23:14.719 The only news in prison came from a steady stream 0:23:14.840 --> 0:23:19.920 of propaganda piped in over a loudspeaker. The POWs called 0:23:19.960 --> 0:23:26.639 it CBS, short for you Ready for this camp bullshit system. 0:23:27.600 --> 0:23:30.280 There was no way for the prisoners to sort fact 0:23:30.359 --> 0:23:36.080 from fiction. CBS reported on devastating natural disasters in America 0:23:36.840 --> 0:23:40.639 and on implausible triumphs in the North Vietnamese Army. And 0:23:40.760 --> 0:23:44.440 it reported that back in the US, while Bud was 0:23:44.560 --> 0:23:49.040 keeping his mouth shut and being tortured for it, countless 0:23:49.160 --> 0:23:53.800 others were speaking out against the war but thought it 0:23:53.920 --> 0:23:57.960 was lies, just one more thing the prison guards made 0:23:58.040 --> 0:23:59.920 up in order to torment the pod. 0:24:00.960 --> 0:24:04.200 As we started hearing about the Hiptis and Leanna war demonstrations, 0:24:04.240 --> 0:24:06.760 all that stuff. I basically just gott a all of that. 0:24:07.000 --> 0:24:10.160 What else could the commedists tell you would hurt you more? 0:24:10.680 --> 0:24:13.320 Would be more moralizing than for you to thank the 0:24:13.440 --> 0:24:15.760 back on the home front, Nolan's supporting you. 0:24:18.240 --> 0:24:22.320 That, of course, was far from the truth. But because 0:24:22.440 --> 0:24:26.320 more and more Americans were starting to question the war, 0:24:27.160 --> 0:24:29.760 the government was trying to keep the plight of the 0:24:29.840 --> 0:24:34.879 POW's a secret. They worried it would add more fuel 0:24:35.000 --> 0:24:38.880 to the anti war fire, and so the military ordered 0:24:38.920 --> 0:24:43.800 the wives of POWs to observe a code of conduct 0:24:43.880 --> 0:24:50.879 similar to buds. Keep to yourself, don't speak to the press, 0:24:51.400 --> 0:24:54.600 don't ask too many questions about where your husband was 0:24:55.280 --> 0:24:58.840 or what was being done to rescue him. They called 0:24:58.840 --> 0:25:05.080 it the Quiet policy. So back in Arizona, Dorry was 0:25:05.160 --> 0:25:08.359 living in a kind of a nightmarish limbo. She knew 0:25:08.480 --> 0:25:11.840 Bud had been shot down. She knew he had survived 0:25:11.880 --> 0:25:18.040 his initial crash, but that's it. Because North Vietnam refused 0:25:18.119 --> 0:25:23.080 to officially acknowledge holding any POW's, it was impossible to 0:25:23.240 --> 0:25:26.920 know for certain if Bud was still alive or where 0:25:27.080 --> 0:25:31.760 he was. Dory and Bud had been together at that 0:25:31.920 --> 0:25:36.040 point for decades. They had met as teenagers in Iowa. 0:25:36.840 --> 0:25:38.840 She was the little sister of one of his friends. 0:25:39.920 --> 0:25:45.040 Her family was Norwegian, so Bud nicknamed her the Viking. 0:25:46.119 --> 0:25:48.399 The two had started writing letters back when he had 0:25:48.480 --> 0:25:52.159 gone off to World War II. Dorry told him she 0:25:52.359 --> 0:25:55.919 was waiting for him and praying for him to be safe. 0:25:57.200 --> 0:26:01.160 Now she couldn't write to Bud. She couldn't do anything 0:26:01.720 --> 0:26:07.880 but keep praying, just wait and hope exactly what Bud 0:26:08.040 --> 0:26:08.400 was doing. 0:26:09.359 --> 0:26:12.680 I didn't intend to die in a chrome place if 0:26:12.720 --> 0:26:13.480 I could avoid it. 0:26:14.440 --> 0:26:17.920 But the prison guards didn't make survival easy. In the 0:26:18.000 --> 0:26:22.959 summer of sixty nine, the torture got worse. They introduced 0:26:23.040 --> 0:26:28.280 something called the fan belt, a four foot long rubber 0:26:28.359 --> 0:26:30.200 strip cut from a tire. 0:26:31.000 --> 0:26:31.399 I had some. 0:26:31.520 --> 0:26:36.440 Absolutely brutal torture sessions, and two or three times, frankly, 0:26:36.600 --> 0:26:39.639 I would have preferred to die. I was in black 0:26:39.720 --> 0:26:43.320 irons and never made me with a fan belt. I 0:26:43.359 --> 0:26:46.960 can remember counting until three hundred struck, and I just said, 0:26:48.280 --> 0:26:49.920 why am I wasting my time counting? 0:26:49.960 --> 0:26:51.840 Here? They're gonna kill me, you know, and I hope 0:26:51.840 --> 0:26:52.040 they do. 0:26:53.760 --> 0:26:58.480 Here's what Bud Day didn't just tell you that intensive 0:26:58.600 --> 0:27:05.320 beating lasted more than six days. By the end, he 0:27:05.800 --> 0:27:09.840 was close to death. Bud believed that if he managed 0:27:09.880 --> 0:27:15.639 to live, his physical suffering would stop eventually, but his 0:27:15.920 --> 0:27:20.119 mental anguish would never end if he gave up even 0:27:20.280 --> 0:27:23.720 a scrap of important information to his tormentors. 0:27:25.119 --> 0:27:26.280 That was Bud. 0:27:27.960 --> 0:27:32.000 Back in the States, Dorry had reached a totally different conclusion. 0:27:33.359 --> 0:27:57.240 The Viking decided she had to start talking. Dory was 0:27:57.320 --> 0:28:01.159 through with keeping quiet. She wanted to feel like she 0:28:01.359 --> 0:28:06.160 was maybe making a difference. She began to fight by 0:28:06.320 --> 0:28:12.080 speaking out. Her friend Mike Newhouse remembers how hard the 0:28:12.200 --> 0:28:13.800 Viking fought for her husband. 0:28:14.840 --> 0:28:20.040 I thought Modday was the bravest, toughest, most determined sob 0:28:20.240 --> 0:28:22.320 I'd ever met until I met Doris. 0:28:23.480 --> 0:28:27.280 We've been calling her Dory, but her name was Doris, 0:28:28.119 --> 0:28:32.520 as in Doris Day, not that Doris Day, the famous actress, 0:28:32.920 --> 0:28:35.399 which is why the Viking went by Dorry. 0:28:36.600 --> 0:28:40.320 She was an absolute tiger, you know. The State Department, 0:28:41.000 --> 0:28:46.240 after her continued and persistent please, pretty much told her 0:28:46.320 --> 0:28:51.360 to go home, do your knitting and kind of stay 0:28:51.400 --> 0:28:55.600 out of our hair. And she wasn't about to accept that. 0:28:57.560 --> 0:29:01.440 She banded together with other POWs and missing in Action 0:29:01.640 --> 0:29:07.320 wives to form the National League of Families. The public 0:29:07.400 --> 0:29:11.400 believed that any prisoners of war were being treated according 0:29:11.480 --> 0:29:15.120 to the Geneva Convention, but the wives had learned the 0:29:15.280 --> 0:29:18.840