Badly injured after his North American F-100F is shot down over North Vietnam, Maj. George E. “Bud” Day is captured and severely tortured. He manages to escape and eventually makes it to the Demilitarized Zone. After several attempts to signal US aircraft, he is ambushed, recaptured, and is later moved to prison in Hanoi where he continues to offer maximum resistance to his captors. Finally released in 1973, Day is awarded the Medal of Honor for his conspicuous gallantry while a POW.
The Air Force is on track to reach its annual goal of graduating 1,500 new pilots that had proved elusive to this point, one year after the service launched a sweeping overhaul of its undergraduate pilot training program, Air Education and Training Command said Sept. 14.
