What is Torture?

[Chris]

With all the debate about what constitutes torture, this might give you some perspective. It's easy for people who have never served to pontificate about what defines torture. Here's someone that knows what they're talking about.

This is a letter written by Medal of Honor recipient Bud Day. There are some links below that will give you some insight into his amazing service to his country.

May 26, 2009

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..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 got recaptured a coup le of weeks later. I got shot and recaptured. Shot was OK…what happened after was not.



They marched me to Vinh. put me in the rope trick, 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…re-broke 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-nite 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 12rh..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 womens pants over an Arabs head is TORTURE. He is a meathead.



I just talked to MOH holder Leo Thorsness who was also in my sq 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 to Sean Hannity. He is 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.



BUD DAY, MOH

[Chris]

A full interview with Col. Day, with some fairly graphic descriptions at the hands of his North Vietnamese captors.

http://cameron.blogs.foxnews.com/200...-hero-bud-day/

And some background...

Day was born in Sioux City, Iowa, on February 24 , 1925. In 1942 he quit high school and enlisted in the United States Marine Corps. He served 30 months in the North Pacific during World War II as a member of a 5 in (130 mm) gun battery with the 3rd Defense Battalion on Johnston Island.



After the war, Day attended Morningside College on the G.I. Bill, earning a Bachelor of Science Degree, followed by law school at the University of South Dakota, receiving a Juris Doctor. Day passed the bar exam in 1949 and was admitted to the bar in South Dakota. In later life, Day was also awarded a Master of Arts degree from St. Louis University, a Doctor of Humane Letters from Morningside, and a Doctor of Laws from Troy State University. Day was admitted to the Florida Bar in 1977.



A member of the Army Reserve, in 1950 he received a direct commission as a Second Lieutenant in the Iowa Air National Guard, and was called to active duty in 1951 for Undergraduate Pilot Training. He served two tours as a fighter-bomber pilot during the Korean War flying the Republic F-84 Thunderjet. Promoted to captain, he=2 0decided to make the Air Force a career and was augmented into the Regular Air Force.



Anticipating retirement in 1968 and now a major, Day volunteered for a tour in Vietnam and was assigned to the 31st Tactical Fighter Wing at Tuy Hoa Air Base in April 1967. At that time he had more than 5,000 flying hours, with 4,500 of them in fighters. On June 25, 1967, with extensive previous service flying two tours in F-100 Super Sabres, Day was made detachment commander of Detachment 1, 612th Tactical Fighter Squadron, 37th Tactical Fighter Wing based at Phu Cat Air Base. Under the project name “Commando Sabre”, twin-seat USAF F-100Fs were evaluated as a Fast Forward Air Control (”Fast FAC”) aircraft in high threat areas, given that F-4 Phantom II aircraft were in high demand for strike and Combat Air Patrol (CAP) roles. Although the crews were assigned to the 612th, most of the aircraft seemed to have belonged to the 416th Tactical Fighter Squadron. Using the call sign Misty, the name of Day’s favorite song, his detachment of two-seat F-100Fs and 16 pilots became pioneer “Fast FACs”: Forward Air Controllers over Laos and North Vietnam. All Misty FAC crews were volunteers with at least 100 combat missions in Vietnam and 1,000 minimum flight hours.< /span>



On August 26, 1967, then-Major Day was flying a twin-seat F-100F-15-NA, AF Serial No. 56-3954, call sign “Misty 3″, on a forward air control (FAC) mission just north of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). Flying with Day in the aircraft was Captain Corwin “Kip” Kippenham, as they directed a flight of F-105 Thunderchiefs in an air strike against a surface-to-air missile (SAM) site north of Thon Cam Son and west of Dong Hoi, 20 mi (32 km) north of the DMZ in North Vietnam. Day was on his 65th mission and acting as check pilot for Captain Kippenhan, who was flying as aircraft commander for the first time. 37 mm antiaircraft fire crippled the aircraft, forcing the crew to eject. In the ejection, Day’s right arm was broken in three places when he struck the side of the cockpit, and he also experienced eye and back injuries.



Kippenhan was rescued by a USAF HH-3E, but Day was unable to contact the rescue helicopter by survival radio and was quickly captured by North Vietnamese local militia. On his fifth night, when he was still=2 0within 20 mi (32 km) of the DMZ, Day escaped from his initial captors despite his serious injuries. Although stripped of both his boots and flight suit, Day crossed the Demilitarized Zone back into South Vietnam, becoming the only U.S. prisoner of war to escape from North Vietnam. Within 2 mi (3 km) of the U.S. Marine firebase at Con Thien and after 12–15 days of evading, he was captured again, this time by a Viet Cong patrol that wounded him in the leg and hand with gunfire.



Taken back to his original camp, Day was tortured for escaping, breaking his right arm again. He then was moved to several prison camps near Hanoi, where he was periodically beaten, starved, and tortured. In December 1967, Day shared a cell with Navy Lieutenant Commander and future Senator and Presidential Candidate John S. McCain III who was even more seriously injured and emaciated. Air Force Major Norris Overly nursed both back to health, and McCain later devised a makeshift splint of bamboo and rags that helped heal Day’s seriously atrophied arm.



On March 14, 19 73, Day was released after five years and seven months as a North Vietnamese prisoner. Within three days Day was reunited with his wife, Doris Sorensen Day, and four children at March Air Force Base, California. On March 4, 1976, President Gerald Ford awarded Day the Medal of Honor for his personal bravery while a captive in North Vietnam.



Day had been promoted to Colonel while a prisoner, and decided to remain in the Air Force in hopes of being promoted to Brigadier General. Although initially too weak to resume operational flying, he spent a year in physical rehabilitation and with 13 separate medical waivers, was returned to active flying status. He underwent conversion training to the F-4 Phantom II and was appointed vice commander of the 33rd Tactical Fighter Wing at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida.



Day retired from active duty in 1977 to resume his practice of law in Florida. At his retirement he had nearly 8,000 total flying hours, 4,900 in single engine jets, and had flown the F-80 Shooting Star, F-84 Thunderjet, F-100 Super Sabre, F-101 Voodoo, F-104=2 0Starfighter, F-105 Thunderchief, F-106 Delta Dart, F-4 Phantom II, A-4 Skyhawk, A-7 Corsair II, CF-5 Tiger, F-15 Eagle, F-16 Fighting Falcon, and CF-18 Hornet jet fighters.



Following his retirement, Day wrote an autobiographical account of his experiences as a prisoner of war, Return with Honor, followed by Duty, Honor, Country, which updated his autobiography to include his post-Air Force years. Among other endeavors, Day filed a class action lawsuit against the United States government in 1996 on behalf of military retirees who were stripped of their military medical care benefits at age 65 and told to apply for Medicare. Although winning the case in the district court in 2001, the judgment against the U.S. was overturned by the U.S. Court of Appeals in 2002. The U.S. Congress later redressed this situation by establishing the “TRICARE For Life” (TFL) program, which restored TRICARE military medical benefits for career military retirees over the age of 65, making the retirees eligible for both programs with Medicare as the primary payer and TRICARE as the secondary payer.

[Perlmudder]

wow... leaves you pretty much speechless

[Ratickle]

The sad part is, even guys like this can't get on mainstream media outlets to tell the truth about what our current government is purposefully doing to downtrod the US as a leader instead of a part of a global socialist consortium.

[Bobcat]

look up medal of honor winner Rocky Versace, that will p i ss you off.

[X-Rated30]

Their torture was certainly worse than anything I have heard the Bush administration condoned, but I also notice that conspicuously absent from the stories is the part where torture served any useful purpose. None of the accounts talks about how much valuable info they gave up as a result of their treatment. Just something I noticed...

[fund razor]

Their torture was certainly worse than anything I have heard the Bush administration condoned, but I also notice that conspicuously absent from the stories is the part where torture served any useful purpose. None of the accounts talks about how much valuable info they gave up as a result of their treatment. Just something I noticed...

That is an interesting point.

[Dude! Sweet!]

I keep wanting make jokes about the definition of torture, but everytime I look at this thread I'm reminded of the unfathomable heroism and sacrifices made be our Medal of Honor winners...

Hard to crack jokes.

Didn't one of these guys get hassled in an airport a few years back because the losers at TSA thought his medal of honor was a chinese star?

Modern society is loaded with F'ing idiots...