Breckner, former fighter pilot, dies in car crash (William Breckner)

A former fighter pilot and prisoner of war in Vietnam who retired from the Air Force as a major general has died in a crash on Colorado 105.

State troopers say William “Bud” Breckner, 74, of Monument, was driving home when he lost control on a curve and slid into some trees early Saturday.

In the late 1970s, he was assigned to the Air Force Academy, where he served as deputy commandant and later as vice commandant of cadets.

Breckner loved the Colorado Springs area, and he loved the United States, his son, Rand Breckner, 41, said Sunday.

Read more

Other Publications You Might Be Interested In

Red Warriors – STANLEY ARTHUR NEWELL

In the spring of 1973, 591 American Prisoners of War were released from prisons and camps in Vietnam. Among them were six of a group of nine U.S. Army 4th Infantry Division personnel captured in and near Pleiku Province, South Vietnam during the year of 1967 whose lives had been

Read More »

Wellfleet general was Vietnam POW (Kenneth North)

In the last few months of his life, as Alzheimer’s gradually crept over his orderly mind, retired Air Force Gen. Kenneth Walter North began to recall vividly his years spent as a prisoner of war, a time that exemplified his devotion and service to his country. It started gradually. A

Read More »

Airmanship (Richard Brunhaver)

In 1967, there was a “unit” of approximately 300 Americans fighting the Vietnam Warfrom within a Hanoi prison. The unit—later named the 4th Allied POW Wing—waslocated in the drab North Vietnamese capital. Within this unit, every man had thesame job: prisoner of war.All—except three enlisted airmen—were officers, including me. Our

Read More »

“I came here to get a friend’ (Thomas Davis)

Nearly 25 years ago, when the war was raging in Vietnam, a 20-year-old private from Alabama said a prayer and buried his Marine buddy in a Viet Cong prisoner of war camp where both were held. Thomas Davis survived five years in POW camps and has returned to Vietnam for

Read More »