OKALOOSA ISLAND — The Bud & Dorie Day Patriots’ Trail came a little closer to fruition Tuesday with a fundraiser luncheon at the Ramada Plaza Beach Resort.
One of Day’s biographers and a fellow fighter pilot from the Vietnam War spoke about his life and service at the event, which drew about 200 people.
See photos from the gathering. >>
The Greater Fort Walton Beach Chamber of Commerce is trying to raise $100,000 to build the half-mile walking trail in the name of the war hero and his wife. It will run between Staff Drive near Uptown Station and Ferry Park.
Day, one of the country’s most-decorated veterans, died July 27 at the age of 88.
“It’s great to see what this community does for him,” said Robert Coram, author of “American Hero, the Life and Wars of Col. Bud Day,” who spoke the fundraiser.
Coram, who is from Atlanta, spent three years with the Days as he researched the biography and fell in love with the couple.
“I could not turn down the honor of being here to talk about Bud Day,” he said. “He’s a great American.”
Retired Air Force Lt. Col. Jack Doub of Valdosta, Ga., was part of the Misty crew wtih Day that flew F-100s in Vietnam.
Day was shot down in his F-100 and spent nearly six years as a prisoner of war.
Doub shared stories of Day’s frugality — he grew up on the wrong side of the tracks in Sioux City, Iowa, during the Great Depression — and his dedication to doing what was right. After his retirement from the Air Force he championed health benefits for veterans.
Day was a fighter until the very end, Doub said.
Earlier this year the Misty pilots held a reunion in Las Vegas. Day was quite ill, was confined to wheelchair was unable to feed himself and wasn’t able to attend.
However, on the last day someone told the 20 or 25 veterans who attended to meet in the hotel lobby. Day had arrived at the airport.
They thought it was a rumor but sure enough, Day arrived. He entered in his wheelchair as his daughter carried a sack containing the food he was being fed through a tube.
He was his usual: “Hey pal. How are you doing?” Doub recalled.
He and Coram also spoke of Bud and Dorie’s relationship: “One of the greatest love stories of our time,” Coram said of the couple, who were married for 64 years.
WANT TO HELP? Tax-deductable donations for the Patriots’ Trail can be made to the Foundation of the Greater Fort Walton Beach Chamber of Commerce.
The goal is to break ground by Feb. 24, which would have been Day’s 89th birthday.
Contact Daily News Staff Writer Lauren Sage Reinlie at 850-315-4443 or lreinlie@nwfdailynews.com. Follow her on Twitter @LaurenRnwfdn.
