Things You Don’t Know About Bud Day
An amazing article about one of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.
Dean’s World was added to the Library Of Congress’ archives in 2004 as being “culturally significant” for the 2004 election, in part because of three exclusive and in-depth interviews we published of three of those men. I wish Bud Day had been one of them. You can read the interviews with the three men I did talk to here, here, and here. As a blogger, it’s some of the work I’m proudest of, and I’m often rather perturbed by those who continually insist that these guys were nothing but a Rove/Bush/RNC group of political hacks.
I guess those of us who grew up in families with multiple members of the military, who respect and understand the honor code that unites those who’ve served regardless of their politics, understood intuitively what was not obvious to most others: these guys were for real, and were very seriously angry for reasons that had little to do with politics.
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5 comments
It’s probably going too far to say that it had little to do with politics. It, or at least insofar as these guys were concerned, had little to do with modern politics of Republican vs. Democrat of the day. But it had everything to do with the politics of the Vietnam war, and to very bitter sides to a very culturally bitter war over the war.
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It had far less to do with that than you think, at least according to the guys I spoke to. They weren’t outraged by people who were against the war.
Read my interviews.
You know, I just re-read those interviews and after almost four years I’m still really proud of them. It’s some of my best work.
If you want a rare perspective on this slice of American political history, I recommend them. I’m not ashamed to be proud of them.
Those guys were not angry with Kerry for being against the war. At least, I never saw much of any evidence of that, and I basically take their word for it. Steve Gardner and George Elliot were especially emphatic on that point.
I never did get around to interviewing the Admiral, although I still have his phone# somewhere and keep thinking about doing it. But no one seems interested, and interviews like that are a hell of a lot of work.
Thanks for posting those interviews again. They’re excellent.
My husband had the honor of meeting Col. Day and got to spend a couple of days with him a few months ago. My husband really enjoyed meeting Bud Day, and I wanted to know more, so I read two books about him, which led me to read two books about McCain.
As Greyhawk points out at your link, there’ve been some lame msm and internet attacks on Day recently because he was with the Swift Vets and POWs, and he’s campaigning for McCain.
I think those people really don’t understand who they’re messing with, or they wouldn’t be so stupid as to try.
[…] me for misremembering Day’s role. I remembered him being in that ad, and his general anger at Kerry (just like every other Vietnam […]
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